ARTICLES

March 2009
DON'T GET CAUGHT HIBERNATING - OUTSOURCING YOUR MARKETING CAN HELP YOU SURVIVE A BEAR MARKET
By Katie Boerema

Outsourcing your marketing needs can give you the competitive edge you need to attract and retain customers. There are several advantages to this strategy that you should consider when evaluating how to handle your organization’s need for creative services.

Increased quality - Outsourcing gives you access to skilled and trained professionals without paying more. You get a whole team of experts in all marketing and communications disciplines for what it would cost to have one or two positions in-house.

Reduced cost -  Utilizing an outsourced marketing company is very cost-effective compared to handling the same work internally. By outsourcing, you save on recruitment, training and other human resource costs, as well as salaries, benefits and overhead.

Higher return on investment - To try to save money, companies will often use well-intending but unqualified internal staff to handle special marketing assignments. This can be very expensive in the long run, however, due to lost efficiency and potentially low market impact. You also might have to invest in costly technology or training, which can be risky. Specialized programs are never any better than the talent and experience of those using them.

Accelerated productivity - Using a marketing firm that has the infrastructure in place to conceptualize and implement effective marketing strategies quickly can save you time. The disruptive cost of handling unusual or special assignments can be detrimental to overloaded, undertrained staff. By outsourcing, your business can focus on its core competencies while your marketing is being managed by a specialized company.

Integrated marketing - Unless you can afford to staff enough talented individuals - writers, graphic designers, researchers, planners -  to have all your communications handled internally, it is difficult to achieve the illustrious integration needed to give your message powerful consistency.  By outsourcing to a full-service marketing and design company, you will receive a representation of all marketing disciplines to create distinctive, appealing marketing materials with a cohesive look, feel and tone to  your overall brand.