Trying to generate leads and overcome budget restraints without outsourcing marketing is like putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. You’re going to bleed out.
It’s the same with B2B digital marketing. Many brands have the right idea, but haemorrhage by trying to save money in the wrong places.
The truth is that we’re in a fiercely competitive business landscape, and B2B brands need to start working smart if they want an edge. One in-house person is not enough, a team of in-house experts is too expensive.
Outsourcing marketing to an agency with the experience, specialised skills and latest tech—now you have a fighting chance. Here is a look at what business-to-business brands gain by outsourcing marketing to a full-fledged digital marketing agency.
Overcoming Typical Marketing Challenges And Frustrations
South African B2B businesses face several marketing frustrations, some common around the world and some unique to their context. The top two of which are budget constraints and lead generation. Let’s take a closer look.
Budget Constraints
Securing enough budget for marketing is a challenge for any business, but it’s even tougher in a struggling economy. Tight budgets make it hard to get campaigns off the ground, never mind achieve the results that shareholders want.
Ultimately, all ad platforms are businesses too. So, naturally, they will encourage more ad-spend for more results. You need a deep understanding of online advertising to employ the correct tactics. Once again, shoestring budgets don’t allow for much investment or trial and error.
Lead Generation
Generating high-quality leads is a top priority globally. South Africa has a fiercely competitive business landscape. The cost-effectiveness of online marketing lowered the barrier to entry for advertising, but at the same time saturated the market.
Brand awareness—especially among B2B brands—remains the largest hurdle before companies can even think about making sales. You have to get noticed, be memorable, and then you can sell effectively.
The correct expectations and goals make all the difference to online lead generation.
Other common marketing challenges that SMBs face are lack of expertise, resource constraints, difficulty attracting talent, trouble staying current on trends and technology, lack of infrastructure and a lack of objectivity.
In-House vs Outsourcing Marketing
A Fair Fight: Comparing Apples With Apples
For a fair comparison, one thing must be clear. There is no jack-of-all-trades one-person marketing team.
The main goals of business digital marketing are to:
- Increase brand awareness
- Boost customer engagement
- Drive website traffic
- Generate quality leads, and ultimately
- Drive sales and revenue growth
To achieve these goals, you need to build a strong online presence, foster customer relationship and influence purchasing decisions through tactics such as:
- Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
- Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising
- Content marketing
- Social media marketing, and email marketing
While one person may oversee and drive all these functions, they cannot do them all.
To fairly compare in-house marketing to outsourced services, we have to assume that there is an in-house team. Similarly, we are not talking about outsourcing marketing to several freelance individuals, but rather an agency with all the right skills under one roof.
Challenges Of In-House Digital Marketing
Hiring And Training
It is time-consuming and costly to build a team, not to mention, risky too. It involves hunting down talent with the correct skills in areas like strategy, SEO, PPC, content creation and data analysis—each a specialisation and distinct role. Hiring a wrong fit is a disaster. Then you need to onboard and train up. Retaining talent is important too, you don’t want your IP walking out the door.
Expertise
It’s one thing to find resources with basic skills in various marketing disciplines, but proficiency is key. Unless you’re willing to invest in juniors learning on your dime, you want someone with know-how. Those individuals cost money.
This is where the real trouble starts. Experts are great because they do the work fast. Businesses make the mistake of wanting to justify their cost-to-company by filling up their time with another job outside of their wheelhouse. Two birds; one stone, right? Imagine a civil engineer laying bricks as part of their job.
Resource Constraints
Now the tension builds.
It doesn’t work out well when you try to have a social media manager/copywriter/graphic designer/business analyst—and you can’t spend all your money on experts.
Once you’ve finally made it over the hiring hurdles, you need the time and the tools to execute. And we haven’t even spent a cent on boosted posts or sponsored content yet.
Keeping Current
Marketing is already seen as a cost centre, so the team is driven to do, do, do. Each member is so busy doing, there’s no time to keep up with current trends and industry changes.
In SEO, for example, algorithms and best practices change continually. New social media platforms rise up daily. In-house teams are often too stretched to try to keep up, and the department risks falling behind.
Near-Sightedness
When you’re one of the cogs, it’s very difficult to see the whole machine. In-house marketing teams, intimately aware of internal demands can lose sight of the big picture. They often fall victim to reactive behaviour based on what department is screaming the loudest, with knee-jerk, short-term solutions that waste resources.
Advantages of Outsourcing To A Digital Marketing Agency
A Single Line Item That’s Easy On Accounting
Forget UIF, PAYE, medical and special benefits. When you work with an agency, you’ll have a straight-forward monthly bill that is easily allocated.
You’ll also have a contract with clear-cut deliverables, so there are no performance improvement programmes to worry about.
Don’t worry about being locked-in either. Famous Digital Media, for example, only require one month’s notice.
Their Top Talent Is The Drawcard
Agencies are on a mission to acquire and keep the country’s top-talent. It’s part of their business model to home highly skilled individuals so that they always deliver the best.
Extra Bandwidth
Don’t think for a second there’s only one awesomely talented induvial per department. A digital marketing agency will have multiple designers and copywriters and assign the best-fit to your account.
Their vast experience means someone else can easily step in if there’s ever a need. And should you need to scale quickly, everyone can jump in.
Cost-Effective
Even with an entire specialised team at your service, you’ll still likely pay less than that of one expert’s full-time salary!
The Latest Tech and Intel
Any agency worth their salt will work on the latest technology to automate and grow their capacity. They also make it their mission to be ahead of the curve so they can keep your brand ahead, too.
If there’s technology or a new channel that will do that—we’re on it.
Objective Perspective
An external marketing agency will have a fresh perspective with objective insights into the business, its target audience, and the competitive landscape. Their strategic prowess and focus on what is best for the brand long-term leads to effective, innovative marketing strategies.
It’s All About Results!
At the end of the day, the results will speak for themselves.
This is why a digital marketing agency has to remain at the top of its game. The talent, the tools, insider-insights—it’s all there to ensure the best results for clients.
The way we see it at Famous Digital Media, is that our competitive edge is your competitive edge.
With our specialist team of copywriters, graphic designers, web developers, and paid advertising experts, we will help your brand thrive online.
Place your brand in front.
Leveraging the expertise of Famous Digital Media ensures a cutting-edge approach, cost-efficiency, and the ability to scale efforts seamlessly.