Top 6 Reasons for Manufacturers to Outsource Their B2B Marketing Efforts
As a manufacturing company in an increasingly competitive B2B environment, you know how difficult it is to stand out. Marketing is a sure-fire way to spread the word about your business and its unique selling proposition. You could either entrust your marketing activities to an in-house team of marketers or hire a marketing agency to take care of your marketing needs. However, if you’re concerned about the up-front costs of a marketing agency, here are 6 reasons why this is money well spent—and also, why you might not spend more after all.
- Gives Access to Real Expertise
It’s true that you understand your business the best, and it’s likely that some of your employees may have some marketing skills. However, there is a significant gap between being versed in marketing and being an expert. According to a survey conducted by Oracle, 75% of marketing professionals find that this gap has a measurable negative impact on revenue. An outside agency provides a team of experts in strategic planning, web design and development, social media, content writing, and sales consulting.
- Frees Your Time
If your company has to spend time strategizing and deploying marketing campaigns, you’ll have less time to focus on your true strengths, like getting your products out the door and creating more value for your customers. Additionally, your lack of marketing resources ensures that any marketing efforts will take longer to implement and roll out, delaying your positive results. At Grant Marketing, we work either in tandem with your current team, or run the show entirely with some direction and collaboration from you.
- Provides a Fresh Set of Eyes
You work closely with your business every single day, and have developed a specific perspective. Outsourcing your marketing needs gives you the opportunity to see your company as an outsider would, which is vitally important when developing an effective marketing strategy. It’s easy to view things myopically when you are so (too) close to them—you sometimes miss the bigger picture, or gloss over the items that seem obvious to you, but may not be clear to your audience. It’s always helpful to have another perspective through which to filter messaging, activity, and feedback.
- Opens New Doors
Working with an experienced B2B marketing agency instantly provides a large boost to your network of contacts. Agencies have existing relationships with affiliates, promotional vendors, industrial publications, and much more. Don’t overlook this because it can provide a number of opportunities for your manufacturing business.
Agencies have many clients and navigate these affiliate relationships all the time (similar to the way you use a critical vendor within a specialized supply chain). They can negotiate the best deals and programs and have influence in situations where you, as a single business, may not. At Grant Marketing, our clients will often bring a program, that has been pitched to them, to our attention—and we offer guidance on whether or not it is a viable deal (many times, it is not!). When applicable, you’ll enjoy their volume discount, saving you money and giving you cost-effective access to vendors you wouldn’t have otherwise had.
- Improves the Bottom-Line
Many manufacturing companies balk at outsourcing their marketing because of the cost. However, companies that invest in a strategic marketing plan find that it helps increase leads and new customer acquisition, resulting in improved sales revenue. Marketing agencies have the skills to create and implement such a plan. Additionally, it is important to consider some of the aforementioned benefits, such as: time savings, volume discounts, and better expertise leading to better results. It’s not surprising to learn that you might actually end up saving money versus trying to keep your marketing efforts in-house. At the very least, you’ll see an approved return on investment, thus improving your bottom-line.
- Keeps You Contemporary
You are experts at what you manufacture in the same way marketers are at their specialties. You aren’t expected to be knowledgeable about the latest trends in marketing or the constantly changing technologies and distribution platforms—but a B2B marketing agency is. An agency will understand the nuances of strategies such as inbound marketing and when and why to employ specific elements of the methodology.
Agencies are often multi-faceted, offering a full suite of services, from branding and messaging to content creation, advertising, and SEO best practices, along with website design and redesign. It doesn’t take a marketing expert to recognize when a website is not up to industry standards—often your customers will know it’s not working well before you do. One troubling consequence is that they will leave your website without you knowing they were even there—which means you have no idea of how much lost business your website might be costing you. Marketing specialists can inventory your website and, based on current user expectations (and the latest web designs and tools available), provide guidance on changes that need to be made to create a better user experience, and ultimately attract leads and increase sales for your company.
An updated, contemporary website provides your first—and best—impression to visitors. What does your digital doorway tell them about how you run your business? To learn how the B2B marketing experts here at Grant Marketing can help you update and optimize your website, using marketing strategies to help grow your business, sign up for a free website assessment. We will send you a detailed list of recommendations on how to maximize your web presence.
