FAQs

Outsourced marketing refers to the practice of a company delegating its marketing functions and activities to an external agency or independent consultants. This could include a wide range of services such as market research, digital marketing, content creation, SEO, social media management, advertising, public relations, and other marketing-related tasks.

Companies may choose to outsource their marketing for a variety of reasons. For some, it allows them to access specialised skills and expertise they don’t possess in-house, or to save on the cost of hiring and training full-time employees for marketing roles. For others, it can be a way to handle overflow work during busy periods, or to gain fresh perspectives and innovative ideas.

The extent of outsourced marketing can vary depending on the company’s needs. Some businesses may outsource their entire marketing department, while others may only outsource specific functions or projects. In all cases, the goal of outsourced marketing is to help the company achieve its business objectives more effectively and efficiently.

Product, Price, Place and Promotion are the 4 pillars of marketing but also People, which is too often forgotten about. I believe it is the most important pillar of any company.

Spending a small amount of money on one activity very rarely gets any results as customers need to interact or see a brand or product up to 8 times before they engage. So the best use of a small budget is to either keep it in the bank, spend it on talking to current customers or lapsed clients. If I had to pick one, it would be making sure your staff understand your products and services. Word-of-mouth is by far the most effective form of marketing.

A sales funnel, also known as a revenue or conversion funnel, is a model that illustrates the theoretical customer journey towards the purchase of a product or service. The funnel metaphor is used because, like a physical funnel, the number of potential customers typically decreases as they move closer to making a purchase.

The sales funnel typically consists of several stages:

• Awareness: This is the top of the funnel, where potential customers first become aware of a business, product, or service. This might occur through advertising, social media, word-of-mouth, or search engine results.
• Interest: In this stage, consumers start to express interest in a company or its offerings and begin to research more about them.
• Consideration: Here, potential customers are considering whether to make a purchase. They might compare different options, read reviews, or engage with sales teams to learn more.
• Decision: At this stage, the customer has decided what to purchase and from whom. They might be negotiating the deal or finalising the terms.
• Action: This is the final stage of the funnel where the purchase happens. But even after this, a company will want to maintain a relationship with the customer to encourage repeat business and referrals.

A key role of marketing and sales is to guide potential customers through these stages effectively, turning as many as possible into actual buyers. Each stage requires a different strategy, as the needs, motivations, and behaviours of the customer can differ greatly from one stage to the next. Understanding the sales funnel can therefore help businesses better target their efforts and resources.

It’s networking. Why? Because people buy from people and the most effective way of people and companies knowing about your products or services is if you talk to them. There are loads of organised networking events in your local area, some of the big names are BNI, British Chambers of commerce and the Federation of Small Businesses. Some groups meet online, others offline.

My advice is try searching some groups local to you and see which ones suit you. Networking groups are only as good as the people in them, so take your time and visit a lot of them. However, please don’t think that flitting from one to another will be effective. You need to build relationships.
To start with, I suggest picking one group. This will allow you to home your networking skills and patter. Your fellow networking members need to know, like and trust you in order from them to recommend your services. I would advocate a ‘you scratch my back and I will scratch your’s’ approach. Try giving business opportunities to people and see if you receive some in return.

It’s where your target market consumers are, in short. I give you an example. Take Jack. He is a kids rugby coach and operates in Cardiff where he runs coaching camps. Schools and clubs would be a good place to start networking with. However, if he wanted to be found, he might use Google and do two things. He could Pay Per Click (PPC) and appear in the ads at the top of a search for “kids rugby camps” or other related search terms. Jack could also make sure his Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is on point, so that his website appears on page one of a Google search for his services.

PPC, or Pay-Per-Click, is a model of digital advertising where advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked by a user. Essentially, it’s a way of buying visits to your site, rather than attempting to earn those visits organically through SEO.

The most common type of PPC is search engine advertising. Advertisers can bid for ad placement in a search engine’s sponsored links when someone searches for a keyword that is related to their business offering. For example, if you bid on the keyword “running shoes,” your ad might show up at the top of the Google search results page when someone searches for that term.

Every time a user clicks on one of the sponsored listings, the advertiser pays a small fee to the search engine. This fee can be worth it if the click results in a conversion, such as a sale or a lead, as the profit from the transaction can significantly outweigh the cost of the click.

In addition to search engines, businesses can also run PPC campaigns on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, where they pay for every click their ad receives.

A successful PPC campaign requires careful keyword research, strategic bidding, compelling ad copy, and a well-designed landing page that is optimized for conversion. The ultimate goal of PPC is to attract high-quality traffic that will lead to conversions, providing a return on the advertising investment.