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How To Set Up Teams Offshore to Outsource Digital Marketing

How To Set Up Offshore Teams to Outsource Digital Marketing

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With the creation of the World Wide Web, the history of communication, as we know it, has changed forever. There are at present 4.333 billion active internet users across the globe. Let’s learn how to set up offshore teams to outsource digital marketing.

Marketers have been quick to seize this opportunity. Most have migrated online to deliver engaging and innovative messages and content to consumers. So, before we see how we can set up our offshore teams to outsource digital marketing, let’s see how marketing has evolved in the past decade:

Digital Marketers Most Prioritized Future Initiatives

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According to a survey of marketers:

  • 51% of the respondents say that they are prioritizing the use of more data to create customized content that serves the customer journey.
  • More than one-third (37%) of digital marketing executives say that increasing brand awareness and brand health is their top goal for their digital marketing strategy.

Further reports say:

In value terms, about 84.2% of outsourcing deals originated from the United States; followed by the United Kingdom at 5.2%. Also, Spain and Australia are two other key outsourcing markets. 

The various segments of this article are as follows:

a) Present Trends in Marketing

b) Guide to Set-up an Offshore Marketing Team

c) How to Play the Uplers Trump Card

Present Trends in Marketing

This year, some trends you need to know before you set your offshore digital marketing team are:

  • Analytics to predict the likelihood of a new lead making a purchase decision.
  • Smart, automated Ad bidding.
  • A more interactive e-mail experience.
  • Multi-channel social messaging.
  • Integrating voice search capabilities.

Most of the above combine smart new ways of using data with automation and structured interactions.

To take full advantage of these and more emerging opportunities, a professional and experienced digital marketing team is essential. 

The Rise in Offshore Outsourcing Digital Marketing

The Rise in Offshoring Digital Marketing

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There are many companies that prefer to outsource digital marketing. After all, if you are restricted by expertise, software, and the number of hours you can leverage, digital marketing efforts become sub-optimal.

Moreover:

  • The right digital professionals are always in demand, and they are not easy to find.
  • There is also the issue of resources, both when it comes to regular salaries as well as office space and the latest technology.

Among the advantages of outsourcing are:

  • Access to a specialized team that can often produce deliverables faster than an in-house team.
  • Constructive marketing strategies combined with effective implementation and execution.
  • The benefits of the latest technology and software to promote your marketing message in the most up-to-date manner.

The decision to go in for offshore outsourcing can lead to:

  • Lower overheads with cost-efficiency
  • Increased growth and time to focus on overall company goals.
  • Greater attention to service quality for high-quality and effective work.

A Guide to Understanding and Setting Up A Digital Marketing Team

It’s essential to understand how to organize and manage your outsourced marketing team for the best results. Here, we’ll break down the key elements of doing this.

In essence, the main factors to keep in mind are:

  1. The roles played by the members of a digital marketing team.
  2. The different ways that organizations structure their digital marketing departments.
  3. Some best practices to follow when you plan to outsource digital marketing to an offshore team.

1. Digital Marketing Team Personnel

Consumers interact in different ways with search engines, social media, e-mail, and websites. Thus, the online channels used by digital marketers to reach out to consumers have varying characteristics. 

The ways in which consumers browse the net have also changed. There are a variety of smartphones, TVs, laptops, desktops, and tablets.

digital marketing outsourcing tasks main

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This means that there are many specialized roles needed for an effective outsourced marketing team to operate. 

Data analysis, creating and designing messages, placing and tracking them, and examining new ways to reach out, are simply a few of them.

Here are some of the essential roles to keep in mind when outsourcing digital marketing:

Project Manager

  • A project manager is a link between the outsourced marketing team and the organization.
  • He has to understand the requirements from the campaign brief and ensure that the digital team delivers.
  • In most cases, the project manager is a generalist who has the ability to weave together the work of specialists.

Strategist

  • The strategist’s role is to understand consumer behavior.
  • The job includes using data and research to map the buying process, explore new opportunities, and come up with relevant insights.
  • The strategist also checks whether the final campaign has the required relevance in the marketplace for optimum PPC management.

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Content Writer
  • There could be one or multiple content writers in a team based on need.
  • The writer should understand the copy requirements of blogs, websites, e-mails, and social media.
  • They should ideally have some SEO knowledge and be experienced in writing for multiple outlets.
Graphic Designer
  • Graphic designers use typefaces, patterns, photographs, and colours to make your message distinctive.
  • Other visual elements and infographics are also used to condense information and make it easily comprehensible.
SEO Specialist
  • SEO specialists use analytic tools and techniques to figure out what your consumer is searching for online.
  • After this, content can be tailored to show up in search results. They also conduct SEO and keyword audits to optimize results.

Pay-per-click Manager

  • Sometimes, advertisers pay web publishers only when links are clicked upon. That’s where pay-per-click managers come in.
  • Such managers will use tools to monitor, test, and update content and results from SEM services.

Front-end Developer

  • Front-end developers are responsible for transforming data and content into what the consumers actually see on the interface.
  • They build landing pages and design other elements such as pop-ups.
  • The best developers will use the latest software to create immersive and flexible user experiences.

ux ui outsourcing stats for outsourcing tips

Social Media and E-mail Specialists

  • These specialists have a high degree of consumer-centric thinking and experience with automated tools
  • They combine consumer insights with analytics and online technology to reach out to consumers in effective ways.

2. Types of Digital Marketing Team Models

There are various ways of working with an outsourced marketing team. A lot depends on the specific marketing needs, as well as the resources available. The size of the company also plays a role. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. 

Here are three common types to explore.

  • The Freelancer Model – Freelancing is one of the most popular business models for a major chunk of outsourced requirements. The costs are lower, and there is a wide pool of talent to choose from. But one of the biggest drawbacks of freelancing for businesses is the lack of reliability. Security concerns are also an issue.
  •  The Project-based Model – This is also referred to as the Shared Team Model. There are cost and scalability advantages to this approach. However, a lack of dedicated resources can mean a lack of commitment and less control over the project.
  • The Dedicated Team Model – This is seen as the most advantageous model of offshore outsourcing, with a high degree of control. With a project manager who is committed to your needs, it is virtually like having an in-house team. The level of control is high, thereby leading to a long-term understanding and relationship.

table for project-based vs dedicated team model outsourcing

Which model to go for depends entirely on your needs at this point in time. Some points to check are:

  • Is it a one-off project, such as a new website? Or is it a continuing series of tasks?
  • Should your outsourced marketing team be confined to a few streams, or should it have as wide a reach as possible?
  • Are you planning to grow your digital marketing efforts over the years?

The answers to the above questions will help you decide which model is best for you.

3. Best Practices for Working with an Offshore Digital Marketing Agency

When you outsource digital marketing, you could well be working with a team that is not in the same location. What, then, is the best way to set up an offshore outsourcing team? 

In a nutshell, these are the six aspects you ought to keep in mind:

  • Overcome time zone concerns
  • Check expertise and experience
  • Be clear about requirements
  • Use the right communication tools
  • Establish proper feedback systems
  • Lay down progress parameters

Let’s break them down, one by one.

Overcome Time Zone Barriers

Many companies have apprehensions about dealing with people who are in another time zone. However, no matter what the difference in hours, there are ways for you to not only overcome it and also gain from it. 

  • You can set up a system that makes use of overlapping hours. This time can be spent in face-to-face video contacts, phone calls, and other direct communication.
  • Shared calendars, prioritized requirements, and specific tasks can be allocated, which can be worked on without your direct involvement.

7 Proven Ways to Manage Team Performance to manage team performance offshore teams

A good way to look at it is: you can actually take advantage of all the 24 hours in a day, as there will always be an expert working on your marketing task.

Check Expertise and Experience

There are several types of offshore marketing agencies in several countries. Before you sign a contract with one of them, you should make sure that they are capable of delivering the goods. 

Here are some starting points:

  • Ask questions about what software and specialists the agency has access to.
  • What automated tools do they use to manage social media, SEO, online ad auctions, consumer feedback, and more? How do they generate cutting-edge insights?
  • Check their portfolio to see the kind of work they have done in the past. Does this sync with your needs and requirements?
  • If yours is a specialized business, does the agency have experience in handling work in this domain?

The above should give you an excellent idea about whether the agency is right for your needs. 

Be Clear About Requirements

The best offshore digital marketing agencies can work like extensions of your own company. They can be valuable partners in growing your business.

For this to happen, however, there should be clarity at the outset about their roles and responsibilities. 

outsourcing tips for what to outsource and what not to outsource

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Depending on your needs, the agency can bring together the right combination of skills, after understanding your necessities. 

Given the many specialists that are needed for properly outsourcing digital marketing, the clearer you are about requirements, the more the agency will be able to provide the right skills to create a team that’s right for you.

Use the Right Communication Tools

As we’ve seen, seamless marketing communication is a key element in working with an outsourced marketing team. Fortunately, there are several tools for this.

  • E-mail is best suited for summing up discussions, minutes, action points, and forthcoming schedules. It keeps communication costs low and allows teams the flexibility to access messages from anywhere in the world.
  • Live chat can often provide instant clarifications. Pain points can be quickly taken care of, with fast problem resolution.
  • Videoconferencing is perfect for group meetings and discussions involving all members. Many videoconferencing applications nowadays have advanced collaboration features that even allow for file-sharing, across multiple platforms.
  • There are also other tools such as Slack, which is an integrated messaging app that connects conversations with tools to streamline and increase productivity.

Many times, the digital marketing agency can itself suggest the best communication processes, based on earlier experience.

Establish Proper Feedback Systems

In order to check progress and carry out course-corrections for a project, if any, a proper feedback system needs to be in place. 

The feedback can be targeted at certain actionable issues. It should be specific, and on time for the team to act on it.

With good feedback, you can:

  • Clarify goals, criteria, and standards.
  • Encourage motivation and self-esteem.
  • Provide relevant information for the way ahead.
Lay Down Progress Parameters

An effective way of managing and staying in control of a large task is to break it down into a series of smaller projects. This, along with periodical reviews, will ensure that it is on track and is successful.

In this way, you can create project milestones as a series of small achievements. The milestones should represent a sequence of events that build up until the current project is complete.

This will help to manage expectations as well as provide enough time for course corrections if any.

4. Digital Marketing Tasks that Need Regular Attention

With the above, you’ll be well on your way to getting the best results from an offshore digital marketing team. Over and above this, there are other functional areas to which you can pay regular attention. 

Some of these are:

  • Cost management, to ensure that the scope of the project is within the parameters that have been initially laid down.
  • Risk management, so that you are able to identify and evaluate any potential risks that may come up. With this, you can minimize as well as monitor and control their impact.
  • Knowledge transfer management, in order to codify and distribute information for future use within the organization.
  • Relationship management, for the collaboration to be continually fruitful and lead to a win-win situation across the board.

By following the above practices, you can get the best from your offshore outsourcing team. After all, the pace of innovation and change is growing daily, and your company should not be the one to be left behind.

With offshore outsourcing, you gain the strategic advantage of having a prepared and specialized team available. New approaches can be profitably explored, and new strategies and technology exploited to successfully reach out to consumers.

How to Play the Uplers Trump Card

At Uplers, we have rich experience in white label digital marketing services. We’ve worked with a variety of companies across domains, with skills across the spectrum.

Such cross-functional and cross-industry experience allows us to create comprehensive strategies based on a variety of businesses and industries.

Some of our specializations include web development, digital marketing, and marketing automation. From front-end development to e-mail marketing to programmatic advertising and much more, we create winning end-to-end campaigns.

If you’d like to know more about how you can use our expertise to your advantage, do get in touch today. We’ll be only too happy to help.

How digital agencies can outsource digital marketing efficiently

How Digital Agencies Can Outsource Digital Marketing Efficiently

Digital agency owners are often trammeled in relation to the work they have at hand and how much of it they can get around to doing. The need to outsource digital marketing is a trend they increasingly see themselves adopting, as almost 45% of survey respondents from a Merkle study confirmed the same.

What factors have led to this trend?

In an industry where a host of advancements are the casual order of the day, digital agencies have to repeatedly bank on outsourcing jobs to regulate unmanageable work streams. In fact, outsourcing has become such a frequent sanctum for digital agencies that 57% of participants from a survey carried out by Econsultancy were found to outsource work to other agencies, specialist digital production companies, or freelancers.

An interesting trend observed in this practice has been of white-labeling a third-party agency, with 40% of firms choosing them over freelancers, while freelancers enjoyed the attention of 53% of digital agencies wanting to outsource digital marketing work.

Outsourcing can not only help you cut costs but also increase the cumulative skill set of resources that you have at your disposal. It’s the reason why almost 37% of small businesses outsource as much as 34% of their marketing responsibilities.

Challenges While Outsourcing Digital Marketing

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While outsourcing does help firms gain their money’s worth, its nature means that agencies often have to take it with a grain of salt. Oftentimes, collaborating with an outstation partner, takes a toll on productivity as a result of many issues, chief of which are:

  • Finding the right partner
  • Ineffective communication
  • Reduced transparency
  • Language barriers
  • Understanding the scope of work
  • Cultural differences

However, despite the cons of outsourcing, its pros more than makeup for it. And even as shifts in trends are predicted to occur over the next 12 months, it seems that outsourcing is still going to be a tour de force for the coming times.

4 Intangible Benefits of Outsourcing

The advantages of investing in the services of offshore service providers are many, with 74% of organizations claiming reduced costs and long-term savings as the defining factor. On the other hand, 60% of businesses cited staff flexibility as a driving factor.

Intangible Benefits of Outsourcing Digital Marketing

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Whatever the reason be, it can’t be denied that outsourcing is a clever decision that can not only help you attain results quicker but can also reduce the resources expended from your end. Here, we will look at four intangible benefits that outsourcing carries for a business.

1. Have Experts at your Disposal

Outsourcing your needs to a digital agency or contact center companies will result in your marketing strategy being carried out by seasoned experts. In fact, 45% of organizations admitted that their reason to outsource was to gain better access to a wider variety of skill sets and portfolios.

Having a dedicated offshore partner that specializes as a digital production agency means you have a dedicated SEO expert, analytics expert, UX specialists, content planners and curators, designers, and more. With such experts at hand, you can derive a holistic work plan that delivers consistent results across all experiences.

2. Keep Up with Trends

Outsourcing digital marketing needs to a digital agency also means that you remain abreast of all the latest trends in the industry and that your marketing efforts are thoroughgoing.

Offshore marketing partners invest a lot of time in learning the newest trends and enhancing their existing skillset and strategies. In fact, 66% of marketers have admitted that they rely on such strategies, which, when carried out by a team employed exclusively for your needs can result in better adaptation to the trends of the market.

3. Augmented Potential with a Remote Team Model

Outsourcing can also augment your team’s potential indefinitely via a remote team model and reduce the pitfalls of large volumes of work. You can mutually agree with offshore partners for working remotely, effectively setting up an outstation development center that can save you costs on:

  • Infrastructure
  • Employee training and benefits
  • Overhead costs
  • Investing in newer technologies

In congruence with the above, there are three main benefits that an offshore remote team can provide, these include:

  • Reduced Expenses: You can save capital on recruiting skilled professionals as the outsourcing team will supply your staff needs.
  • Flexible Interaction: You can determine the workload for the dedicated remote team and oversee their activities while having full control of them.
  • Better Staff Management: You can recalibrate the team strength according to your needs by supplementing or dismissing staff members on previously agreed terms.

 

Best Remote Teams

4. Outside Insight

While designing your product, you often look at things from a peephole and tend to miss out on finer details. Outsourcing to an offshore service provider can enable you with the perspective of an expert outsider, and you can accordingly galvanize your marketing efforts on the basis of your newly acquired insight.

How to Make Outsourcing Work for You

If you are a small business and are cash-strapped, investing money into a remote team to handle your marketing efforts is the best way to go. Here are four things you need to look for in an offshore partner to make outsourcing work for you.

1. Solves Capacity Problems

An offshore partner should be able to supplement your capacity requirements if you are strapped for it. In fact, 45% of executives claimed that they worked with outsourcing partners that helped them solve capacity issues.

2. Assures English Proficiency

Despite being one of the easiest and most outsourced aspects of outsourcing at 18%, content needs shouldn’t be taken lightly. Ensure to outsource digital marketing to a provider that assures English proficiency because having to constantly edit your publications can cause you delays in your time to market.

3. Engages In-house Team

Take care to choose an outsourcing partner that works well with your in-house team because exporting too many jobs can alienate them and result in a loss of engagement.

4. Offers Work Samples

Transcosmos reported that as many as 89% of clients are satisfied with their outsourcing efforts. To ensure that you fall in the same bracket, ask for case studies and work samples of your prospective outsourcing collaborators before finalizing the agreement.

What Next: The Future of Outsourcing for Agencies

Digital is the future of outsourcing. More and more agencies are going to increasingly use digital systems to offer better services. With the way outsourcing is evolving, it’s going to make way for several trends, chief of which are:

  • As processes drive businesses more than price, outsourcing relationships will become more systematized.
  • Startups, SOHOs, and small businesses will see higher adoption of outsourcing to contain operational inefficiencies.
  • Critical business functions will see higher outsourcing while the same for low-end services will stabilize.
  • Cost pressures will give rise to personalized outsourcing contracts flexible in their SLAs and delivery scope.
  • As businesses shift to cloud outsourcing, development and support costs will rise.

Signing Off

Utilizing the expertise and support of a performance-driven agency can revolutionize your business and its growth potential. Consider revising your marketing plan and choosing an outsourcing expert specializing in the task you want to export.

Why it Makes Sense for Startups to Outsource Digital Marketing large

Why it Makes Sense for Startups to Outsource Digital Marketing Services?

Approximately over 543,000 startups are launched every single month. On the contrary, 90% of the startups are likely to fail within 10 years of their journey. You might have the greatest startup idea, but you need the right digital marketing strategy to break out of this high-risk phase.

58% of startups invest about 75% of their total yearly marketing budget to digital marketing, so to break out of the high business competition in the early phase. But, does it help them succeed?

Well, 37% of startups try to manage their digital marketing strategies themselves despite having no background experience. And this is one of the most crucial reasons why new businesses fail.

What is a Possible Solution?

small-businesses-outsource-digital marketing

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Outsourcing digital marketing to a specialized digital marketing agency for startups.

But, does it make sense for startups to outsource their digital marketing services? Here are the reasons for the same:

Top 7 Reasons for Startups to Outsource Digital Marketing Services

1. Minimizing the Risk of Campaign Failure

65% of new businesses have never had a defined digital marketing training and are absolute amateurs to the ever-changing paid marketing landscape. While a specialized outsourcing agency is backed by paid marketing experts have years of experience in the domain.

From defining the right target audience, planning the right campaign strategy, to executing a strategically planned campaign, a specialized agency minimizes the risk of campaign failure. Outsourcing digital marketing services to an agency or business makes them accountable to draw you return from paid campaigns and measure the success of your business and campaigns.

2. Defining the Right Roles for Your Digital Marketing Team

Most startups lead with an incompetent or poorly-structured in-house digital marketing team that consists of a paid marketer, SEO copywriter and a graphic designer. But, this small team may fail to meet the aggressive marketing goals a startup may need in its initial phase. On the other end, a specialized digital marketing agency for startups can help you build a well-structured marketing team. This includes an SEO specialist, a PPC manager, a graphic designer, a front-end developer, a social media specialist, a content marketer, and a marketing strategist. A self-sufficient marketing team means boosted marketing efforts.

3. Drawing Evident Results in Rankings & Conversions

outsourcing digital marketing for startups

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63% of startups have their primary goal to acquire new customers and business opportunities through their digital marketing strategies. But on the contrary, 71% of startups lead without a documented digital strategy. Outsourcing digital marketing services to a specialized agency can help startups lead with a result-focused strategy. Further, the agency is responsible for tracking and reporting the results and conversions, to better analyze your ROIs.

4. Employing Efficient Multi-channel Marketing

A common flaw in the marketing strategy of startups is that they either use too many digital channels or stick to a single channel. In the wake of attracting traffic and raising brand awareness over different platforms, new businesses employ directionless strategies. While outsourcing to experts can help startups utilize the perks of multi-channel marketing. E-commerce startups leverage multi-channel marketing to multiply their sales by up to 3 times. Multi-channel marketing campaigns can help you reach a larger audience in a more effective way.

5. Focus on Core Business Activities

Benefits-of-outsourcing digital mareting for startups

Time-management is a critical factor when it comes to deciding the success of a startup business. Outsourcing digital marketing services to an agency helps you focus on your core business activities. The agency manages your strategy, execution, analytics, and conversions. You just have to take a look at reports and plan on your future goals. You do not have to worry about the monthly marketing plans, campaign performance, rankings, and website traffic.

6. Better Budget Control

When startups decide to do their digital marketing themselves, they need to plan and hire a marketing team in-house. This means long-term budget planning including considerations like payroll, employee benefits, and investment on infrastructure. Moreover, a startup business has a lower investment potential and outsourcing can be a better budget control option. Furthermore, outsourcing can help startups minimize the risk of loss of investment.

 

Outsource Digital Marketing

7. Leveraging Offshoring Benefits

Startups based in tier 1 countries like the US, UK, and Australia, find it hard to invest in a dedicated in-house marketing team because of the high resource hiring cost. Here, if the startups find a reliable outsourcing partner in tier 2 or tier 3 countries they could save a great deal of money in their digital marketing investments.

Closing Thoughts

Today, almost 34% of small businesses outsource their digital marketing services and this rate is rising each year. Further, there are various other alternatives to outsourcing, one of which is hiring a dedicated digital marketing team. This model can give you better control over your digital marketing activities than project-based outsourcing. A startup business witnesses the highest risk of business failure due to lower investment potential and low brand awareness. This is the reason why most startups spend above 50% of their total budget on sales and marketing.