Do you know your core marketing activity competencies? For example, some people may be very good at engagement while others may be good at closing sales. When it comes to small business owners knowing their marketing task abilities and inabilities (marketing skill core competencies), use this knowledge to your advantage for outsource needs. The bottom line is doing what you can do, what is realistic for you to do and outsource digital marketing tasks you simply cannot do. Practicing this ONE tip can save your sanity and improve your business success.
Outsource Digital Marketing You Can’t or Won’t Do But NEED To Do
When it comes to hiring marketing talent, here are some tips to know how to effectively outsource digital marketing tasks. It begins by asking the right questions of the right outsourcing professional.
You will either hire a freelancer or a digital marketing company. You can adjust these questions to apply to each outsource professional (an individual or a company) before hiring:
Organizing questions to ask yourself, the business owner:
-
What 3 specific qualifying questions do want to each ONE (name of a marketing professional, i.e., copywriter, marketing strategist, virtual assistant, etc.) particular talent? [Note, if the answers to your 3 specific qualifying do match your needs, DO NOT HIRE THAT PERSON OR COMPANY.)
- When it comes to talking with the marketing company, ask the sales contact about their team members. Adjust these 3 qualifying questions to fit the marketing company. If the sales contract cannot answer the questions in a way that satisfies you, it is the wrong digital marketing company to hire.
- Always PRE-INTERVIEW with your candidate-qualifying questions FIRST. This will help you effectively go to the next step of finding the right candidate. Skip this step and you are wasting your resources (and perhaps massively frustrating yourself!)
- Ask the right specific questions for each particular professional, i.e., don’t ask a copywriter web design questions, don’t ask a web design professional marketing strategy questions, etc.)?
After you get through the qualifying questions, get to the experience questions:
- What is your experience doing (name of your project)?
- Write down the answers revealed during each interview with each candidate. At the top of the page, write the source from where you found this possible candidate to outsource digital marketing. Make sure the contact information is correct.
- Please share 3 samples of your work.
Now that you’ve see samples of their experience and that it matches your specific criteria…
- Get a contract or written agreement. Expect ONLY that which is agreed upon in the written agreement or contract will be performed as written.
- Expect that if your requirements change that this detour from the original agreement will require additional payment from you AND, more time to achieve your new goals. Do not insult a freelancer or a digital marketing company by expecting something for nothing. Time is the one commodity that is used up and cannot be regained. The time professional spend on doing tasks you’ve asked them to do, and the money you paid for those specific tasks, are NOT refundable. If you change what you want, expect to pay for that change. Put yourself in the shoes of your outsource professionals. If somebody asked you to do a task, and you did as asked, would you be willing to give back money for the work you did? Of course not!
- Do NOT expect your contractor to “be nice” and just give you free time and resources because you wanted things changed. Write an addendum to your contract and refer to the changes written in the signed addendum when working with your outsource professional.
- Look to build a meaningful, long term business relationship with this professional. He or she or the team will be an important puzzle piece in helping your business stay successful.
Summary Ideas when You Outsource Digital Marketing
Be clear in the goals you want to achieve. This includes…
- Using wisdom when choosing writers and copywriters
- Clearly specify instructions remembering NOBODY is a mind reader.
- Focus on the outsourcer being consistent rather than perfect. NOBODY can be perfect because in marketing, everything is an experiment to see what works the best at any given moment.
- Be respectful of other people’s talents. Since most likely you can’t do what they do, and they are helping you achieve your goals, pay marketing people what they deserve.
- Remember, people may forget what you say or did but they will remember how you made them feel. Make your outsourcers feel valued. When outsources feel valued by you, they trust you. Behind your back they will talk respectfully about you to other businesses. This can only HELP your business succeed.