Posts Tagged ‘outsourcing’

Social Media: Can It Be Outsourced?

Friday, January 30th, 2009

There are a lot of things that can be outsourced, but many people wonder about social media. After all, it`s a more personal venue, so is it something that can be turned over to a professional?

The answer is yes. However, you need to be very careful about how you do this. Because social media is more personal, you can`t just expect someone else to fill your shoes, so you will probably want to keep your finger on the pulse and keep doing some of your own social networking.

What I would suggest is setting up a business account at any and all social media sites that you want to belong to. This would include places like StumbleUpon, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. A business account isn`t quite as personal and you`ll be able to outsource most of it. A few examples of things someone else can do for you:

  • Send out links to new blog posts.
  • Connect with others on the social media site
  • Reply to comments
  • Comment on other profiles
  • Release news updates
  • Bookmark other people to catch their attention
  • Update profile
  • Add product photos or links to a page

Social networking and social media can end up taking up a lot of your valuable time, so it`s often worth it to see if you can outsource this type of task.

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Business Writing: Why Outsource It

Wednesday, January 28th, 2009

Business writing is something that most business owners are able to do. We all learned how to write a formal business letter in high school and most of us still retain the basics of that training. Plus, there are samples online that you can take a look at. So many small business owners don`t even consider hiring out their business writing, which is a huge mistake.

There are several reasons you should consider business writing if you are a small business owner.

Money. Yes, you have to spend money to have someone else do the writing, but chances are it will end up being cheaper in the long run. It`s very tempting to do everything yourself, but if you can focus on the more specialized tasks, this will earn more money over time.

Expertise. Sure, you can write a formal letter, but is it a good one? Will it convince people to do what you want them to? A professional business writer will be able to craft a message that most laypeople would have difficulties creating.

Time. There is not enough time in the day to get everything you need to done. That`s why it`s important to realize this early on and start outsourcing so you can get it all finished. Otherwise, without help, you`ll find that you are running around and always behind, not a good way to run a business!

Outsourcing your business writing is a good idea, but it`s not the only thing that can be done by someone else. Look at all the tasks you have to get done in a day and then figure out which ones you could let someone else do for you. You`ll be more relaxed and still get more done.

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Business Writing: It Pays to Outsource

Tuesday, October 28th, 2008

No one is able to be an expert in everything and business writing is no exception. While every business owner should be able to write a decent letter, when it comes to crafting proposals or other extremely important papers, it pays to hire a professional.

A professional writer can provide you with the following in your business writing:

  • Proper grammar
  • Correct business writing formats
  • Professional language
  • Rapid service
  • Full proofreading

Hiring someone who already has the necessary experience can be a good way to go if you are hesitant about business writing yourself. While most people can get the basics down easily enough, it`s often worth it to outsource this type of work to speed up productivity and produce more professional business writing.

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Business Writing: It Pays to Outsource

Thursday, October 2nd, 2008

Business writing is one of those things that many people can manage if they really put their minds to, but few enjoy it. The majority of small business owners find that it simply isn`t worth their time to be typing painstakingly on their brochures, flyers and letters. Instead, outsourcing is a good way to go.

Why outsource your business writing? Well, you can get more done, for one. How long would it take you to write up a business letter? Let`s say a decent sized letter takes you 30 min. That`s an entire half hour that you aren`t spending doing something more useful! And if you cost it out, you`ll find that a freelance business writer will actually be far more cost effective, as well.

More and more small businesses are realizing the importance of outsourcing at least a bit of their work and things like data entry and business writing are usually at the top of the list, since these are things that can easily be done by anyone and usually at a lower cost than you could do yourself.

In addition, most people find that professional writers are better able to write these things than they can themselves. The end quality is far higher than those that are written in-house.

Are you doing your own business writing? Could it be time to delegate this to someone else?

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E-mail Marketing: In-House Or Outsource?

Saturday, July 19th, 2008

Erica DeWolf conducted an informal survey about e-mail marketing preferences among companies to see if they preferred to hire someone to do their e-mail marketing in-house or hire an outside agency to handle their e-mail marketing. With only 18 responses, it’s difficult to get an accurate reading of the results, but there may be enough information here to get a good look at what other businesses want to do with their e-mail marketing.

Erica’s survey doesn’t say what size companies responded to the survey. I suspect that larger businesses would have responded differently to the survey than smaller businesses, but the results are interesting:

60% of the respondents said they currently outsource their e-mail marketing but 50% of the respondents said they’d prefer to keep it in-house. Erica’s survey results don’t say what the crossover is among that 60% and 50% of survey participants (Are they the same people? Is there only a 10% overlap? A 25% overlap? That would be interesting to know).

I would have to slightly disagree with some of Erica’s conclusions, specifically about saving money and branding. It might seem like it will be less expensive to hire someone to manage your e-mail marketing, but that really depends on how much e-mail marketing you do. If you don’t do a lot then it might actually be less expensive to outsource it depending on your agency’s fees. If you hire a full-time campaign manager then you’ll have to pay salary and possibly benefits. You do need to factor perks and benefits into the cost equation of your marketing expense (Do you provide vacation and sick days? Insurance and medical benefits? Other perks? All of those are a part of your expenses so include them in your figuring). You won’t have to pay outside agencies any benefits or provide insurance, which could reduce your expenses.

On branding, an outside agency that specializes in e-mail marketing can be just as adept at taking your branding and including it in your e-mail marketing efforts. A marketing agency that does this full time knows how to work with companies in that manner and can be just as effective as an in-house marketing manager.

When it comes to e-mail marketing, an in-house manager might work for you, but outsourcing can be the best option for some as well. You have to do the research and make that determination for your business.

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