5 Tips to Get the Most from Your Outsourced Marketing

As an agency that specializes in outsourced marketing, we clearly believe it's smart business to let experts help you succeed. We can not be all things to our business. When we try to be the accountant and salesman and marketer and janitor, we give less of ourselves to the part of the business that focuses on growth. Outsourcing functions of your business that are out of your area of expertise is investing in yourself. You pay others to do these functions so you can spend more time doing the thing you're best at (and so can they). But! To get the most out of your outsourced marketing, you need to do these few simple things.

1. Clearly Communicate Your Goals and Expectations. You can't just hand them a check and say "Go! Market!" You need to define what your goals are. Do you want more visitors to your site? More followers of your blog? More customers in the door? Marketing is a broad term, your agency needs to know where you want to get so they can choose the tools and platforms to get you there.
2. Treat Them as In-House Staff. You are paying your agency to help you grow your business. If you are using other marketing in-house, you need to loop in your outsourced agency on that. Your business will see the most value if all the marketing activities are visible. This can prevent your agency from duplicating work you've already done or from trying something you've already tried that didn't work.
3. Get Your Sales & Marketing Teams Together. It is an outdated notion that sales and marketing are natural enemies, each vying for the most revenue generation. "Smarketing" is the way of today. Aligning your sales and marketing teams can only give you upside. These two teams should be talking about their goals and how they get there together. The marketing folks should know what the sales folks need in terms of qualified leads. Having consistency throughout the Buyer's Journey will give a better customer experience as well. These two departments have their strengths and weaknesses, but together they can be better. Team work makes the dream work.
4. Share Your Expertise. You are the expert in your business, they are an expert in marketing. While it is up to the marketing account manager to learn the ins and outs of your business and industry, their knowledge will always be at 30,000 feet. You are the boots on the ground. If you see trends in your industry, changes in your competition, or even an article that you think is relevant to what you do - share the love! Your mind will pick up on information that a non-expert won't. It's up to you to help inform them.
5. Tell Them Your Secrets. What makes you tick? What excites you about what you do? Why is your business better than the rest? You started this business because you found something you love and turned it into a job. We get tied up in the day-to-day operations and forget to communicate our passion about it. Telling your marketing team your inner "why" is going to help them build a marketing strategy that sounds like you. And since you're the reason there is a business, that's a good thing.

At Front Burner Marketing, we love what we do. We do all kinds of marketing for all kinds of industries. But, at the heart of all of it is people. We love helping people grow the businesses they are passionate about. We are experts in marketing and would love to help you tell the world about your expertise.