Your brand likely uses agencies and freelancers for things like Amazon, Shopify, graphic design, PPC, SEO, social media and conversion rate optimization. This is typically because you don’t have the internal bandwidth or resources to bring these in-house.
In 10+ years as a CEO and Fractional CMO, I’ve seen almost every mistake, and you’re probably making them — costing you sales and time.
Luckily, I’ve also seen the lessons from these mistakes, which results in you getting the learnings without the battle scars.
Related: This Is How I Manage Freelance Workers and Why It Works
Don’t create silos between Amazon, Shopify and marketing channels
It’s not uncommon for brands to hire specialists in each channel, like Amazon, Shopify, PPC, SEO, etc. In theory, this is practical because it makes sure the right expert is assigned to the right task.
The downside is that it unintentionally creates silos that decrease sales and harm your brand. This is because, as a result of the Shopify expert being an expert in Shopify, they are not an expert in Amazon and vice versa, which means they likely don’t understand the relationship between how your Amazon presence fuels your Shopify (or Woocommerce, Bigcommerce) sales, and again, vice versa.
That means they won’t focus on strategies that work in service to grow the whole brand, but instead, they will only focus on their channel, harming your overall company sales and brand awareness.
The same goes for SEO, email, PPC, social media, conversion rate optimization, and the list goes on.
This is not how brands grow and scale quickly, even on limited budgets.
Do control how each channel works together to grow your sales and brand awareness
You’re outsourcing the various marketing and sales channels as a result of not having the internal bandwidth or resources, but you are outsourcing channel execution, not overall brand strategy.
It’s critical for you to have someone on your team, like an ecommerce consultant who understands how all of the channels work together so that they can manage the strategy and execution of all of the channels to make sure they are all in service of one another.
Outsource the doing, not the thinking.
Don’t let a lack of brand subject matter expertise hold back your agencies’ and freelancers’ performance
This starts out with good intentions. Your brand most likely approaches your relationship with your agencies and freelancers something like “We’re experts in (product), but we’re not experts in (insert channel here). You’re experts in (insert channel here), so take what you’re experts in, and do it, expertly, for us.”
The problem with that relates to the number one rule of selling. Know your product, customer and brand like the back of your hand. This rule exists so you can leverage how they all connect to facilitate the sale.
This is why most agency and freelancer relationships with brands fall short of expectations. They can’t harness the full power of their expertise for you until they comprehensively know your product, customer and brand, just as you do.
Related: 4 Key Factors to Consider When Choosing a Marketing Agency
Do make your agency and freelance partners experts in your product, customer and brand
Most agencies and freelancers have an onboarding protocol where they learn about your brand, but this works backward as it is meant as a template, applicable to everyone, which, of course, significantly decreases its efficacy.
On the other side, brands will share their media kit, a slide deck and point agencies and freelancers to their website, or they can reference a few competitors to learn about the product and market. This is far from making them experts, which they need to be in order to harness their full value.
Instead, ramp them up at warp speed by preparing your own brand education, including:
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What problem you solve, pain you alleviate, desire you fulfill, emotion you engage
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What your brand values are
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What your brand voice is
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Your primary and secondary messages
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What core human desires you address
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What color psychology works best for your customers
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Your buyer persona
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Your customer avatars
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and more
Don’t leave coaching up to your agencies and freelancers
As a brand that outsources various channels, you’re in a predicament when things aren’t going well. You know you need better results, but since you’re not an expert in it, you don’t know how to coach it like you would one of your internal responsibilities.
Or worse, you churn through multiple agencies and freelancers looking for the one who can finally deliver, starting from square one over and over, putting time and money between you and the end goal.
More often than not, the problem isn’t that they aren’t good at (insert channel here), but rather that they are having challenges marrying their skillset with your brand to produce results.
They’re lacking the support that you’re not sure how to give.
Related: What I’ve Learned After Paying More Than $1 Million to Freelancers
Do support your agencies and freelancers like you would an internal
Think about the lengths you go to support what you know within your brand — the hand-holding, resources and examples you give to make sure they’re successful. That’s what your agencies and freelancers need.
Beyond getting them the assets that they request or approving content promptly, you’ll want someone on your team who can give them the in-depth feedback they deserve and need to execute at a high level for your brand in particular.
While you may need to outsource, make sure you have someone on your team who can save you time and money by helping you get the most out of your agency and freelance partners.
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