Outsourced Marketing FAQs
1. What is outsourced marketing?
Outsourced marketing or fractional marketing help can be a consultant or series of freelance employees that act like an in-house marketing team without the overhead. A fractional CMO or experienced consultant who understands the unique challenges startups face can provide the strategic guidance you need to try to lay the groundwork for marketing success. Outsourcing allows you to scale up and down the resources you need at the right price point for your business without the risk or commitment.
2. Why is messaging so important?
Messaging is the foundation of your marketing. If you don’t know how to articulate why you make your product, how it solves a problem, and what makes you different from your competitors, you aren’t saying anything of value to your potential customers.
3. What is branding?
Branding is the visual representation of your company. It includes your logo, your color pallet, your typography, and anything else a customer could visually associate with the product or services you create. Brand is vitally important to the success of your startup because a company lacking a strong brand identity will not be memorable and appears less credible,
4. Can one person handle all the work initially?
Maybe. At least for a little while. But burnout is a real thing in the startup world and if you are looking for someone who can wear all the hats, I wouldn’t expect them to wear them for very long. You do the company and your employee a disservice when you expect one marketer to be a magician.
5. What if I hire someone full time and they want to change all the systems and processes?
They might and that’s ok! Keep in mind that scenario is no different from what happens when there is internal employee turnover. I have seen heads of marketing come and go from many organizations, large and small, and every new leader brings something different to the table. They almost always want to change some process or tool that they prefer or are more comfortable with.
But for early-stage startups, your goal needs to be to ‘startup’. You need a stable foundation. Early-stage startups frequently have a patchwork quilt of systems, collateral, and processes but not much consistency. The goal should be to have processes someone wants to change at some point, rather than having a full time employee come in and have to build from scratch.
6. What is Fin Marketing's process?
Fin’s process is easy and straightforward.
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Consultation. We meet to discuss your needs and get to know each other. If we both determine this feels like a good fit, we move on to the next step.
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Evaluation. After looking at your business needs and goals, Fin designs a customized, actionable strategy to get you to your goals.
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Implementation. We put your plan into motion.
7. What is a marketing strategy?
A marketing strategy provides a startup with a plan or roadmap to achieve their goals taking into consideration the time constraints and budget to early-stage businesses.
8. What kind of services can you help with?
Fin focuses on foundational marketing for startups: messaging, branding, strategy, marketing technology, and process. However, our network of resources allows us to provide assistance with email marketing, design, SEO, paid search, and more. Fin can also be hired as your Fractional CMO.
9. What types of clients do you work with?
Fin works with early-stage startups. This includes: seed-funded startups creating their marketing foundation: messaging, strategy, tools, and process. Series A/B startups working on their content strategy and implementation. And startup founders looking for a strategic advisor to their marketing team.
10. What kinds of marketing tools should my startup use?
Fin recommends the following marketing tools to build a good MarCom tech stack:
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A CRM like HubSpot
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An email service provider like Mailchimp
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A social media management platform like Hootsuite
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And maybe a graphic design software like Canva or
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A grammar checker like Grammarly if you are feeling adventurous