How To Outsource A Marketing Department - When You Haven't Got The Budget To Hire In-House

The Value Of Building A Marketing Department

A dedicated marketing team can work wonders for your business; raising brand awareness and generating leads. They play a crucial support role, helping your target customers understand the value of your services by creating targeted content and brand messages.

The promotional work of your marketing team is designed to draw attention to your business and to convert strangers into leads – people who have shown an interest in your business short of making a purchase. These leads can then be nurtured and developed by a sales team, in order to convert them into paying customers.

Marketing underpins everything. It determines your brand identity, how you communicate about your products and services, and how you understand your customer base. Your marketing team is the eyes and ears of your salesforce, as they provide key information about the best means to approach and engage with your customers. It is no surprise therefore, that companies with dedicated marketing departments do better at securing new business than those who do not.

How Much Does An In-House Marketing Department Cost?

The more resources you have at your disposal to invest into marketing, the higher the results will be. The largest banks, blue-chip companies and retailers have extensive marketing departments with multiple roles and a wide range of specialist knowledge. These teams may employ hundreds of people and costs many millions of pounds each year in wages and infrastructure; but the results are commensurate with the investment they put in. The post-tax profits of some of these companies are living proof of the success of their marketing teams.

For the majority of businesses, however, a huge marketing department is an unrealistic aspiration. So what about a smaller marketing team? Is that any more affordable?

There is no getting around the fact that staff costs are the most expensive investment for any business. And marketing takes time. To deliver results, time needs to be spent creating content, researching buyer personas, analysing data and engaging in customer outreach.

Building Your Marketing Team: A Thought Experiment

A single marketing professional is a start. Depending on their experience you would have to pay them anything from £18,000 to £40,000 in wages. However, although this person would be able to generate some fantastic ideas, make a start in research and set the ball rolling, time restraints would limit the amount of practical work they could carry out. They would need a support team in order to make your investment worthwhile. So you hire an additional four assistants to bring your department up to five people. At this stage you’re probably looking at an additional annual wages bill in excess of £100,000, something which is already out of the question for most SMEs.

And then you run into the issue of specialisation. With all the tasks that need to be carried out, there is still the problem of your five person marketing team having to wear too many hats. Your team need to split their time between meeting clients, writing content, designing graphics – and no one is a specialist in all disciplines.

To enhance the effectiveness and quality of your marketing you find you need to expand again, to incorporate a team of specialists. By the time your recruitment drive is over, if you haven’t run out of money by this point, you may find yourself with a specialist marking department of 30 or more people, incorporating the following roles:

• Marketing director to oversee your strategic growth
• Managers to lead your sub- teams and manage customer accounts
• Project managers
• Copywriters
• Graphic designers
• Editors
• Analysts
• Web designers and developers
• Technical specialists in fields such as email marketing, SEO or social media
• Assistance and support staff

The cost of such a team? Let’s just say would take a long time to recoup your investment in the amount you would have to pay on infrastructure, office costs, equipment and wages. A Department of this size could easily run up seven figure costs each year.

Can your business afford the staff? The vast majority of companies are not in a position to make this investment, and even if they were, would it be the best use of their money? What is the alternative?

The Alternative: Hiring JDR Group

Hiring an agency to carry out your marketing for you is a far more cost-effective means of harnessing specialist marketing knowledge without the expenses and overheads of having an in-house team. At JDR, we already have the team infrastructure in place to hit the ground running with your campaign.

We have an experienced team of technical specialists, analysts and marketing professionals with the skills and professional knowledge to help you grow your business. All this comes at a fraction of the cost of operating even a small in-house team. As a JDR partner, your account manager and their dedicated team are committed to the success of your business.

The starting point is to get a FREE marketing audit – this is your chance to have your website and online marketing reviewed by one of our experts. You’ll get several great tips, plus an understanding of what is holding you back from reaching your potential and achieving your marketing goals. You can get your marketing audit by clicking here and confirming your details – and one of our team will be in touch from there.