Melanie
The Monday Morning Marketing podcast is brought to you by Esther of IPA Group, bringing premier online promotion to your business.
Esther
And Melanie of STOMP Social Media Training, who empowers business owners to manage social media and marketing for themselves. And while welcome back to another episode of The Monday Morning Marketing Podcast. Today, we're asking, When is the right time to hire a Marketing Manager?
Melanie
This is a question that I find a lot of small business owners are asking themselves more frequently. Because this area is so changeable and updates so frequently, it's really difficult for your average small business owner to keep on top of things, so outsourcing is always a good idea. I obviously appreciate there are costs involved, but even if you were to bring somebody in as a Marketing Manager, when is the right time to hire a Marketing Manager? I guess that's down to analytics. What do you think?
Esther
Well, I would go even further back than that. If you have no knowledge of marketing whatsoever, then from the very beginning, you should hire, at least for a few hours. I mean, you don't have to hire somebody for 40 hours a week. You could hire somebody to run a survey or brand analysis, test the market on what your product or service is going to be before you even launch. It will save you a lot of time and energy and effort and money in the long run, especially if you have brilliant idea, but no idea how to take it to market. So if you have nil experience in marketing or don't know where to start, then start with hiring a Marketing Manager for a few hours.
Melanie
And I do get that, but the amount of times that people have said, like the start your own business course', it says, do a survey before you set up your business and make sure that you're offering the right of services or products that your audience is looking for. But how many small businesses, sole traders, actually do that beforehand? Not many.
Esther
Probably 1%, and I'm being optimistic.
Melanie
Yeah, I think you're being very optimistic there. But at the end of the day, outsourcing your marketing, there are pros and cons, isn't there? I think you're right.
Esther
Of course there are.
Melanie
Yeah, I think you're right, there is a time to do it before you get started or as you get started and maybe later too. And especially in this current climate that we're in, bills are going up, mortgages are going up, all resources and everything that we're bringing in to save time for our business and for our own personal life, they will have costs. So I think balancing out better work-life balance and how much it's going to cost you, I think will be two really important things to take into account when you're making this decision.
Esther
Yeah. Okay, I'm going to play a devil's advocate here for a little bit and say, if you don't know how to get started on marketing, whether it be traditional marketing, getting into the newspapers, on the radio, billboards, whatever you associate with traditional marketing or indeed going into online digital marketing and setting up your social media platforms. If you know zip about that, then it will cost you more to do it wrong the first time if you do it yourself. There are so many people nowadays, ourselves included, who are available and you don't have to think, Oh, well, no, I can't hire somebody because it's going to cost me thousands. I can't get a website because it's going to be 20,000. It's not. Okay, shop around. There are other options. There are people who will do your templates for you for your social media, so they all have your branding on them and they all have your things. I would love to be able to say go to Fiverr for your logo, don't. But there are options like that available. There are things that you can do yourself using Canva, using Photoshop, using options like that if you don't want to go the traditional route of a logo design at the very beginning. Just know that rebranding can be more difficult down the line. There are things that you should splash out, and I'm using that in inverted commas because it doesn't have to be thousands and thousands and thousands at the beginning, but there are things that need to be correct at the very start. And knowing who your ideal audience is, knowing where they are will save you a lot of time. Because if you set up everything on Facebook and your audience is all on LinkedIn, then you're going to have to double down your efforts and move across to another platform.
Melanie
So is that why you think outsourcing to a Marketing Manager would be best at the beginning? Because then they would have done the research, they would have asked the questions, they would have helped you ascertain where you need to concentrate your efforts.
Esther
Yeah. I mean, if you are setting up your business part time at the start and you're still working full-time and you have the time to be doing a bit of background work and asking the questions and doing the research, by all means do it yourself. There are lots of places online that you can go to and get templates and get your SWOT analysis sorted out and get your customer journey established, et cetera. But if you don't have the time, if you're literally jumping feet first because you've been made redundant or because life has changed and situation has changed and you don't have the time, you literally need it to work right now, then yes, do spend a little bit extra and get the Marketing Manager to dive into all that for you, and it will save you the heartache at the end.
Melanie
I have to admit, Esther and I, we have a virtual assistant who helps us with the podcast, which is, I'm sure you've all seen her post occasionally. And she also helps me do some paperwork and images as well for-.
Esther
Stomp.
Melanie
I regret that I didn't get a VA sooner because I'm now doing a lot more of the things that make me money now than I ever was when I was trying to do everything by myself. But it really is swings and roundabouts. I love the way you were suggesting going to maybe to Fiverr for certain things and getting a virtual assistant for other things.
Esther
No, I never advocated Fiverr. I said, Please don't.
Melanie
No, But things like it. There are different layers that marketing managers can offer you of the work that they can do for you. Let's say you are a brand new business and you really don't know where to start with your marketing. They could say, Okay, well, we can give you templates and you can put the stuff in yourself, or we can create everything with you that you then approve for weeks to come in advance. And we need you to fill out this Q and A, which is normally relatively extensive. I won't lie, it's quite in tabs because I need to understand a fair few things about your business in order to represent you. But there's different ways. I mean, when I was previously managing social media profiles, it would be, do you want me to respond as you to any questions or queries? And they'd say, Oh, no, no, no, that's fine. I can respond to questions. I just want you to find things to post about and to help create campaigns and that stuff. So if I used to do it, then I'm sure people are still doing it today. So this comprehensive cover can range from a couple of hundred a month, right up to several thousand, couldn't it?
Esther
Yeah. And you can start small. You can start by asking them to do the research of the things that you should be posting about, because half the time that's where we get the mental blocks. Even as people who are on social media and who understand marketing or have studied marketing, that's where you get the blocks, because people, your audience, what they're watching, the trending topics are always changing.
Melanie
Yeah.
Esther
But if you had a cheat sheet, say, of a list of things that you could post about, then at least that's one less thing for your brain to have to process. And it's one less thing... With a cheat sheet, you could sit down in five minutes, have five posts thought about, written about, photographed, etc, etc. Obviously, it depends on where you are focusing your attention. If you're writing a blog, it will take you longer than that. But if you at least had the ideas in front of you, then it will get to the right end result. Melanie was saying that she regrets not having a VA sooner. I think it's the way that we were talking a few episodes back about automating some of your marketing, getting a VA, getting an outsourced Marketing Manager, getting someone else in to help you, whether it's a virtual assistant or somebody in-house, it does take a little bit of effort at the start so that you get your message across to them completely. Like Melanie said, filling in a Q and A, giving them the information, giving them access to your previous videos or blogs or things like that can take a little bit of time. I know it takes me time when I run people's social media accounts or run ads for them to figure out their voice and what it is that they're selling and who they're selling to. But once you have that done, then it'll be less effort in the long run. So take those 2, 3, 4 hours of sitting down intensely with the new hire, with the VA, the outsource business manager, the in-house business manager, whoever you need to talk to and just get it all out because you don't want to be sitting there going, That post doesn't sound like me. Where did they get that information from? How did they post about that? You need to be able to walk away. And it is that step of separation as well that a lot of us are uncomfortable with, of handing over the reins to someone else.
Melanie
And it is essential that you shouldn't really have those moments of, Well, that doesn't sound like me. If you've got somebody who you're outsourcing or even bringing in as a new member of staff, part-time or full-time, you really should approve all of these posts before they go out. I mean, you would know more... If you've got a member of staff selling your product or your services, you wouldn't just say, Right, here you go, get started now. You wouldn't leave them to it, would you? You'd spend time with them, you'd show them the ethos and how you close a sale and that stuff. So you have to do exactly the same with your Marketing Manager, whoever that is. I don't think people fully appreciate just how much is involved in preparing that Marketing Manager, even if they're very experienced, because everybody's business is quite different. I would encourage you, if you're looking to get a Marketing Manager, it's going to take quite a bit of investment in time at the beginning.
Esther
Yeah, fully agree. But it will be worth it in the long run. And on that note, we will leave it for today and we'll join you again next week for morning, Monday morning marketing. Until then, bye-bye.
