In the high-stakes world of B2B software and fintech, maintaining a robust marketing strategy is crucial. For companies with revenues between $5M and $50M, having an effective marketing team can be a game-changer. If your marketing department is small or underperforming, outsourcing may be the strategic solution you need.
Here are ten surprising benefits of outsourcing your marketing department:
1. Access to Specialized Expertise
Outsourcing provides access to a team of specialists with diverse skills and experiences. Unlike in-house teams that may lack certain capabilities, such as some particular specializations within marketing, an outsourced team brings a wealth of knowledge and innovative strategies.
2. Cost Savings
Hiring, training, and retaining an in-house marketing team can be expensive. Outsourcing eliminates many of these costs, allowing you to allocate resources more efficiently. In fact, research by McKinsey indicates that companies that outsource can reduce operational costs by up to 60%. You will also typically benefit from a more flexible cost structure that aligns with your budget and business goals.
Real Example: IBM outsourced its digital marketing to Wunderman Thompson, resulting in a 30% reduction in marketing expenses and a 300% increase in click-through rates for their Watson Ads campaign. This move allowed IBM to focus on its core competencies and stay ahead of competitors.
3. Scalability
An outsourced marketing team provides the flexibility to scale your efforts up or down based on your company’s needs. This adaptability is crucial for growing companies that need to adjust their marketing strategies quickly. Surveys show that 40% of businesses value the flexibility that outsourcing provides, allowing them to scale their marketing efforts up or down as needed.
4. Focus on Core Business
Outsourcing marketing tasks allows your internal team to concentrate on core business functions. By delegating marketing to external experts, your team can focus on product development, customer service, and other critical areas that drive revenue and long-term success of the business.
5. Advanced Tools and Technology
Marketing agencies often have access to the latest tools and technologies, which can be costly for individual companies to purchase and maintain. These tools can provide new capabilities like advanced analytics, marketing automation, and campaign insights, enhancing the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.
6. Fresh Perspectives
An external team brings new ideas and perspectives that can invigorate your marketing strategy. Their unbiased viewpoint can offer creative solutions that your in-house team might overlook due to familiarity or tunnel vision. This fresh perspective can be a catalyst for driving forward-thinking strategies that inject new life into your marketing initiatives, challenging the status quo, sparking innovation within your organization, and helping you stay ahead of the competition.
7. Consistent Performance
Professional marketing agencies are driven by results and accountability. They employ data-driven strategies to ensure that your marketing efforts yield consistent and measurable outcomes. This focus on results helps achieve your business goals more effectively in a way that can be difficult to maintain with an internal team.
Real Example: One medium-sized health and wellness company outsourced its content marketing to a specialized agency, resulting in improved brand awareness and customer loyalty. The company saw a significant increase in online presence, engagement rates, and website traffic.
8. Faster Execution
With a dedicated team working on your marketing initiatives, you can expect quicker turnaround times for marketing campaigns and projects. This speed is crucial in the fast-paced startups, B2B software, and fintech sectors, where timely execution can be a huge competitive advantage.
9. Risk Mitigation
Outsourcing helps mitigate risks associated with marketing efforts. Agencies are experienced in handling various challenges and can provide contingency plans to ensure your marketing campaigns stay on track. The ability to efficiently troubleshoot problems and bottlenecks can make a major difference in terms of efficiency and the final results.
10. Enhanced ROI
Ultimately, the goal of any marketing strategy is to generate a positive return on investment (ROI). Outsourcing can enhance your ROI by leveraging the expertise, advanced tools, and efficient processes of a specialized marketing team to create superior results, while also decreasing costs.
Case Study Highlight: Information Builders Inc. (ibi)
In one of our standout projects, 100 YARDS served as the interim Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) for Information Builders Inc. (ibi), now a TIBCO company. We led a comprehensive marketing operations restructure, aligning the team’s efforts with sales needs and modernizing their brand and communication strategies. This transformation contributed to ibi’s successful acquisition by TIBCO Software, Inc.
By integrating a robust "voice of the customer" approach, simplifying content, and cutting advertising spend by 67%, we drove measurable improvements in their marketing effectiveness and overall business performance. You can access the entire case study here.
The Takeaway
Outsourcing your marketing department offers a multitude of benefits that can help your B2B software or fintech company thrive. By leveraging external expertise, cutting costs, and focusing on core business functions, you can drive growth and stay competitive in a rapidly evolving market. Whether you’re a CEO, CFO, Head of Revenue, or a PE/VC investor, considering outsourcing as a strategic move could be the key to unlocking your company’s full potential.
How 100 YARDS Can Help
Realistically, it’s virtually impossible to build a 5-10 person marketing team overnight, and often the leadership team has expertise in product or sales…not marketing. That is where we come in.
100 YARDS is a team of experienced marketers, with particular expertise working with B2B companies, who develop and run the marketing function including demand generation, brand and product marketing, content development, and all the necessary activities that B2B companies need to think about. We are less agency, and more embedded partners to the executive teams at those companies, reporting on results as if we were full-time employees even though we are fractional.
Our model has worked well in SaaS, Fintech, healthtech, general software, and many other industries.
Want to chat about how we can help? Book a call here.
