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It's tempting to say you'll manage your website and online marketing efforts in-house.
"It's cheaper than hiring an online marketing firm."
"It's easier to update the website myself than pick up the phone and call someone else to help."
"I know the business inside and out. I know what we need to market and how to market it."
At first, keeping the work in-house seems like the easy and cost-effective thing to do. But, ultimately, outsourcing your website could be the best thing you ever do. Here are six ways in which outsourcing website management can benefit you.
Summary 6 benefits of outsourcing website management
- Expense: less costly than a new hire
- Time: no juggling website updates with other responsibilities
- Expertise: relying on outside help means you don't need to be trained or keep up with trends
- Resources: an outside firm has people with different complimentary skillsets
- Perspective: an outside perspective means more customer-focused improvements
- Synergy: partnering with a website management team combines their skill and your expertise
Expenses
Managing a website in-house can be pricey. Thinking of hiring a new staff member to handle the website and associated marketing? Consider the expenses associated with a new hire...expenses like salary, benefits, payroll taxes. You've also got to think about hardware and software. Do you need to purchase a computer for your new employee? Will he or she need a certain software program such as Photoshop? Will this person need special training to learn the software or gain additional web expertise?
Don't forget to account for overhead and costs associated with the employee search, interview and onboarding processes (e.g., fees to post job ads).
Suddenly, the costs add up, and you're looking at spending much more than you would spend if you outsourced your website design and development. Would you rather hire a new marketing assistant at $50,000 a year + hiring expenses...or retain an online marketing firm for less? Outsourcing can help keep your overhead low.
Deciding whether to outsource website design?
This article looks at the pros and cons of managing a business website in-house versus outsourcing website design and maintenance, including how to evaluate the options and things to consider.
Time
You already have to juggle multiple tasks and deadlines. Why limit your time even more by taking on extra duties? By outsourcing the management of your website and related marketing, you don't have to worry about stretching yourself too thin. You won't have to lament the lack of hours in the day.
Plus, managing a website can be time-consuming task for those who aren't web-savvy. A task that takes your employee four hours complete may only take a qualified agency 30 minutes to complete. By outsourcing the work, you can keep your staff focused and efficient.
Also, think about what happens if you have time-sensitive content to publish, and you or your marketing assistant in back-to-back meetings all day. That update is delayed. An online marketing firm is there to serve you. They have the resources available to get your work done on time.
Expertise
An online marketing firm eats, breathes, lives the web. It's their job to stay on best practices, emerging technology and the nitty-gritty details involved in executing and managing a web marketing strategy. Because agencies have multiple clients and measure what works with each client, they can bring perspective to your online marketing plan that you likely don't have. Do you have time or resources to allocate to researching digital marketing trends? Can you be assured that your efforts will reveal the same wisdom that comes with years of practice? An online marketing firm already has extensive experience, and their expertise is at your disposal.
Resources
With an online marketing project, there are a lot of different details to manage and tasks to complete. By hiring an online marketing firm, you gain access to several people with different disciplines. They'll have a team of copywriters, designers, developers, strategists--who are all in one place. You won't have to take it upon yourself to find resources one by one; you won't be forced take on these new roles, either. Your firm can provide all the resources you need.
Perspective
By outsourcing your website, you can gain a fresh perspective. Are you getting leads, but none of them are turning into customers? An online marketing agency can help you create a conversion optimization strategy. Are the Sales and Marketing teams at odds about what your call to action should say? An online marketing agency can bring in a new set of eyes and ears and help your company do A/B testing to get an objective, data-based answer to which wording works better. Outsourcing your website can be invaluable in gaining new insight.
Synergy
Outsourcing your website and online marketing does not mean completely dropping out of the process. Rather, you're looking for a strategic partner. They're an expert in their field. You're an expert in yours. By taking each set of strengths and working together, you can create a website that surprises and delights visitors and develop an online marketing campaign that produces long-lasting, measurable results.
Already outsourcing your online marketing to an agency?
Hopefully, your online marketing agency is demonstrating measurable results in the form of increased revenue. If not, though, you may enjoy our blog about 5 tough questions you need to ask your online marketing agency.
Do you outsource your website and online marketing management? What other benefits do you see? What hesitations do you have?
