Small businesses these days find it hard to compete with the big boys for many reasons, not the smallest being the financial aspect.
Large companies seem to be able to hire the best of the best and so are able to launch the best marketing strategy and the best customer service. But the truth is, a small business can do the same for less money – all you have to do is outsource the work.
Outsourcing is where you pay a third party to do an aspect of your business rather than hiring a full-time person. This means that you just pay for the work as and when you need to to be done, not on a monthly basis. You also have access to tens of people per agency who have years of experience in the field.
So here are the areas you should definitely be outsourcing;
Social Media Management
Hiring a freelance writer for your social media can be done in two ways; you can hire someone to write you a block of tweets or statuses which you can post up as and when you want to. Or you can hire them to write your social media as time goes on. The first one can work out cheaper, but the writing would be more general and not react to the news of the day. The second option would be much more relevant. You can find freelancers on sites like Freelancer.com.
Blogging
You can hire one person or go through an agency. This process means that your blogs are written for you in the style of your website and are sent over to you to review and tweak as you want. This doesn’t stop you from writing your own blogs at the same time, but it does mean that if you have other things to do or don’t want to write them at all, you will still have blogs to post on a regular basis.
Marketing
Your marketing strategy is probably something that you want to be involved in, but that doesn’t mean that it has to be done in your office. You might want to create an initial plan yourself, and you can use sites like http://theprauthority.com/marketing-strategy-template/ to help you. But after that plan is made, it might be an idea to contact a marketing agency for advice and to get it off the ground.
Bookkeeping
No one wants to spend their days staring at finances when trying to run a business. You can hire a bookkeeper to keep on top of everything for you. Often you will receive a report weekly if you hire the freelancer full-time, or a report when the work is done if you hire them as a one-off.