When Should A Small Business Hire A Marketer? (And When You Shouldn’t)

As small business owner, you might think that marketing is something you can do by yourself. And, in the early days of your business this might be the case. It’s common to manage everything from posting on social media and website updates to email campaigns and more when you’re running your own business.

However, as your business grows and you become more occupied with customer service, sales and the day to day running of your business, it can become more difficult to manage the marketing yourself. Marketing gets pushed down the list and before you know it, you’re struggling to find time to send out a marketing email or post on social media.

Eventually, you will reach a point where you begin to ask an important question:

Is it time to hire a marketer?

Hiring marketing support is a great way to help you grow your business and continue attracting new customers but it’s important to get the timing right. Hiring support too early might be unnecessary but waiting too long can slow growth down.

Let’s explore more about when a small business should hire a marketer, when you might not need to just yet and how you decide what type of marketing support is right for your business.

Signs your small business should hire a marketer

There are a number of signs that your business might benefit from professional marketing help.

You don’t have time to dedicate to marketing

When your business is busy, one of the first tasks to be put on the back burner is marketing. You might have intentions to post regularly on social media or update the content on your website so it’s SEO friendly but looking after customers and operational tasks naturally come first. Weeks or months can pass without any marketing activity taking place.

If this sounds like you, it could be a sign that your marketing needs dedicated time and expertise. Hiring a marketing allows you to keep your marketing activity consistent, rather than an occasional afterthought, helping you to stay visible and continue attracting new customers.

Your business has slowed down

Another common trigger for business owners hiring marketing support is when growth begins to slow down. Ideally, you need to hire marketing support before you hit this point!

You might have a website, social media and be sending out emails but, without a clear strategy, enquiries and sales might slow down. A marketer can analyse your current activities and help you identify new opportunities with a structured plan.

Even small improvements such as regularly posting on social media channels or improving your website messaging can make a huge difference.

You have something new to share

Marketing is essential if you want to successfully launch a new product or service and for potential customers to know about it. Without a marketing plan in place, new launches can go unnoticed. If you don’t tell anyone about them, they won’t know about it.

Marketing support can help you to provide clear messaging around your new product or service, promote it to the right people and on the right channels. Having marketing support at the launch stage can help you to attract as many new customers as possible.

Your website isn’t generating leads

Your website needs to be engaging to draw people in and turn visitors into enquiries and sales. It might be difficult for customers to find you in the search engines, messaging might be unclear, or the design could be outdated so needs some improvement.

If you don’t have specific marketing knowledge, it can be difficult to know where to start when it comes to updating your website. An expert marketer will review your website and identify the best ways to improve its performance, so it starts to generate leads and sales for your business.

Signs you shouldn’t hire a marketer yet

Marketing support can be extremely valuable for your business, but it might not always be the best option.

You expect instant results

Marketing is not an overnight solution and won’t bring instant results. It should be seen as an investment in the growth of your business and will require time and effort to build momentum.

You don’t have the capacity for more customers

Marketing is a difficult solution. You might not have the budget for marketing activities but marketing would increase revenue and leave more budget for further activities. However, if you start marketing campaigns to gain more customers but you don’t have the capacity or plans for how you will meet this increased demand, it can have an impact on your reputation and be damaging for your business.

Before you hire marketing support, it’s worth looking at whether you have the capacity to service increase demand and whether you have the right systems in place to manage growth.

Sometimes strengthening your operations or getting processes in place first can be more effective than actively driving new leads. Once you have developed these, you’ll feel confident you’ll be able to supply increased demand.

You don’t have the foundations in place

Before you hire a marketer, it can help to have a website in place and clear messaging about your products and services. Without these basics in place, a marketer will need to spend time developing these before any meaningful activity can take place.

While it can be valuable to hire a marketer to take care of these for you, some businesses prefer to establish these themselves before investing in external support.

Why flexible marketing support is ideal for small businesses

For many SMEs, flexible marketing support provides you with the expertise and advice you need without the cost of hiring a full-time employee or paying high agency costs and being tied into expensive retainers.

Calling on the right marketing support when you need it enables you to focus on running your business and maintain consistent activity to generate sales. It also means you can scale your marketing efforts up or down depending on what’s working and the rate at which your business grows.

It also allows you to test different strategies so you can find out what marketing approaches work before you commit to longer term investments.

Is there ever a right time for marketing support?

For most small businesses, there isn’t a right time to hire or invest in marketing support. Instead, it tends to happen when the business reaches a stage where growth and visibility become essential to the future of your business.

In the early stages of your business handling the marketing yourself is the most cost-effective way to shout about your business. It helps you to understand your customers and which channels are best for you. However, as your business grows, marketing becomes more than just an occasional post on social media or quick website updates and requires a more structured approach. Plus, you’ll find that you have less time (if any) to spend on marketing activities.

If you find that marketing tasks are constantly being pushed to the bottom of your list, your website isn’t bringing in any enquiries or your growth has slowed down, these are strong signals that professional marketing support could help you make a difference.

For many small businesses, full time marketing support isn’t the answer and is often too expensive. This is something that can stop many business owners from investing in marketing. Flexible support can provide you with the expertise you need to implement an effective strategy and keep your activities consistent.

At Rent a Marketer, we work with small businesses that need marketing support without the cost or commitment of an in-house employee or expensive agency retainers. We provide support in all aspect of marketing including content and SEO, social media, email marketing and more.

So, if you’re starting to feel that some marketing tasks are overwhelming and being pushed down your list, get in touch with our team or take a look at our services to start marketing your business effectively today.