Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), defined as companies between $1M and $200M in annual revenue, are often fighting an uphill battle.
Aside from raising capital, hiring talent and the other challenges that come with growing a company, these businesses must find ways to grow brand awareness and increase revenue in a crowded arena.
That’s why content and digital marketing is critical.
Investment in content and digital distribution helps companies reach the right prospects through niche targeting, as well as raise brand awareness, generate new leads, increase revenues and stay relevant.
The average SaaS company spends around 30% of its annual revenue on marketing. Allocation varies based on the company’s maturity.
Growing companies typically spend a higher percentage of total annual budget on marketing than well-established businesses. If you don’t allocate enough, you give your competitors an advantage and lose valuable time building brand awareness and engaging early adopters.
With an array of competing priorities, it can be a daunting task to ensure investments are directed toward the right initiatives that will drive results. The days of haphazardly posting an ad online or taking a “spray-and-pray” approach are long gone.
These strategies only result in wasted, untargeted dollars.
Pets.com had to learn the hard way when they faced complete liquidation in 268 days over ads that didn’t work.
Savvy business leaders understand the value of outsourcing marketing to third parties that have in-depth knowledge and experience executing marketing strategies that drive real, measurable ROI.
Here are the benefits SaaS companies are seeing in partnering with a third-party marketing agency:
Reduce costs
An economic downturn is on the horizon. One look at the massive layoffs plaguing current tech headlines highlights this unfortunate reality.
The fact of the matter: it is highly likely that new business will slow down, at least a bit.
Some estimates for 2023 predict new business could be down by as much as 50%. There could also be higher logo churn, with rates moving from a historical low of 15% up to 25-30%.
With looming recessionary times, many companies will try to counteract economic volatility by reducing overhead,such as cutting back on hiring/training and reducing spend on non-critical business initiatives.
Unfortunately, marketing budget is generally the first to be slashed. But make no mistake, companies that cut marketing will do so at their own demise.
Thankfully, there’s a way to get the best of both worlds.
Outsourcing to a full-service marketing partner gives companies access to an entire team with a diverse skillset – often at a much lower cost than that of one full-time CMO. Especially for companies embarking on a marketing journey for the first time, it can be extremely beneficial to outsource first rather than hire full-time marketing talent.
This gives companies starting out the opportunity to learn from experts in the field who have the historical knowledge and skills to get strategy up and running quickly.
Marketing partners get off to a fast start putting ad dollars to work generating pipeline versus spending weeks learning how channels work and wasting lots of budget in the process.
They know with LinkedIn Ads that for 64 cents per prospect, clients can reach 41% of their Finance audience and show them 7-8 ads every 30 days. They don’t need to spend weeks and even months testing LinkedIn to see if it can reach Finance personas. They already know it does, and they already know how to set up campaigns to target and spend effectively.
For companies that have an existing team, it can be a smart move to leverage a firm with former in-house marketers instead of a specialized agency that claims to be full service.
Marketers who have experience working full-time on the client side have a better idea of what works and doesn’t work in agency relationships. Not only does this provide leverage to your existing team, its gives your team a valuable opportunity to learn new strategies and perspectives.
Case in point: After bringing in Method Q, a $50M B2B technology company decreased marketing investments by 50% and saw 150% ROI on outsourced marketing.
Focus on building your business
Many SaaS companies are seeing the current state of the economy through the lens of opportunity.
Bringing bold, game-changing ideas to life that you previously ignored can now feel worth the risk. And, they often pay off.
Airbnb was founded during the height of the recession in 2008 as a place for people with tight budgets to find viable travel options.
On top of innovation, SMB leaders must focus attention on creating business plans, pitching to investors and building out teams across the organization. With time and resources being allocated to all of this, a proper marketing campaign can be overlooked.
Full-service outsourced marketing teams prioritize building and enhancing clients’ marketing strategies so you can focus on your customers, product and bottom line.
For organizations with limited resources or experience, this can be a great way to get a budding campaign idea off the ground or build a new campaign idea from scratch.
This typically works best when there’s a targeted revenue goal, recent investments with promised ROI to investors, or specific goals and KPIs that must be met.
Case in point: A $10M B2B SaaS AI software company that was bringing in no inbound leads per month partnered with Method Q to build out their marketing strategy and achieve 10+ qualified opportunities monthly.
Get access to variety and flexibility
A quality marketing strategy requires long-term planning, succinct storytelling and strategic alignment with the brand. When building out teams and hiring talent, companies search for experts in their industry.
Similarly, companies should seek expert marketing professionals to develop a plan that supports = short- and long-term business goals.
An added benefit of outsourcing marketing talent is companies get access to a much wider variety of skills and expertise than companies would be able to secure on their own (without hiring a double-digit team of FTEs).
Credible agencies have experts across content creation, social media, paid advertising, list creation, demand generation, board-level reporting and so much more.
This saves companies money and gives you a higher degree of flexibility, both in terms of bandwidth to take on new projects and capability to execute initiatives.
Case in point: In only 3 months, an $8M B2B fintech that was bringing in no inbound leads and suffering from market confusion established their brand and credibility in the market to drive 5-10 qualified inbound opportunities per month after partnering with Method Q.
Method Q helps businesses get the most out of their marketing dollars.
We have extensive experience working with SaaS companies and can help your business increase revenue with well-thought-out, tailored demand generation campaigns – from strategy through education. Execution includes running paid and earned media, owning and creating all content, launching/editing or revamping a website and beyond.
