7 Ways to Optimise Your Outsourced Marketing Team
For most small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), managing a full-time in-house marketing team is not practical, as it requires substantial hiring and training costs. However, your company is not better off without marketing staff because this part of the business is crucial for creating brand awareness and generating leads.
The middle ground in this dilemma is to outsource marketing services. By doing this, you will save up on costs while closing more deals and bringing in more profit. As your outsourced team handles the heavy lifting in streamlining your business processes, you can focus more on strengthening your business’ strategic approaches.
You only need to develop strategies to optimise your outsourced marketing team while maximising your business’ efficiency and productivity. So, how can you effectively manage your outsourced marketing team? Here are a few ways.
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Understand your marketing priorities
Before working with your outsourced marketing team, you must first lay down the reasons you are looking for extra help. It may be because you need someone who has relevant experience but cannot afford to hire a full-time executive. Or, you need people with different skills but you are having difficulty finding those in one person.
Once you understand your goal, outline your marketing priorities among your teams. Clarify the roles of your in-house marketing team and identify which tasks are within their scope. Then, discuss your goal with your outsourced team and let them know what you want to happen. When communicating with your remote staff, it is best to have a point person from your in-house staff to ensure there is proper coordination between parties.
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Set measurable marketing goals
Every member of your outsourced marketing team should know where your project is headed and how the team will get there. You can do this by creating SMART goals. SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
With this guide in mind, your timeline has to be realistic and align with your expected outputs. Avoid general goals like “increase traffic.” Instead, specify your objective by saying you want to “increase organic traffic by the second quarter next year so that we can generate 10 new leads.”
Photo Credit: Luke Chesser via Unsplash
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Use specific marketing metrics
During the initial discussion with your outsourced marketing team, it helps to set your expectations right off the bat. This way, everyone will be on the same page regarding costs, deliverables, timelines, reporting, updates, and input levels.
How involved do you want your remote staff to be? How often should they report to you? In what form should the updates be? It is best to sort all of these out, so you can smoothly meet your goals as a team.
Meanwhile, to facilitate the evaluation process later on, remember to use specific marketing metrics. These can include:
- Qualified leads
- Bounce rate
- Time spent on site
- Conversion rate
- Return on investment
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Communicate regularly with your outsourced marketing team
As a client, you can be as high or low maintenance as you want. You are in charge of how involved you want to be with your offshore team. You can ask for either weekly or daily reports on their tasks.
When your goals change, remember to communicate them openly and honestly with your outsourced team. In turn, they should be flexible enough to realign and meet your goals.
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Ask for mileposts and check-ins
A marketing project can have several tasks under its umbrella. There can be tasks done by writers, graphic designers, social media managers, and other roles. By having mileposts and frequent check-ins with your outsourced marketing team, you can have a better grasp of how the project is progressing and who is handling what. In turn, this helps facilitate the management of your marketing projects and campaigns.
Photo Credit: Surface via Unsplash
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Treat your outsourced marketing team as part of your onshore team
The longer your outsourced marketing team and your in-house staff work together, the better your remote team will understand the ins and outs of your company. At this point, you need to trust your remote team as you would with your in-house team.
Outsourced marketers tend to balance your input with the industry’s best practices. But keep in mind that collaborations are a give-and-take process, where both parties should listen to each other’s suggestions and feedback. This way, your remote marketing team can consistently meet your expectations and deliver better results.
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Share your finds on the latest marketing trends
Your outsourced marketing team is composed of experts in their field, but nobody knows your business better than you do. To create better outputs, you need to share tips that you think will work well for your customers and the company.
You can send the team articles, report links, newsletters, or channels you subscribe to. Share anything that you think will inspire them or add knowledge because, in one way or another, it will help them improve their work.
Merge In-House Staff with Outsourced Marketing Talents
Having an outsourced sales and marketing team on board offers plenty of business benefits such as improved organisational efficiency and increased revenue. However, managing both in-house and outsourced teams is not easy. By applying the strategies discussed above, you can manage your marketing project with ease, ensure both teams meet project goals, and collaborate effectively.
If you are looking for an outsourcing partner, optiBPO can help you find the right marketing professional to support your marketing strategies and sales initiatives. Get in touch with optiBPO today to learn more!
