Are Managed Marketing Services Worth the Investment?

‍Marketing can be both difficult and expensive. If you want to cut costs, you can. But in doing so, you sacrifice results. This can be less cost-effective than comprehensive marketing. If you're looking for a professional marketing apparatus, you are looking for some form of managed marketing. Professional marketing can help you bring your business to the next level. But in-house marketing teams can cost a fortune. That's why many companies opt for managed marketing, a middle-ground in terms of cost.

The ability to position your organization in front of leads, capture lead information, and then convert these leads into paying customers is the lifeblood of any company. But when you're busy running the day-to-day operations of your company, focused on hiring the right team members, and generally getting bogged down by administrative responsibilities, ensuring that enough attention and appropriate resources are directed towards effective marketing can be a struggle.

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When neglected for a long enough time, your firm's customer acquisition framework and lead funnel can dry up – making recovery extremely difficult and the business unviable. Tapping into the expertise of digital marketing experts with managed marketing services takes the headache out of staying on top of your marketing funnel so that you can focus on what you're great at – running your business and servicing your clients. We'll cover how managed marketing services can help your business grow!

Importance of having a robust marketing strategy

A marketing strategy is a process that can allow an organization to concentrate its limited resources on the best opportunities to increase lead generation and achieve sustainable competitive advantage. A marketing plan consists of your business's unique value proposition, customer data, branding guidelines, SMART goals, and much more, which we will be discussing. And if you're wondering why you need a marketing strategy, here are some of the reasons:

More leads

Stand out amongst your competitors

Gain market share

Take advantage of the opportunity to develop and grow

Increase customer retention and engagement

Have a smart execution of processes

Benefits of working with a marketing agency or marketing operations consulting firm

The extent and effectiveness of your marketing initiatives largely determine the future success of your business. Customer retention, brand awareness, and digital presence all depend on strong marketing, so naturally, these decisions should not be taken lightly. If your company is faced with the choice of whether to work with a marketing agency or take the marketing in-house, we have some light to shed. Of course, each route has its own set of unique advantages, but if cutting-edge strategy and optimum productivity are at the top of your priority list, hiring an agency may just be the best option for your business. Below are just a few of the benefits of working with a marketing agency.

Knowledge Of The Latest And Greatest Industry Trends

Does it seem like every day you wake up to a new Instagram feature or Google's new algorithm? We get it – the ever-changing world of marketing can make your head spin at times. While your company is staying current on its own industry trends, agencies are staying current on the latest marketing developments. Count on us to have our thumb on the pulse of cutting-edge social media and marketing trends.

Larger Scope Of Marketing Capabilities

You'll be hard-pressed to find one individual who is an expert on digital marketing, advertising, content creation, graphic design, social media, and strategic planning. But when hiring an agency, your world opens up to an entire team of pros who have perfected all areas of marketing to deliver the best results to your company.

Access To Advanced Marketing Tools

You'd be surprised at the number of social media, digital marketing, reporting, and graphic design tools, software, and programs available to help marketers maintain the highest level of accuracy and performance. Of course, these tools can be an added expense for businesses and require extensive employee training. When working with an agency, you have access to all these programs without having to go through the hassle of researching and purchasing them on your company's dime.

Tap Into An Outside Perspective

When you're focusing so intently on the same business and same industry every single day, it can be easy to form tunnel vision. Working with an agency gives you the advantage of an outside creative perspective. Not sure how an idea or deliverable would look to a consumer? Worried about how certain messaging might be perceived? No problem! Your marketing agency can give you a fresh, honest, and intelligible opinion.

Consistency And Stability

Employee turnover is a challenge that many businesses face. Training an in-house marketing professional only to re-train a new one in a year is time-consuming, expensive, and damages the overall consistency of your company's marketing initiatives. Working with an established agency ensures continual expert strategy and execution – without the training costs.

Cost-Effective And More Productive

Let's be real – hiring a full-time employee is no bargain move. Along with their salary, companies must pay PTO, benefits, retirement, etc. While this certainly can be a practical route depending on the situation, many businesses have opted for a marketing agency because they are only paying for the actual marketing work being performed. Working with an agency allows companies to zero in on specific tasks for marketing pros to tackle in a cost-effective manner.

What Can I Get from Managed Marketing Services?

There are many benefits to choosing to receive help from a managed marketing provider, including the following:

Marketing Strategy Development

The first step to successful marketing is developing the right strategy for your business. Marketing strategy lays the foundation for successful campaigns. A managed marketing service involves an outsourced team thoroughly going through your business plan. They will assess goals, risks, and current challenges for you. Then they will develop a strategy that complements your business's strengths while covering for its weaknesses.

Marketing strategies are created to achieve specific outcomes for a business in a specific situation. So, a managed marketing service means a team of professionals can work together to come up with a plan catering to your customers and your business's needs. They will find out factors such as:

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Mediums for advertising and other promotions

Content creation

Customer profiles

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Managed marketing services bring the right expertise to the table. They know how to scale a marketing plan for your business. Their job is to make your marketing simple. They do that by managing it professionally while you focus on your business.

Content Creation and Marketing

Outsourcing content creation services can be a cost-efficient way to reach your ideal client. Content experts customize the language of your brand, so potential clients feel that your content was created for them. Identifying goals and determining content structure focus primarily on executing a strategy and prioritizing, organizing, and accessing worthy content and communication messages. A successful content creation strategy concentrates on particular components, including content architecture, workflow, messaging mapping, tasks, roles, policies, standards, and tools. Our content creation and marketing services include strategies for goal identification and content structure.

Blog Writing

Initiating engaging conversation is viable for targeting audiences' different pain points, search queries, or locations and is essential for engagement and building relationships. Our blog writing content creation services use real-time data from marketing tools like Google Analytics, SEO rank tracking software, and on-page heatmaps. Although Google is reliable for its analytics to evaluate traffic flow to blogs and websites, a blog content analysis can reveal how effective a content creation strategy is for SEO optimization and attracting prospective customers.

Copywriting

Copywriting is part of the content creation marketing service for landing pages on websites, campaign materials, and emails for lead generation. Optimization of content requires a creative storytelling writer with thorough training in using digital tools to create content.

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Optimized landing pages attract potential customers and make your website visible while using keywords to reach high rankings in search engines. Instead of hiring an employee to write copywriting content for your business, outsource the services from a trustworthy content creation business. Search engine algorithms are very sophisticated, and you don't want to harm your potential to rank by making any SEO mistakes!

Video Marketing

The production of videos is proving to be a very reliable form of marketing as it's more entertaining and user-friendly than long articles. While some people prefer to read the copy, you also want to cater to those that just want to get to the point with a short video. Regardless of the business budget, video production is accessible on major social media forums, including YouTube, Instagram, and other social networks. Incorporating a video on websites, landing pages, and blogs are becoming more popular with a higher demand for content creation outsourcing services. Companies use videos as part of any other content campaign to enhance their brand and feature guidance, corporate promotions, live events, testimonials – anything you can imagine, really! Implementing the appropriate content creation strategy requires a team of dedicated studio professionals, animators, videographers, and creative graphic designers.

Lead Generation

A managed marketing provider can deliver lead generation services for its clients. Outsourcing lead generation can help you grow and acquire more leads. Sometimes, they may already have a sales team and a marketing team in place. The sales team provides outbound marketing services while the marketing team contributes inbound marketing services such as website design, SEO content writing, and social media marketing. Here are a few reasons why you should outsource B2B lead generation if you want to succeed:

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It's a time saver. You'll find out quickly that lead generation companies do a lot more than you think. Then it won't be such a huge mystery as to why you could never do it successfully on your own all these years. Outsourcing B2B lead generation allows you to focus on the tasks that need to be done in-house but still grow at the same time.

It's cost-effective. Many businesses shy away from outsourcing because of the cost. However, you may be surprised to learn that an outsourced B2B lead generation service provider usually costs less than one in-house full-time employee. If you actually want to do it right, lead generation costs a lot. To replicate what a lead generation company does requires more than just people; it requires tools, technology, and overhead. Outsourcing is without a doubt the more cost-effective option when you take all of that into account.

Experts for every service. You can't just hire one person for lead generation and expect it to work. Successful lead generation requires numerous people with different backgrounds and skill sets. From sales professionals to social media strategists to web designers, a whole team of people is required to get the job done. A lead generation company will have every person on their team that you need in order to be successful.

Speak with the right people. Managed marketing providers don't take any shortcuts—they have the industry-leading tools that are needed to do a number of activities, prospecting included. With experts on your side who are compiling datasets and qualifying leads during the sales process, you can be sure that you'll always be speaking with the right people in your market.

Get results that you can see. A professional B2B managed marketing company employs professional B2B marketers. Those professionals should be regularly sharing results and reports with you related to your program. The best way to see that something is working is to see the actual numbers. Professional managed marketing companies use top industry tools and should be able to easily generate reports that showcase results to your team.

Campaign Management

Managed marketing agencies will track the progress and success of your marketing campaigns and provide you with comprehensive custom reports so you always stay in the loop. By working with a managed marketing provider, you will have access to industry experts who can help you effectively manage your campaigns and develop strategies that will increase your revenue. And if you have multiple campaigns and platforms, an agency can help you manage each one. Managed marketers allow you to streamline your campaign management all in one place. Sometimes it can be tricky to track which marketing strategies are driving the most leads and sales for your business. Managed marketing providers can use state-of-the-art marketing tools and software to see exactly where your leads and sales are coming from, so you can focus your efforts on the strategies that are most effective. Some agencies also offer access to their own marketing tools.

Measuring Marketing ROI

Outsourced marketing services can help you focus on what's important by reducing the workload of your internal team. They can also help you get more out of your marketing efforts with content and strategies that support growth and a higher ROI.

Extend your internal team

Your ROI can increase across several processes if you take a strategic approach to assign tasks. It can be hard to let go of control over certain processes. But, the right content marketing solutions will become extensions of your internal team. They will take over time-consuming tasks so that employees can focus on projects that require their knowledge and experience.

A wider pool of talents

With 59 million freelancers in the US, there is a vast pool of talent to draw from. Some marketing services have their own internal team of employees with diverse backgrounds and skillsets.

‍Outsourcing content marketing gives you access to a much larger pool of talent. You can use this resource to boost your ROI. From industry experts who can establish your brand as a thought leader to experienced marketers who can increase lead generation, your content will make a difference.

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Plus, some experts can help you with establishing a marketing strategy or with conducting market research to explore new possibilities. You'll also get insights into the results of your campaigns. These measurable results will improve the visibility of your marketing efforts and help you optimize your ROI.

Become more resilient

In 70% of cases, cost reduction is a key reason for outsourcing. Spending less on marketing means you can invest in other areas for growth and resilience. And with the pandemic reducing profit margins, outsourcing some tasks can prevent burnout and issues with quality. Besides, outsourcing is a scalable solution. It allows you to adapt quickly to a changing situation without overwhelming employees with new expectations.

Increase production when needed

As your ROI goes up, you might decide to allocate a larger budget towards your marketing efforts and increase your online presence. Scaling up content production internally would require new hires. However, outsourcing is a much more flexible solution. You can ask your content marketing partner to bring in new team members for your projects as needed.

Digital Marketing Services for Your Business

Managed marketing services are good for many businesses' bottom lines. They provide cost-effective solutions for businesses that don't yet have a complete and thorough marketing apparatus. With the right managed marketing service provider, a business can optimize its marketing cost-effectively or begin to make structural changes that can be scaled up or down as needed. In either case, it's an option worth exploring. Universal Creative Solutions offer managed marketing services to help take care of your marketing activities and increase your ROI. Schedule a consultation call with us to get started!