Generally, when businesses first start operating, most customers and clients are generated by word of mouth and recommendations - which is a great foundation to build a business on.
However, fairly soon after starting your business, driving growth in order to sustain what you've built will become a very real priority. This means going beyond word of mouth and striving towards increasing the number of potential customers interacting with your business.
Now whether you’re the owner of a startup or perhaps the owner of a long-standing business but have never considered setting money aside for a marketing budget, you’re faced with a decision: should you hire a digital marketing freelancer to help drive organic interest, or hire a full-time marketer?
I might be a little biased, but I’ve compiled a few of the benefits of hiring a freelancer to help get your marketing activities up and running.
It's Cost-Effective.
Hiring a freelancer can be extremely cost-effective for small businesses. You can contract them to complete specific marketing projects in order to meet both short and long term business goals. Depending on how long your project is and its complexity, you can choose to hire multiple freelancers for different phases of the project, or a singular, multi-skilled freelancer to tackle the whole project.
It's Low Risk.
Hiring a new member of staff to take care of your marketing initiatives can be a long process and it can be risky. There’s always the chance that you go to the effort of hiring a permanent member off staff only to have it not work out, which can be costly. Generally, freelancers are much easier to replace if it’s not working out. Plus, you don’t need to onboard a freelancer in the same way that you would need to onboard a new employee. So, if you’re looking for a quick turnaround, consider a freelancer.
It Saves Time.
Another benefit of using a contractor is that you can discuss your goals and ideas directly with them, and they’re usually able to work on the project without bothering you too much. As a business owner, it’s probably not often that you get time to plan your marketing tactics down to the last detail, so definitely consider using a freelancer to help. Most contractors in this field have experience working for businesses in different industries and will be trained specifically in digital marketing, so you’ll be in safe hands.
It's Less Hassle
Most marketing freelancers will also have access to a lot of their own equipment, which means that you’ll be saving yourself the expense of purchasing kit, such as expensive cameras, software or whatever tools you would need to complete the project. What’s more, you won’t need to spend your valuable time providing training for other members of staff on how to use the equipment.
For example: say you wanted to start a podcast for your business. You’d have to consider audio recording equipment, figure out how to edit it all together and upload it to the different podcasting platforms. All of this can be expensive and time consuming, which could lead to the podcast project being pushed to the bottom of your to-do list.
Or, you could consider hiring a freelancer, pay them a flat rate, use their own equipment and crack on and get that podcast live to start building awareness for your brand and generating leads for your business. If you’d like to learn more about the benefits of podcasting and the impact it can have on your business, send me a message and let’s talk about it!
You Can Do Both
Remember, it doesn’t have to be a freelancer OR an in-house marketer. You could just as easily have a full time, in-house member of staff to head up marketing, and hire a marketing freelancer to help out periodically. It’s a great solution if your resources are limited, whether that’s physical resources (like mentioned above) or skills resources.
To summarise, there are multiple benefits to hiring a freelance digital marketer. The real decision should more be based on the needs of your business.
If you’re looking to start putting more focus on your marketing efforts and don’t have the budget to take on a permanent member of staff, consider getting a contractor.
If you’re prepared to make the long-term investment and want someone to be solely focused on your business, consider hiring a permanent member of the team to take care of marketing.
As a freelancer myself, I'm used to helping businesses that are looking to start pushing their online presence and make the most out of the online options available for marketing. I specialise in social media management, content marketing and digital strategy for SMEs; if you're interested in learning more about how I can help, make an enquiry today!
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