If you’re here, you’re probably thinking about outsourcing at least some of your marketing. Many businesses do: according to a survey by Semrush, 94% of businesses outsourced at least one part of their marketing efforts in 2024.
Outsourcing marketing can be a smart move for most small businesses, but it can feel daunting. Will the outsourced partner understand your business? How will they work with your existing team? Is this the right choice for your marketing goals? Do you even need marketing activity if you have a great website?
For both small businesses and scaling corporations, knowing the facts about growth-focused outsourced marketing can help you make the right choice for your company.
The Top 6 Objections to Outsourced Marketing
Whether you’re the CEO, founder, or Vice President of Sales and Marketing, you’re responsible for a lot of things – and a lot of people depend on you. When it comes to outsourced marketing, you may have concerns about cost, quality, control, and communication. Your team may also be worried about how much time working with an agency like Peer could take away from them on a daily basis. You may be thinking, “Won’t it take longer to teach an agency about us than to just do our marketing ourselves?”
Sometimes, people’s fears and questions come from prior experiences with marketing or branding agencies, and you might wonder how a growth-focused agency is different.
We understand how essential it is for you to weigh these concerns carefully. By the end of this blog, you’ll have a better idea of whether outsourcing your marketing is the right choice for your business.
Budget & Cost: “Can we afford an outsourced marketing agency?”
This is probably the most common objection we hear, so let’s address it first. Outsourced marketing with Peer Sales Agency is always customized to your budget and your needs. Your monthly investment can start as low as $7,500.
We’ll help you fill the gaps in your sales and marketing processes so you can win more business and increase your revenue.
Plus, outsourced marketing can save smaller businesses a lot of money when compared to recruiting, retaining, and paying for an internal team. Suppose you need a team of two people to execute your growth-focused marketing priorities next year. You’ll need to pay their salaries, naturally, but you’ll also need to calculate the additional overhead for the new employees. Think about benefits, training, equipment, software licenses, payroll costs, etc.
When you hire an agency, you don’t need to pay for the staff or the overhead.
Outsourcing also provides expertise. Agencies have experience in different areas, such as social media, inbound marketing, or SEO. This specialist knowledge can bring better results – and you don’t have to do the headhunting.
Maybe the decision you’re making isn’t between hiring in-house or outsourcing. You could be considering keeping the status quo. But failing to invest in marketing can be risky, too. Without marketing, potential customers might never learn about your business. A lack of visibility can lead to fewer sales and revenue plateaus.
25% of small businesses don’t have a marketing plan [1], but small businesses with a marketing plan are 6.7 times more likely to report success than those without. Specifically, 87% of small businesses with a marketing plan report successful marketing outcomes, in stark contrast to the mere 13% success rate among those without a plan.
Prior Experiences: “We’ve tried this before.”
This is another common objection to outsourced marketing, and it’s a valid one. If you’ve already tried outsourced marketing and didn’t get the results you were after, it naturally feels like a risk to try again.
Peer Sales Agency is different from outsourcing with a freelancer or using a branding agency or a traditional advertising agency. While freelancers bring a wide variety of specialties and many agencies focus on creating a brand image, Peer specializes in growth-focused marketing and sales enablement.
This means we prioritize sales. Our primary goal is to provide your sales team with everything they need to be successful, from access to more qualified leads to more compelling pitch decks. Our goal is to drive revenue, not just promote your brand. Companies that prioritize sales enablement see a 20% increase in sales productivity (HubSpot, 2021).
We’re a small business, too. We know how important it is to see a return on investment (ROI). Every dollar spent matters to us, and we want to be good stewards of your budget. Unlike a freelancer or an hourly agency, we’re not here to maximize billable hours. We keep your costs low with value-based pricing and strategic roadmaps that support your goals.
Peer Sales Agency is a different kind of agency. Our focus is on practical solutions that yield measurable outcomes. Unlike many others, we don’t just offer traditional advertising services. We dive deep into your sales processes. We identify gaps, help train your team to use the tools you invest in, and help your leadership implement strategies that work. A branding agency or SEO freelancer can’t say the same.
Knowledge Transfer: “Will your team understand our niche?”
At Peer Sales Agency, we see ourselves as an extension of your team. This means we spend time and resources getting to know your business inside and out. We believe understanding your niche is the key to our mutual success.
In the first month of your engagement with Peer, we’ll run a messaging workshop with your team. This helps us align our goals and strategies with your business goals and understand your niche. Our messaging strategy also helps your business clarify your core messaging, focus on your differentiators, and craft problem <> solution messages that help your sales team make more effective connections. We also spend hours researching your ideal buyers, which helps us create effective messaging based on a strategic targeting system with decision-maker and influencer personas.
Of course, getting to know everything about you and your unique market strategy will take a little time. Key collaborators from your business will review every asset we create, and we’ll take your feedback seriously. We develop client style guides to ensure that your feedback gets applied across the board so your assets are as consistent as they are compelling.
This review process ensures we’re always delivering the right message to the right prospects. According to a study by the Content Marketing Institute, 70% of effective marketing relies on understanding the audience. By working closely together, we ensure both our team and yours understand your market, message, and niche.
In-House vs. Outsourced Marketing: “Would an in-house hire be better?”
There are definitely a host of pros and cons to consider when you’re choosing between an in-house team versus outsourcing your marketing. Many business leaders feel like they get more face time, agility, and control with an in-house hire – but those advantages may come with a host of lost opportunities.
At Peer, our outsourced team offers senior-level expertise. The average Peer strategist has 14 years of marketing or business administration experience. This gives your business access to high-priced talent on the fractional model, meaning that their full salary is shared between an entire portfolio of businesses instead of being paid by you alone.
Senior-level talent brings more than just expertise—they’re also more efficient with your dollars. A study by eMarketer shows that companies using outsourced marketing see a 30% increase in efficiency. This is because a fractional marketing team provides diverse skills, tagging in and out of your strategy when needed. You get experts who can handle strategy, content creation, website development, CRM implementation and support, social media, and paid ads all at once.
In contrast, a single in-house employee (even a full-time CMO) will have to focus on just one task or priority at a time. They may not have the broad skill set needed for all marketing areas. Plus, hiring one person comes with salary, benefits, and training costs, as we talked about above. An outsourced team can often be more cost-effective. Companies pay only for the services they need.
Finally, a proven strategy helps a business grow. An experienced team knows the latest trends. They can adapt quickly to changes in the market. This agility helps businesses stay competitive. Overall, outsourcing marketing allows companies to access top talent and focus on their growth.
Marketing Websites: “We have a website. Isn’t that enough?”
Having a website is a great start, but it isn’t enough. A basic brochure website doesn’t actively engage your audience. It’s like a book left on a shelf.
If you want people to visit and stay, you need fresh content. New blog posts, articles, videos, and updates make your website inviting. In fact, websites that add new content regularly see 434% more indexed pages on search engines (source: HubSpot).
To truly connect with your customers, you’ll need to use omnichannel marketing to create a digital ecosystem. This means using social media, your website, marketing emails, and sales outreach strategies together – with consistent branding and messaging. This strategic approach reaches potential customers through different channels. When they see your information in various places, they’re more likely to trust you. Research shows that companies with omnichannel strategies experience a 10% increase in sales (source: Harvard Business Review).
See how omnichannel marketing with Peer Sales Agency helped Ty’s Outdoor Power grow revenue by 122%
Get a Fractional Marketing Team on Your Side
The right sales and marketing agency works as an extension of your team, much like having your own fully staffed marketing department, but at a savings of up to 80% when compared to recruiting, onboarding, training, salary, and overhead for a comparable in-house team.
In order to compete with the big names in your industry, you’ll need a marketing strategy that puts sales first. At Peer, your goals are our goals: closing deals and growing revenue. We’ll help you build the best version of your sales team and process while attracting new prospects to your business and nurturing those leads through your pipeline.
Get access to the resources you need right when (and where) you need them. We make it affordable for sales and marketing departments like yours to access top talent, gain traction, win more customers, and increase revenue.
Sound good? Let’s talk.
