When integrated marketers and their teams are in over their heads with a challenging workload, bringing in help from the outside makes sense. Rather than seeing them as an indulgent expense, their contributions often help save money and build the business.
Whether it's tight deadlines, doing repetitive work in a limited brand palette, or having a big project with 37 rounds of revisions...admit it: you and your employees are fantasizing about running away to a tropical island. When the going gets tough, the smart integrated marketers call for help.
Even if hiring an outside agency feels indulgent, it shouldn't. It's cheaper than the alternatives (e.g., hiring a full-time employee, missing deadlines then losing business, having to withdraw from a pitch because you don't have the right staff). Here's why using outside help makes good financial sense:
Keep your employees happy :Burnout is real and, unsurprisingly, the ramped-up timelines of digital marketing areeven more stressful. Having a set of extra hands can help your team take a much-needed breather, which can...
Avoid costly mistakes . Mistakes happen to the best of us, especially when we're jugging too many projects and rushing through QA.Design mistakes can cost time, money, and credibility, which is reason enough to get help.
Keep your existing clients happy: If you're an in-house group and you bring in outside help for a special project, your client is going to see your commitment and feel much more valued.
Protect yourself from going over budget: If your team is stretched so tightly that more senior designers are having to do grunt work, it makes financial sense to send out projects - so your higher priced talent doesn't burn hours that eats into your profits.
Enhance the quality of your work : You and your team have probably been working with a branded image library, fonts, andcolors for a long time and gotten accustomed to doing things a certain way. Let an outside marketing pro inject some fresh thinking into your work.
Be more competitive: You get a new project or opportunity that requires a specific skill your team doesn't have: for example, if a client wants to produce a commercial and your copywriters only haveweb and direct mail experience; or you're asked to build a website with Drupal or anothercontent management system you've never used before.Outsourcing social media andcontent marketing is becoming increasingly more popular with integrated marketers for that exact reason.
Finding marketing support doesn't have to be difficult, either. Call your vendors and ask for referrals. A well-executed marketing project is almost the next-best-thing to taking a vacation!
Last modified: September 7, 2018
