Globalization and a global economy have made work and hiring far less geographically contingent in the internet era. It is now possible to have a multinational, multicultural team working for your business on the other side of the world, helping you grow, scale up or scale down your marketing, providing you with the flexibility you need to make strategic decisions. With that in mind, below are 8 benefits of outsourcing your marketing.

Outsider Perspectives and Insights

If you outsource your marketing, one of the first benefits you will enjoy is fresh eyes and an objective perspective on your needs, mistakes and future direction. If you have an in-house marketing team, their ideas and execution might end up bogged down by organizational politics, undue influence from senior management, or other bureaucratic inefficiencies that can hinder progress and fail to do what a marketing team should always be doing: generating and elevating the best ideas possible.

What’s more, if you are operating in a market that is different from the one in which you are headquartered, having local feet on the ground and local understanding can also be a major competitive advantage. A U.S. firm looking to target the market in Brisbane, Australia, for instance, would do well to contract services out to a digital marketing agency in Brisbane, and the same can be said for almost anywhere else in the world.

Easier to Scale

If you need to make decisions on the fly, which could include either scaling your marketing efforts up or down, having an outsourced marketing team makes it much easier to do this. Let’s say unexpectedly low quarterly profits demand that you scale down your marketing budget considerably. If you were working with an in-house marketing team, this would mean continuing to pay perhaps full-time salaries for a marketing manager and however many additional marketing employees while unable to increase the amount of marketing spending on things like a PPC campaign or increased SEO efforts.

On the other hand, if you are able to let your outsourced marketing team know that you are going to have to quickly respond to financial realities within your company or, conversely, if you need to suddenly put more experienced marketers to work in order to expand current campaigns and take advantage of industry or market opportunities, you enjoy much more organizational agility.

Avoid Staff Absences

Any time you outsource a business function you are reducing the amount of downtime or days off that you will have to deal with. In-house staff will inevitably require paid time off and sick days which, while they are certainly entitled to take, is inarguably an inconvenience for your company.

If you outsource your marketing to an agency, you do not have to worry about downtime in your own company, at least for marketing. This can be incredibly important, especially in the middle of a campaign or during periods of scaling and growth.

Lower Overhead Costs

Anytime you reduce the need for in-house employees you reduce your overhead costs. It is common for an in-house marketing department to get to the point where they would like or it would be beneficial to add a new skill set, but there is either not enough money in the budget or enough work for the team to justify bringing on an additional full-time employee.

Additionally, you may not be willing to pay for the other overhead expenses that come with extra employees, such as training and benefits. When you outsource, you have access to the increased manpower if you need it but don’t have to worry about the accompanying expenses.

Enjoy the Best Technology

The only thing marketing agencies do is marketing, so they naturally want to invest in the best tools and technology that will help them make their jobs more efficient and effective, thus delivering better work for their clients. When you outsource your marketing, you also have vicarious access to this technology, as well as access to experts who are trained in getting the most out of it. Every time you bring a new tool onto an in-house marketing team you are not only paying for the tool but likely training and opportunity costs while your team gets used to it.

Tax benefits

When you outsource any business function to a third party, you eliminate the need for in-house full-time staff and the tax burdens they create. Full-time staff require you to help pay things like unemployment insurance, whereas a marketing agency is expensed differently.

Better ROI

At the end of the day, going with a marketing agency also often means enjoying an all-around better return on investment. Whether you are outsourcing your entire marketing division or are looking for a way to help take some of the load off an in-house team, marketing agencies are experts and reputable ones will have a track record of delivering.

This also ties into the scalability factor of an outsourced marketing team, where making it easier to respond to changes to your business allows you to better plan how and where you allocate your capital. ROI is heavily influenced by your ability to anticipate and plan for changes and therefore mitigate potential losses.

Labor Cost Savings

Depending on where your outsourced marketing agency is located, you could potentially be enjoying substantial labor cost savings. The growth of digital marketing and the accessibility of the hardware, software and know-how required to do the job means that firms have sprung up around the world, many in developing nations with labor costs and cost-of-living that is dramatically less than where your company might be located.

These firms employ knowledgeable, talented marketers who are just as capable of meeting and exceeding your company’s marketing needs and objectives and at a fraction of the cost of domestic labor, depending on where you are.

Conclusion

There is a strong business case to be made for outsourcing your marketing. Whether you are a small and growing operation or a well-established industry leader, in-house marketing comes with a number of downsides that are easily minimized when you entrust marketing to a third party. Keep the above benefits of outsourced marketing in mind and enjoy the flexibility to tailor your marketing to a changing economy and digital landscape.