When Should I Hire a Marketer?

What a great question, one that I wish more companies would ask. When should I hire a marketer? It can often be challenging to identify those tipping points. Especially those who don’t have a marketing department. A lot of business owners start out trying to do their own marketing. At some point, you’ll need to hand off those reigns. This article is about knowing when it’s time to go out and get a marketer, or marketing firm. I’m not going to dig into the separate discussion of when you should hire an employee, vs work with a firm. If you do want to discuss this, however, reach out! I love chatting about these sorts of things.

Here are 9 of the most common reasons that companies will hire a marketer.

Marketing isn’t anyone’s priority

I get it. A lot of businesses out there have people that wear a lot of hats. Sometimes too many. Marketing is very important. If tasks simply are not getting done, you need someone who can prioritize and complete these tasks. Marketing has to be done, consistently, correctly, and often to provide results. If no one in your organization is prioritizing your marketing, you’re ready to hire a marketer.

Sales need to improve

This isn’t always mutually exclusive with your marketing, but the two are synergistic and affect one another. If your sales are declining, staying stagnant, or you just can’t reach your goals, you need to reevaluate your marketing. Part of the problem could be that the right customers aren’t getting to you, or your campaign’s message doesn’t match the offerings.

You don’t have the time

If you have ever said this even once, it’s time for you to hire a marketer, or at least get some help where you need it. We can’t make more time in the day. Consider how much your time is worth. If you can be billable for longer during the day by having someone else do your marketing, do it. A good marketer can not only improve your revenue, but profit margins as well if you’re billing more and selling more.

You’re not tracking your leads

There’s a lot of moving parts to the industry of marketing, including understanding the analytics and target audience research. It’s extremely common for me to run into businesses that don’t know where their clients come from. I mean you’re positive about where they come from. Not a gut feeling. When this is true, you can’t truly measure an ROI of any effort. This means that you don’t really know what’s working and what’s not.

You don’t enjoy marketing

Whether you’re good at it or not, if you don’t enjoy it, you won’t want to commit to the efforts it takes. When we take the enjoyment out of our businesses, it then becomes work. If you truly just don’t like to do your marketing, it might be worth it to turn it over. Or, at the least, have someone perform the stuff you hate the most.

Closing sales take too long

You’re not short on leads, you’re not short on sales, but you’re super busy. Your close rate is low and you’re working harder on closing your sales than you should have to. If you need more quality of leads, vs quantity, you need to adjust your targeted marketing strategies. Often times, going after the right clients in smaller numbers is better than trying to catch every fish that is near the boat. This issue isn’t always related to marketing but it’s worth looking into.

You’re not a marketer

Can you benefit better from having someone who is do it for you? If the data is there to substantiate that your marketing needs improvement, carefully consider if you want that to be your responsibility. Can you get the right results on your own, or with your current team? How much would it benefit you to hire a marketer, who’s actually a marketer?

Inconsistency

If you’re noticing inconsistencies in your sales, marketing results, and/or analytics, you may need to evaluate your marketing. Though this can also be sales related, your marketing should be helping to bring in a steady stream of interest, engagement, and leads.

You have a lot of marketing questions

How often are you Googling marketing things? Do you watch a lot of videos and read a lot of blogs? Do you have frequent questions about marketing? Would it make sense to hire a marketer who already knows these things?

I hope this article was helpful. I would also suggest The Benefits of a Marketing Consultant if you’re not sure what direction you should start looking in for a marketer. It’ll help you understand the basic gist of what a consultant can do to help you.