© Digital Storyteller 2024
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© Digital Storyteller 2024
Marketing expenses are typically some of the first on the chopping block when companies need to cut costs.
As a business owner considering your company’s marketing strategy, you may be debating whether to invest in an internal marketing department or to outsource your marketing. This can be a tough decision for many companies, especially those in the financial services industry.
Deciding whether or not to outsource your marketing efforts can be a challenge since there are pros and cons to both options.
Companies in the financial services industry often struggle to develop creative copy that WOWs their clientele. But let’s look at the data. According to HubSpot, nearly two-thirds of B2B companies outsource their marketing!
Why might this be?
Let’s be honest, you’re an expert in finance, not marketing. How can you let prospective and existing clients know that you are an expert without an exceptionally funded internal marketing team? Enter an outsourced marketing agency… *cough cough* our team at Digital Storyteller…
When you outsource your marketing services, you save time, energy, and money. Don’t worry, we’ve got the facts below to prove it. We’re here to help you decide whether an outsourced team is a good fit for you by sharing how outsourced marketing can benefit your business.
Time. It seems there’s never enough of it—especially as a business owner.
Rather than adding the constant task of managing a creative team to your agenda, why not pass off your ideas to an outsourced marketing team?
Allowing an outsourced marketing firm to run with those ideas will benefit your business. It will also expand your potential to a level you had never imagined (or had time for…).
Outsourcing your marketing frees up your time and allows you to focus your direct efforts on your own deliverables that contribute to your business’s overall success.
The hardest pill to swallow when working with an outsourced digital marketing agency? The trust that is needed in order to truly step back.
But how are you supposed to trust an external company to really ‘get’ your company in the right way? Well, the right outsourced marketing team should take the time to invest in and understand your business on a deeper level. At Digital Storyteller, there are a number of ways that we do this in addition to bi-weekly client meetings.
Conducting an initial kickoff session, such as our Brand Storytelling Sessions at Digital Storyteller, allow your marketing partners to develop an understanding of your wishes, expectations, and your business’s functions.
(Wait, what’s a Brand Storytelling Session again?! And why the heck is it important for my business? Read on at the link above. We’ll get you all caught up to speed).
Receiving external, objective feedback can be especially helpful when creating content, especially in the financial services industry. The reason being, your complex terminology and jargon may make perfect sense when you read it back to yourself, but could be difficult and confusing for consumers to digest.
Example terms that we’ve come into contact with as an outsourced digital marketing agency? BOLI, 549 and 7a loans, surety bonds, CUOLI, the ‘Dynamex’ case, and so on.
Remember, as a business owner, you may have anywhere from five to fifty years of experience in your industry. You and your internal team are used to using and hearing complex terminology on a daily basis and it may be difficult for you to take a step back to ensure your message is correctly understood by prospects and clients.
Having an outsourced marketing team can eliminate this issue by providing objective feedback. While some marketing agencies may specialize in certain industries and have a clearer understanding than most of the terms used in your business, they have the benefit of being a step removed from it.
A fresh set of eyes and ears ensures that your audience, who likely don’t use your terminology as frequently, will receive your desired message crystal clear.
Whether it’s commercial real estate, accounting, investments, insurance, what have you, as a business owner, you and your employees are experts in your own field.
We’ll leave those subjects to you, and in turn, you can leave your marketing to the experts also—us! When you outsource your marketing to an agency, we are focused on one thing: marketing. The skills and expertise offered within a professional marketing agency are diversified to benefit you.
Although your business might have great marketing ideas and be doing tremendous work for your clients, you simply might not have the bandwidth to fulfill your marketing desires in-house.
While a small internal marketing team may only consist of one or two people that are trying to juggle all marketing subspecialties, most agencies have individual team members that each specialize in their own department.
At Digital Storyteller, for example, our team is made up of creatives including:
Whether it be social media, search engine optimization (SEO), email marketing, or web design, agencies are often made up of a team of experts each specializing in different aspects of marketing strategy.
If you’re thinking about building out your own team of in-house experts, keep in mind that employing a full-time in-house SEO expert alone can cost upwards of $70k per year!
Hiring an outsourced marketing agency like ourselves, on the other hand, provides access to a creative director, social media experts, content specialists, and more, at a fraction of the cost that it would take to hire an in-house team.
All the support you need is wrapped up into one monthly flat rate.
As a business owner, one of the first things you’re wondering when you hear about the benefits of outsourced marketing is: How much is this going to cost me? The short answer? It’s cheaper than doing it yourself.
Let’s talk numbers. Our most popular package at Digital Storyteller sits at $5K a month, which totals $60k for the year. Sound like a lot? Let’s consider the cost breakdown of hiring a team of four marketers in-house instead:
Hiring four marketing experts in-house, after salaries and benefits will cost your company $260,000 annually, plus some $16,000 for new hire costs. In just one year, your company has racked up $276,000. That’s only with four experts.
The cost grows as you continue building your own team.
For more scary math, visit this blog post where we break down the cost-benefit of outsourced digital marketing. Wow!
At Digital Storyteller, we make things less scary, which is why our most popular digital marketing package is $60K annually as opposed to $276,000. (Psst… 60k for an entire team that’s dedicated to top-notch marketing for your business is still cheaper than hiring a one full-time in-house SEO expert…)
We’d tell you to do the math, but hey, we’ve already done it for you.
All in all, outsourced marketing is a great, cost-effective way to invest in your company’s marketing efforts.
The benefits of working with an outsourced marketing agency skyrocket even more if you can identify an agency that specializes within your industry. (Even MORE worth it, in our opinion!)
At Digital Storyteller, we prioritize staying up-to-date with the most recent digital marketing trends (as well as financial trends) in order to deliver the best results for our clients. We are constantly testing and implementing new marketing strategies for, specifically, financial service businesses to meet your marketing goals.
Since every client we represent exists within the financial services industry, they all benefit from the ongoing research that we conduct.
Additionally, since we work primarily within the same industry, even when we bring on a client in a slightly different subspecialty, our accumulated knowledge helps us understand your jargon and business quicker than other non-specialized agencies might.
(For our visual friends, at Digital Storyteller, we like to think of our knowledge as a web. Everything starts to connect to something else at some point).
You might have a marketing director or small team working for your business, but chances are, they’re completely overwhelmed. You’re not bringing in the clients or the prospects that you really want, and your message and brand are not being delivered to the world as imagined.
Our team of experts understands the value of consistent content. We handle the backend of your website and design, content, and social media so you can continue to focus on what you do best: building your business.
When you partner with a company like us, it takes the stress off of you and your team. YES, you can finally take that vacation to the Bahamas without worrying about how all of the content on your different platforms will be posted while you’re gone. That’s what we do for you as an outsourced digital marketing agency! (Seriously though, take that vacation).
Since we focus on promoting your business across all platforms, we also make sure we are up-to-date on policy changes so you don’t have to play catch up. As we’ll prove, marketing trends are our forte.
To provide an example, this last year, Instagram announced that they are “no longer just a square photo-sharing app.” They are now, as we’ve seen, prioritizing their focus to shopping and video content.
On our end, to reflect this change, we’ve adjusted our content strategy to make sure the content we produce for you is optimized to its maximum potential. Again, one less thing for you to worry about.
Read on for more digital marketing trends to follow this year.
Don’t let all of your hard work of creating content fall through the cracks of search engines.
SEO is a core foundation of what we do at Digital Storyteller. You might not understand SEO, which in turn might cause you to wonder why we need an entire SEO department dedicated to this effort.
Pushing content that people are actually searching for with the right keywords is more valuable than you’d think. If your content marketing doesn’t involve implementing the right keywords, Google won’t realize that your golden article on ‘The Secret of a Fix and Flip Loan’ is worthy of the top 10-page search results.
At Digital Storyteller, we utilize our resources, like Semrush, Google Analytics, Google Trends, and more, to find important keywords for your business, ensuring they are implemented in your content.
Our SEO department improves the quality and quantity of your content so we write for people and optimize for bots. Without proper search engine optimization, your content is unlikely to end up reaching the right set of eyes.
Our goal is to land you on the top of search engines because we believe in your company as much as you do. We see the value in what you bring to the table and will make sure we give you the tools to broaden your horizon.
Want to meet the brains behind our SEO initiatives at Digital Storyteller? Read on here to meet our SEO Manager.
A dedicated marketing company is a business partner who understands that their success is tied to yours. These types of agencies will provide you with continuous suggestions for improvements and tactics to strengthen your marketing efforts over time. An ideal agency makes it a priority to earn your respect and their position by providing top-tier results.
In a professional partnership, your success is our success and your success is your own success. Whether it’s day one or five years down the road, our goal is to surprise and delight our clients in all aspects.
Have we talked you into outsourcing your marketing yet? Give us a call or shoot us a message to schedule your Brand Storytelling Session today. (Don’t be nervous, you’ll be talking to our awesome owner and CEO, Andrew Marr! His Scottish accent is sure to put a smile on your face).
Read on to learn more about why organic marketing is especially great for financial services companies.
© Digital Storyteller 2024
Delivered right to your inbox (napkins optional)
© Digital Storyteller 2024
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