Manage your Marketing

What is the best way to manage your Marketing?

So, you have decided to do something about your Marketing. Your first step is to start looking at who may be able to help you. There are 4 standard ways of doing this:

  1. Do it yourself
  2. Hiring an internal person (Marketing Manager or Coordinator)
  3. Hire a Marketing agency
  4. Hire separate contractors for different segments such as SEO expert, or AdWords expert, graphic designer, Website designer and manage them all yourself.

Now you must go through the options and see what is best for your business.

1. Do it yourself

Positives

As previously mentioned in the article “How do you get good marketing on a very small budget?” most small business really knows their business and their market. Because of its personal nature, they live and breathe the product and business. It is what they know and in many ways, a representation of who they are. So, on the surface, this seems to be the best option.

Negatives

Time. Do you have time to manage it all yourself? Ask yourself where are you most valuable? Most of the time small business people are more valuable running the day to day operations and bringing in business to keep the business going.

2. Hiring an internal person (Marketing Manager or Coordinator)

Positives

This option has advantages as you can nurture the staff member to understand the knowledge that only you know. You can also work with them to plan the best communication to your market.

Negatives

Do you have the money to employ another person? There are risks involved in hiring any new staff. A Marketing person will bring certain skills that will come with a price based on experience. You can hire a junior but that will also mean that you must dedicate your time. This also costs not just money but opportunities elsewhere.

3. Enlist in a Marketing Agency

Positives

Marketing agencies really know what they are doing. It is their role to understand what is happening in the world and to give you the best possible representation. This skill is based on years of experience in understanding people and how they are communicated to backed up with constant learning. So, they are a good resource to have on your side.

Negatives

They can be expensive. Because they also hire their own staff they need to recover overheads. Because of this, they are reluctant to break down the Marketing activity and go for the lot. For example, they will generally suggest an overall change of your branding, new logo, new website everything. This is expensive.

4. Enlist in separate contractors for each segment such as SEO expert, or AdWords or advertising expert, graphic designer, Website designer and manage them all yourself.

Positives

This is also a very effective way of getting the job done. By using experts in certain areas, you can fine-tune the areas of knowledge and expertise to your advantage.

Negatives

Time. Do you have the time to be coordinating these activities?

The only way to understand what is best for your business is to ask these questions; how much time can you give to your Marketing and where are you better off spending your time. If your time is better off spent on Marketing, then you can do it yourself. If time is better off spent on your business, then you will need help.

Marketing takes time, effort and persistence. If you do not have all of these elements in your Marketing activities, it will show.  This can lead to Marketing fatigue where it all becomes too hard and too expensive. So, you just give up and move on. The worst decision you can make is to do nothing at all. Money is important so we must spend it wisely. We all know what ROI means. But remember ROI in Marketing can also mean Risk of Inactivity.