Businesses in almost every field face increasingly sophisticated competition when it comes to marketing and lead conversion.
Especially for SMEs, digital is an all the more important part, as it's a powerful growth lever that costs less than traditional marketing.
However, finding the skills you need to stay competitive without spending a fortune is a pressing issue.
To address this issue, outsourcing is becoming an increasingly common strategy, offering greater agility, flexibility and less risk on a number of levels.
In this article, we will detail what it means in concrete terms to call on an outsourced marketing director or a small part of the marketing team.
What is the role of a marketing manager?
As the main person in charge of the marketing department, the director's role is above all that of a supervisor.
With the help of his team, a digital marketing director must implement the company's strategic orientations, draw up a marketing plan and manage the brand image.
The specific missions of a marketing manager
Know your target
To fully understand the target market, it is necessary to conduct research into consumer behavior. This often involves detailed observations such as surveys and statistical analyses.
Drawing up a marketing plan
Once the target has been defined, the marketing plan can be drawn up along four main lines:
- The product
- The price
- Place (or distribution)
- Promotion (or communication)
In marketing jargon, these axes are also known as the "4Ps" or "marketing mix". They refer to operational tasks in line with the strategies set well in advance.
Team coordination
An outsourced marketing manager organizes regular meetings to monitor the progress of all projects in parallel.
Generally, department heads present him with the actions taken to date and the results, often illustrated by figures.
Create, deploy and manage a digital strategy
For example, proper SEO, e-mailing, CRM and website optimization enable companies to generate new customers in a way that is efficient both in terms of workflow and finances.
Work closely with sales management
Even though marketing involves research and strategic direction, the ultimate goal is always to sell a good or service.
This means that a marketing manager must work directly with sales teams to understand the real impact of marketing efforts, so as to refine the marketing approach over time.
Outsourced digital marketing: what are the advantages for SMEs?
Outsourced marketing professionals master these specific missions in a variety of contexts, offering companies several advantages:
Avoid the risk of recruiting unsuitable profiles
Recruitment is one of the most delicate tasks in any company.
Especially when it comes to a management position, the wrong choice can be very costly to the company, not only because of an unjustifiably high salary, but also because of a sub-optimal brand image that impacts sales and stunts growth.
Time-saving
By outsourcing marketing to an external team, a company can concentrate on its core business, leaving marketing experts to manage campaigns and strategies.
This means more time and resources can be devoted to optimizing customer service, products or services, and sales strategy.
Structure your digital marketing more flexibly
Outsourcing is often used by SMEs to structure their digital marketing before bringing skills in-house.
This enables them to adopt a functional marketing strategy effectivelyfrom the outset, without going through a long learning curve.
Transform fixed costs into variable costs
Actual marketing needs evolve and can depend on a number of factors, such as seasonality, competitors' strategies and the impact of the economy on the market in question.
An external agency can adjust its services according to needs at any time, without the constraints of an in-house structure.
Access to specialized skills
External marketing professionals often have experts in various fields (SEO, content marketing, social networks, etc.), offering specialized know-how that is difficult to find in-house.
New and innovative perspectives
Working with an external team brings a fresh perspective to marketing strategies, enabling innovative approaches to be implemented to better reach the target audience.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution in marketing, as each target naturally resonates with a specific language and strategy, which are constantly evolving.
The experience that outsourced marketing managers or outsourced marketing teams have built up through a number of projects enables them to anticipate what will and won't work for different targets, and to show you concrete examples before embarking on the execution of a well thought-out marketing strategy.
What's more, outsourced marketing agencies are constantly on the lookout for new trends and technologies, so that companies can benefit from the latest innovations and stay one step ahead of their competitors.
How to structure your digital marketing?
At Digital 64, we have created an offering at the crossroads of the three ways of managing digital marketing to combine the benefits of each of these means:
1. Use freelancers
Freelancers, or independent workers, are professionals who offer their services to customers without being bound by a long-term employment contract with a specific company.
They work autonomously, often for several customers simultaneously, and manage their own schedules, pricing and projects.
Using specialized freelancers (marketing director, copywriter, videographer, etc.) for every need without going through an external agency offers a few advantages:
- Flexible costs
- Specialized expertise
- Quick start
However, working exclusively with freelancers can bring challenges in terms of coordination, consistency and project management, as freelancers work independently and may have limited availability.
Relying on freelancers means juggling several providers to cover all aspects of the project, increasing the complexity of a strategy that is supposed to simplify marketing processes.
2. Use an agency
Unlike freelancers, who work in isolation, an agency provides a complete team of specialized professionals who collaborate to ensure project consistency and quality, offering scalability.
This allows for better coordination and smoother management, especially for complex projects requiring multiple skills.
Agencies provide a range of integrated services, from strategic consulting to technical execution, simplifying the process by centralizing all services under one roof.
Key benefits of going through an outsourced marketing agency:
- Multi-skills
- Responsiveness and support
- Long-term support
3. Internal recruitment
Recruiting internally is more expensive and time-consuming, but it brings three major benefits:
- Combine strategic and operational expertise: in-house people have a global view of the company, enabling them to make progress on both strategy and operations.
- Facilitate the implementation of appropriate marketing tools: it's also easier to identify the tools that will best help the company and its employees.
- Skills transfer: recruiting internally also means having a greater guarantee of know-how that lasts and is passed on.
By combining the advantages of these 3 ways of managing digital marketing, we have succeeded in building a flexible transitional offer to structure your digital marketing before a possible internalization of skills.
Digital 64 - an alternative to marketing recruitment
Located in Biarritz and Saint-Jean-de-Luz, Digital 64 is a web and marketing agency that specifically supports startups and SMEs in their digital development, offering a real alternative to recruitment in the company's growth and acceleration phase.
We are particularly suited to companies that meet the following criteria:
- Need advice and support on several digital levers
- Wish to save time and efficiency by not having to manage several freelancers at the same time
- Wish to structure, test and optimize before recruiting internally
- From 3 to 80 employees
- Need to accelerate to meet their objectives before or after raising funds
- B2B sector with longer buying cycles and higher average shopping baskets
- With or without a Marketing Manager
What are our concrete marketing strategies?
Led by a marketing manager and implemented by a team of experts, we define action plans based on the 4 main pillars of digital marketing strategy:
- Growth: Data, analytics, automation, productivity, experimentation
- Conversion: A/B testing, nurturing, buying cycle, UX
- Traffic: SEO, Google Ads, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, E-mailing
- Brand: Branding, positioning, partnerships, authority, content
If our approaches resonate with your objectives, we'd be delighted to help you grow!