1. Looking for growth?
It’s time to go outside
Trevor Isherwood, chartered marketer and Managing Director of Isherwood and Company
discusses the decision to outsource marketing and the potential benefits for businesses
Nobody can ever know your company,
products and services better than you, which
is why it can be so difficult to decide if, or
when, you should bring in marketing support.
To help determine whether you ought to
outsource your entire marketing function,
hire in specialty skills, or keep everything
‘in-house’, you first need to take an honest,
critical look at the capabilities and capacities
of your team.
Few companies possess all the marketing
expertise they need in-house, especially
of the left-brain, analytic variety needed to
better understand their customers in today’s
information-soaked environment. And vice
versa, in some industries the firm may lack
talented right-brain, creative types. Which is
why most companies already outsource parts
of their marketing such as advertising, print
design and online campaigns for example.
In practice many firms find that outsourcing
marketing can lead to better quality and lower
costs as well as introducing an important
element of flexibility as firms strive to adapt
to changing market conditions. As Ben Horsell,
Head of Marketing and Business Services,
Lombard Odier Investment Managers,
comments “We contracted some of our
marketing to Isherwood and Company during
a period when our team was under resourced.
Outsourcing for us has been a highly efficient
way to expand capacity when we need it and
we had the added benefit of being able to
leverage Trevor’s extensive experience on
this occasion.”
Additionally, the skills required of marketing
managers are rapidly changing which is driving
even greater need for specialty skills from
agencies and suppliers.Today, marketing
managers are like the conductor of an orchestra
and they must understand how to access the
skills they need in-house and from outside
suppliers to get the job done. With ever increasing
media fragmentation such outsourcing will
become far more common, because companies
can no longer rely on mass communication
techniques and integrated communication tasks
have become much more complicated.
“An outsourced
marketing team
brings a wealth
of experience
that can only be
accumulated by
working with
multiple brands
in various
industries
”
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PROMOTIONAL FEATURE

2. Trevor Isherwood, Managing Director
In many cases it may be prohibitively
expensive for a small firm to hire a highly
experienced, well-qualified in-house marketing
director who can take charge of things, lead the
myriad of suppliers for greatest effect, and aim
for the greatest return on marketing
investment. However bringing in external
senior marketing support on an ‘as needed’
or project basis can be within reach of many
firms budgets and should be expected to
deliver tangible results. An outsourced
marketing team brings a wealth of experience
that can only be accumulated by working with
multiple brands in various industries, and that
means there’s no need to reinvent the wheel.
Your marketing agency team knows what
works and in which context, indeed they’ve
probably done it before for other clients. I
For small and medium sized enterprises,
this complexity can lead to missed
opportunities and frustration in trying to ‘make
marketing work’. Even just keeping up with the
trends is hugely time consuming. Today it’s
social media, but who knows what will come
by the end of the year. “Outsourcing our
marketing has had a quick and visible impact
on our business. It frees my time to focus on
our customers and on new product
development. At the same time working with
Isherwood and Company has significantly
improved the quality and professionalism of
our marketing efforts. I have every confidence
that Trevor’s contribution will help us meet our
ambitious growth targets.” Says Roger Charles,
Founder and Director of British Beds Worldwide
Ltd. in Yelverton near Plymouth.
5 Benefits of outsourced
marketing expertise
1. Access to specific skills.
Effective marketing requires a wide range of
expertise including strategists, product
managers, planners, creative teams, brand
managers, experiential marketers, e-commerce
experts and marketing analysts amongst others.
It may be that the existing team lacks the
necessary skills and experiences or that new
channels are being introduced that the existing
team have not yet had the opportunity to learn.
2. Accelerated growth.
A marketing expert can help you identify
effective ways to grow your business, generating
new ways to reach your target audience, new
revenue opportunities and important product
and service improvements. Essentially your
marketing consultant is there to help you make
more money.
During a growth phase, it is faster and less
expensive to outsource new skills or
processes. Getting to market quickly is going to be
a challenge if all the key staff need to be
identified, hired, and trained before you get started.
Outsourcing marketing allows you time to focus on
what matters to grow your business quickly.
3. Fresh ideas and an objective point of view.
When you are immersed in running your business
or managing a never-ending to-do list, it can be
hard to keep perspectives fresh.The easiest,
quickest way to get things done is often how you
did it before, but it’s not always the best way to go
about achieving the goal.An external
marketing adviser can provide an objective
perspective with knowledge of the latest
marketing innovations and techniques, you get
shrewd advice on what will give you the most value.
4. Budget flexibility.
Marketing infrastructure and in-house teams
constitute a significant fixed cost for firms and
can represent a substantial percentage of the
total marketing expenditure. Utilising outsourced
specialists and teams gives firms the
opportunity to scale up and scale back
depending upon the business cycle and in
response to market conditions.
5. Capacity when it’s needed.
Whether it’s to handle a position whilst
recruiting a permanent replacement or to cover
for parental leave, outsourcing a marketing role
to an external resource can be an effective way
not only to manage the work load but also to
inject new skills and experiences to the team.
To see how we can help you achieve
marketing excellence call Trevor Isherwood on
01271 336121 or visit www.isherwood.co.uk for
more information.
“Few companies possess all the marketing
expertise they need in-house
”