What are the benefits of a remote marketing director for a small business?
Digital marketing is a challenging field. The frontiers are shifting all the time, and staying up to date with all the latest developments can be a challenge, even for those who work on it full-time. Most company bosses, however, are too busy developing products and hiring new staff to keep up with the latest issues to design a marketing strategy from scratch.
Fortunately, hiring a remote marketing director can solve this problem. Instead of developing a marketing strategy in-house without the relevant expertise, company execs can hand over the process to a skilled and experienced remote director who can put a multi-channel marketing plan into action.
Take a look at all the benefits that hiring a remote marketing director brings.
Benefit #1: Cost Savings
Hiring an on-site marketing director is expensive. Salaries can easily top £85,000 in the UK, and that’s before you take expenses and perks into account, which can add another 20 per cent to the overall cost. Directing marketing efforts is a highly skilled role, and the number of people who can do it effectively is limited.
Remote marketing directors, however, don’t usually cost as much. For starters, you don’t hire a remote marketing director in-house. Instead, the marketing director forms a contractual relationship with you, agreeing to work on specific projects in return for one-off payments or a retainer. The link you have with your marketing director, therefore, is similar to that which you have with your accountant. You use them for their expertise, but then let them get on with work for other clients while you don’t need them.
Sometimes you don’t have to hand over any cash to a remote marketing director at all. Many will provide marketing direction in return for equity in your firm. A profit-sharing or shares scheme can attract talented marketing directors who want to be a part of your success.
Even if you do pay fees, you can often save more than 75 per cent on overall costs by choosing to go remote. Reducing overheads such as pensions, national insurance, benefits and on-site hours can lead to tremendous savings over the long term while you enjoy many of the same rewards as having a similar individual in-house.
Benefit #2: Immediate Access To Expert Knowledge
Learning about the digital marketing landscape is challenging. Not only is it a profoundly technical exercise, but there are a lot of buzzwords and a steep learning curve. Researching and understanding the developments is a challenge unto itself.
Marketing directors, however, can provide you with immediate access to expert knowledge by answering your burning questions and quickly ascertaining whether your current strategy is optimal. A marketing director could potentially save you a vast amount of time, money and effort by steering you away from pursuing marketing dead-ends and pointing you in the direction of strategies that have a good chance of success.
Benefit #3: Experience On The Job
The majority of marketing professionals like to think that they are bona fide gurus, but comparatively few have the kind of experience on the job that’s necessary to know whether a company is making the right decisions about its marketing or not. Remote marketing directors bring this level of professional experience to small businesses without forcing you to pay an extraordinary salary.
A part-time marketing director may also have an extensive network of contacts on which they can draw to leverage the success of your business further. Because remote directors often have a range of clients, they can put your business in contact with potential customers or help your firm’s marketing campaign piggy-back on that of another. Cost-effective marketing teams also bring synergies.
The Skills That A Remote Marketing Director Can Bring
As discussed, there are a host of benefits that remote marketing support can bring. But what specific skills can you expect a marketing director to have?
SEO
The world of SEO changes all the time. Google and other search engines regularly update their algorithms to serve their users better, forcing changes in SEO tactics. Maintaining an SEO friendly website can be challenging. Remote marketing directors stay up to date with all of these changes, putting your company at a competitive advantage. They react to changes as they happen and tailor your approach to the current search landscape, creating relevant content, meta tags, and custom HTML to appeal search engine ranking algorithms. Your remote marketing director can also assist with keyword research, url structure, blog posts and generally building an audience for your company.
PPC
Many small businesses do not have significant organic reach. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is, therefore, a critical part of their marketing mix. Unfortunately, doing effective PPC is no easier than SEO. Again, you need a professional on your team who knows what they’re doing. This is where an experienced remote marketing director can help. A remote CMO can direct analysts, answer your burning Adwords questions, and check whether your campaigns have the desired reach. CMOs don’t just implement campaigns: they test them too, checking that you’re generating a positive ROI for each pound you spend.
Social Strategy
If you’re struggling to figure out how to use social media to the advantage of your firm, then you’re not alone. It’s a tricky game: the difference between success and failure can be a mystery. A remote CMO, however, knows the rules of the game and understands how to attract attention online, without coming across as too “salesy” or overbearing. With a nuanced director of marketing on your team, you’ll be able to adopt a social strategy that is sensitive to your customers and brand identity.
Content Strategy
Content marketing, whether blogs, videos, photo galleries, or podcasts, is essential for engaging with customers and building links to your web pages. Remote marketing directors oversee your content strategy, setting out the general terms for the rest of your team.
Design And Analytics
Knowing whether you’ve designed your website, copy, logo and PPC adverts well is not always apparent. An experienced remote marketing director, however, can provide you with insights and ensure that your design engages with customers. You can then ask them to use analytics to find out how you’re performing and whether you need to make changes.
