Disclaimer:These are entirely my views and no way am I aware of this company’s working and marketing. I have used this example to highlight the challenge for a small/medium business and suggest a solution that might work for them to begin with.
I selected this client because just a few days ago as I saw them advertise for a Manager position and then later changed to reflect a dumb-down version of the same job and advertise as an Expert ( read non-manager). Which in hindsight I think is a very good idea, because they did not need a Manager, the work they have is very basic. While this might be a very good idea, it does not necessarily work. It only prolongs the imminent death of a business. Why I say that? For no other reason than a basic one. A non-performing resource will discourage a small business owner and perhaps inhibit them from leveraging digital marketing in the right way. Now you would ask if I believe that young digital marketers with very little experience are unable to deliver? My answer to this is NO. Contrary to what you may think my view is that, for a small business who is in a romance phase with digital marketing, and are looking to leverage digital as a stepping stone, they need to learn from an established mindset and think further.
While Digital Marketing in its current form today is fairly easy and can be taught to a junior person in a short time, the value produced by that position is always doubtful. While businesses may or may not understand this they are still forced to think with a mindset that seeks resources to match their budget. And such a business that works with a mindset of saving and not growth at its forefront is bound to have challenges in near future. Furthermore, increasing competition, lowering barriers to entry, reducing prices and cost of resources are all putting immense pressure on small businesses. In addition, the Digital Marketing industry has moved away from providing the “early adopter’ advantage to a widely competitive “me too” state.
It is this scenario that will allow only brands to survive. And Brands are built by expert teams. And with no expert teams and only generalists with limited experience has led to a precarious position for small businesses in Australia. It has become imperative for businesses to get all things right as well as executed optimally to produce marketing that differentiates them from others. And this calls for various experts and not many generalists.While big brands and marketing companies with extensive budget are able to do this, the small and medium businesses are still trying to work out a solution for themselves.
And for this very reason I think the solution lies in the use of a mix of on-shore and off-shore outsourcing. It is also about time for Marketing to take leadership as a department and overcome what it has lagged in the past. Marketing today needs to leverage the savings from a this new process and not shield itself in name of cultural differences or alluding to this new system not being close to customer.
It is to show how a small business can overcome such objections and build an off-shore model is what I am hoping to achieve in this article. Lets look at this recent job posting in Melbourne, Australia.
I have tried to breakdown the work involved, classify it as strategic/executions based ( read as needing local know-how or not) to evaluate how this can be carried out more efficiently. And I must admit, this is what I do as a business, putting a team together ( combination of on-shore and off-shore ) to drive VALUX DIGITAL MARKETING.
So this job above can be easily broken down as:
1. Someone who makes updates of content on the website ( non-strategic, execution work)
2. Creates Image edits ( non-strategic and execution)
3. Puts posts together on social media websites ( limited value derived from organic )
4. Sets up campaigns on Google ( you need someone with slight experience and basic one time strategic information but can be easily learned and executed anywhere)
5. Campaigns on Facebook ( some experience needed, but can be easily learned and executed anywhere)
6. Newsletters -creation, and delivery ( after initial strategic work, most can be done overseas with some local /on-shore management)
7. Reporting and Measurement ( all off-shore)
8. Creative production ( digital or print) ( offshore as on-shore team can provide brief)
9. Client interactions ( strategic and execution based) – ( totally onshore, however dependent on size of business can be optimized)
10. Product Insight and Market Insights ( strategic)
Now when you look at top 8 things, all can be done effectively through an outsourced team at half the cost. Additionally, you also bring in the value of faster execution and expert team ( a team with experience of working on multiple clients spending say 10 x every month vs one client spending just x)
The last 2 items on the list are both done internally. This can be done by the existing workforce by perhaps incentivizing the current employee to take additional responsibility. Innovation for small business comes from using the efficient processes that are already existing or creating. These are just examples of a very simple businesses. However such models can be applied to various businesses of varying sizes.
If you need a complete cost – analysis of such a position as advertised by below business, send me a message, with your email, phone number and a good time to call. And I can assure you that you would at least see 50% improvement of deliverables over your current process and another 50% in cost, if you can embody this new marketing order.