Your Small Business Guide to Building A Successful Digital Marketing Team this 2021

By: Paolo Arguelles

Did you know that the digital era started just under 40 years ago? Since the birth of the internet four decades ago, technology and digital marketing team have evolved by leaps and bounds. A lot of revolutionary and innovative advancements have taken over the world, especially in business. This, in turn, brought significant improvements in work operation efficiency and accessibility.

Startups and small businesses flourished over the years with the help of technology and the internet. While there are many factors to consider, we cannot deny that easier access to a bigger audience is a primary contributor for growth. Strategic digital marketing gave numerous small businesses and startups a much-needed boost in reach and accessibility.

Digital marketing allows you to quickly and efficiently build your business operations and audience online. However, given how fast strategies and tech evolve in this space, small business owners usually find it challenging to keep up on top of managing their day-to-day.

Every day, more and more businesses of all sizes adapt digital marketing to stay competitive. Small companies and startups need to do so as well.

To not miss out on the benefits a robust online presence can bring your company, explore building a lean but mean marketing team. It might seem daunting to invest in hiring more staff, but with the right strategy and partner, you can get the best ROI for your investment.

If you are just starting to build your marketing team, you need to be strategic and efficient with your hiring. Focus on getting high-value talent for your first few hires so you can establish a solid foundation for your strategies and processes. Otherwise, the whole effort might end up costing you valuable resources without bringing your desired results.

Small Business Hassles of Building A Marketing Team

Most startups that forego having a dedicated digital marketing team tend to do so because of limited resources. Here are some of the challenges businesses encounter when trying to go at it alone: 

Recruitment & Onboarding

Setting up an in-house marketing team has its own benefits and challenges. While it gives you complete control and visibility over your staff, the responsibility and costs of recruiting and onboarding also fall on your desk. Wearing multiple hats can be stressful and tedious, but it’s essential to keep a close eye on balancing your recruitment and financial budgets, given that 82% of failed SMBs and startups pointed at cash flow problems. Aside from that, you have to vet hires thoroughly because each bad hire costs valuable and limited resources.

Marketing Strategy Efficiency

Without a dedicated digital marketing team, your marketing efforts can lack focus. This makes your marketing spend less efficient, costing your business more than it should. Marketing experts can ensure that campaigns are well-directed, messaging is consistent across platforms, and your business reputation stays solid and positive solid online. 

Lack of High-Quality Content

Creating content is a labor-intensive and time-consuming process that requires storytellers and artists to produce. Leaving this tedious work to the experts leads to high-quality marketing materials that improve customer engagement and conversion rates. Content creation is vital now more than ever due to the competitive digital marketing space, adding to the list of reasons why SMBs must set up a creative team.

Unoptimized Website

Creating an online presence for startups begins with the business website. About 85% of consumers are more likely to purchase from a business with an excellent online reputation and website performance. It’s a full-time job to create, maintain, and manage an effective site. On top of that, there are search engine optimization tasks that you need to work on consistently to bring in traffic and potential customers.

These are just some of the struggles small businesses face when trying to take on marketing themselves. In this day and age, it’s vital to recruit a complete digital marketing team to stay competitive. By handing over these tasks to specialists, SMB owners can free up their time to focus on growing their business.

However, you do not have to invest in multiple new hires at once. Small businesses should get key marketing roles first and expand the team once more funds become available. To kickstart your marketing recruitment, we will discuss the marketers that should be on top of your priority list.

2021 Digital Marketing Team Lineup for SMBs

Small businesses generally have 2 to 500 employees or less than $10 million in annual revenue. Knowing your business category is critical for business operations, especially when planning out your recruitment strategies.

Should you decide to start building your digital marketing team, explore starting out with these ideal first three hires:

• Marketing Manager

  

Like any other team, your digital marketing experts need a leader to keep everyone on track. Marketing managers have a variety of responsibilities beyond trying to sell a product or a service. Beyond developing and executing campaigns or producing content, a Marketing Manager is critical in ensuring your operations and bottom-line stay well-taken care of. They set the budgets for marketing campaigns, negotiate with suppliers and third-party agencies, prepare sales and advertising initiatives, and review marketing performance to identify cost-effective strategies.

These high-level management responsibilities affect the business finances and outlook. Typically, Marketing Managers have ten or more years in the industry, well-versed and experienced in various strategies and industries. Hiring one in-house might require a small business to set aside a substantial package, so even with the struggle, most small business owners take up the mantle during the initial stages.

• Web Designer / SEO Specialist

  

Of all the digital assets a startup should have, a good website is one of the most important. Serving as your business’ home online, your website can educate, inspire, entertain, and convert visitors and prospects.

A well-structured, organized, and user-friendly website works best in attracting and converting potential customers and leads to stay on your site. For this, you need a skilled web designer.

Creating the ideal website is only the first step. Maintaining your business site’s visibility and supporting web pages should be your next priority if a robust online presence is your goal. When people search for products and services, the results on the web search engines must lead directly to you. To achieve that, you need an SEO specialist.

Fortunately, an SEO practitioner does not have to work physically in your office to get the job done. There are highly-skilled and well-experienced SEO experts in Southeast Asia ready to work remotely for your small business.

While web design and SEO are two different disciplines, some high-value marketers have the skills and knowledge to excel in both roles.

• Marketing Specialist

  

With limited resources, multi-talented hires are extremely valuable for small businesses and startups. This is why modern digital marketers are in demand, especially those who can do creative tasks like graphic design and writing, along with strategic and technical work like campaign development, SEO, and web development.

Nowadays, adaptability and flexibility reign supreme, especially as marketing tactics and trends stay ever-evolving.

You have to ask yourself, what do you need from a digital marketer?

Modern digital marketers are like swiss-knives for your company. Able to work across various functions, they are high-value hires that businesses of all sizes are looking to get. The right recruitment partner can find one of these gems for your small business.

Creating More Room for the Future

Startups and SMBs understandably need to be smart with their spending, which is why most limit their digital marketing hires. However, studies all point towards business digitalization, so business owners should look ahead and prepare to expand their marketing teams in the future.

Who Else Do You Need for the Marketing Team?

Adding more experts to your marketing team can multiply your company’s growth rate. Gather and identify all the marketing roles you need and plot out a recruitment plan to balance your expansion with your resources.

What if Hiring In-house is Not Yet an Option?

There are cost-effective options available for startups and small businesses looking to grow their marketing department while saving on costs.

There’s a significant investment that typically goes into growing a team and a business. Fortunately, outsourcing and offshoring companies can take the hassle out of business owners’ hands.

The Philippines, an outsourcing giant, can provide highly skilled remote marketers while helping your small business save costs. The country also boasts of offshore companies backed by government support, making it an ideal place to find talented professionals for every business function, even beyond digital marketing.

Conclusion

Digital marketing can be a game-changer for your small business, allowing you to compete with your most established rivals in the digital world. However, you can only achieve that by overcoming the obstacles that SMBs must face when creating a successful digital marketing team.

If you are looking to save costs, then offshoring to the Philippines can be your best course of action. In iSupport Worldwide, we want to ensure that you get the remote digital marketers tailor-fit for your needs. Book a commitment-free discovery meeting with us  to find out how you can start building your digital marketing team this 2021.