#1 Results
There are some companies that get it and some companies that don’t. They get it because they get the importance of brand, they get the importance of marketing their company as opposed to just selling a product. When companies get it and brand themselves the right way, they’re the ones that get the best results.
#2 Save Money
A lot of companies will outsource core functions of their business in order to save money. A lot of companies don’t have their own lawyers, for example, they hire a law firm. They won’t do their own payroll, so they hire an accounting firm. But a lot of companies won’t hire a marketing company, because they think it is going to cost them money. In the end, it actually will save you money.
1. The more people you are hiring externally when you outsource, you’re expensing on your tax returns, so you’re not paying these people internally.
2. A professional marketing firm knows where best to invest your dollars. It is an investment after all. So if they know where to best invest it, you’ll get better results and end up saving you money in the long run.
#3 Growth
A lot of small companies look at advertising and marketing as an expense – paying advertising people, paying for print ads, tv ads, etc, etc. So on the expense side, when times are tough, they tend to cut expenses, and they cut their marketing which is the worst thing you can possibly do. It’s happened in the last few years with the Recession.
Smart companies – companies who get it – think of it as an investment in their growth, an investment in their future, and an investment in their brand. The great thing is that it is actually a little of all these. Depending on the business structure, when you hire a professional marketing firm, you can deduct the cost of hiring the firm on your taxes as well as the expense of the advertising they place on your behalf. So it’s an investment in your future that can also be an expense on your taxes.
#4 Expertise
Marketing professionals are experts in their field. They went to college. They have years and years of experience in their business. I have a friend who is a dentist, I tease her that she is a really good dentist. I’m a really good marketer. If we traded jobs one day, I would probably make a bloody mess doing dentistry work – the same thing that you are doing with your marketing.
If you are an expert in your field, you’ve built your career working in this field, you should stick to that field, that should be your core function. Wearing another hat, like being your own marketer or PR agent, is probably not something you should do.
#5 Outside Perspective
If I have a company that sells widgets, and hire a marketing director to market my widgets, I’m going to tell him or her what I want them to do in order to market those widgets. Their number one goal is to keep their job as a marketing director at the widget factory – not necessarily to market the widget factory in the best way possible.
When you hire a marketing firm outside the company, you not only get the expertise and all the other benefits, you get this really valuable third party perspective. We work with clients, we don’t work for them, so we can give them the best possible advice because we’re not exactly worried about getting our paycheck on Friday.
#6 Your Time is Valuable
Time is money. If you have employees running around doing market research, designing ads, trying to place media and negotiate with various vendors for your events, for your online, for your website, for your sales collateral – that’s a lot of time. So do you want your core employees doing that … or do you want to hire a firm with experts and who can get it done in a lot less time with a lot better result. In the end, you’re not only saving time, you’re saving money.
#7 Distinction is the Heart of Brand
We live in the information age. With information overload, you’ve got to do something to make yourself stand out in the crowd. How is your product or service different than your competitors? That’s what a marketing firm does for you. We help you articulate and communicate your brand essence.
#8 Market Research
Marketing is all about getting the right message, in front of the right people at the right time. If you don’t research the message, you don’t research the people, and you don’t research the scenario, it’s all going to fall flat. Good marketing and good advertising is an investment. Really bad marketing, really bad advertising delivered to the wrong people at the wrong time is a total waste of money. The key is the research that marketing firms conduct.
#9 Relationships
You need to treat your marketing firm as a partner, not a vendor. Your most trusted advisors are your lawyer, your CPA and your financial consultant. You need to add your marketing person to that mix. The value of this relationship is very important. You’ve got to have someone you can trust.
#10 Keeping up with the latest and greatest
You’ve got to have a partner that is keeping up with the latest and greatest in technology, in marketing trends, in social media, and so on. If you’re marketing the same way you have for 20 years, it’s time to inject some innovation and knowledge into that process. A marketing firm can do that for you – because it’s our job. Our job is to keep up with the latest and greatest. Now, the latest and greatest may not be the best choice for you, but we’ve been there, done that, tried that, and we use what works.