Inbound Marketing Insights

Outsourcing your inbound marketing efforts to a consultant or agency can often be a strategic decision for companies looking to maximize their resources and expertise. By partnering with external professionals, you can access specialized skills and knowledge that may not be available in-house, ultimately driving better results for your marketing initiatives. There are many reasons for this, including:

• Your company may not have the budget to hire an internal resource to build and maintain your inbound marketing program.
• After you determine your resource needs and evaluate your team's current skillsets, you may realize that your current team lacks the necessary skills to implement your inbound marketing program effectively.
• Your project may be time-sensitive, and you need an external partner to expedite the process.
• You may determine a skills gap before or during your initial months of implementing inbound marketing.

Outsourcing can be the right decision for some companies. Consider the following as you evaluate an agency or consultant to work with on your inbound marketing efforts:

• Expertise: Make sure the outsourced partner has substantial expertise in the areas that will improve your marketing efforts. For example, they should be experts in content amplification, email marketing, automation, sales enablement, inbound campaign development, social media, analytics, and more.
• Adaptability: The outsourced partner must be able to adapt to the changing needs of your business. Just as an internal team member would need to pivot as business needs change, your outsourced partner needs to do the same. The outsourced agency or consultant should work with you as a collaborative partner, not just another vendor. You should not have to work within the confines of your outside partner's process. They need to work within your internal processes.
• Process: Your outsourced partner should have repeatable processes and methods to achieve inbound marketing success. You are hiring them for their expertise, so they should have a predictable and repeatable process to drive results and improve operations. Make sure they can get up to speed quickly to start driving results with quick wins while focusing on your long-term strategy.
• Track Record: Look at their past work to understand their achievements for other organizations. Ask them to share case studies and testimonials from previous clients. You should consider connecting with one of their clients as a reference for a third-party perspective.

Outsourcing to an inbound marketing agency provides expertise, saves time and resources, and ensures consistent results, helping your business stay competitive and effectively reach its target audience. Think of this consultant or team as an extension of your internal resources to help you amplify your inbound and digital marketing efforts to help you reach (or exceed) your goals faster.

Are you looking for ways to optimize your inbound strategy? The "book "Mastering Inbound Marketing: Your Complete Guide to Building a Results-Driven Inbound Strategy," written by Elyse Flynn Meyer, Owner & Founder of Prism Global Marketing Solutions, covers every aspect of the inbound marketing methodology, including the revenue generation trifecta of marketing, sales, and the customer experience. Check out the book to see how to most efficiently and effectively develop, implement, and maintain your inbound strategy.