March 27, 2015

The other day while out with my friend Kenton we got to discussing the freelance market, and how more and more businesses are turning to freelance content marketers to help them with their marketing needs.

One of my big takeaways from that conversation was that many business owners don't know when to start "letting go" of certain aspects of their business. As in, they spend way too much time doing (or neglecting) important things that they could simply outsource, even when it becomes detrimental to their business.

With that in mind, I figured I'd put together a short list of questions to ask yourself if you're a business owner who might be trying to shoulder too much of their business burden:

1. When did I last update my website?

While tools for building websites aren't in short supply, maintaining one which is accurate, up-to-date, compelling, mobile-friendly, and SEO-optimized requires more than just a landing page with a picture. A great website needs to do more than just look good - it needs to drive conversions like calls, emails, leads and customers, which includes ongoing investment in SEO content, structure and metadata.

Follow-up Questions:

• Do I want to spend time worrying about updating my website?
• Do I stress about creating engaging content?
• Am I strong enough writer to create content quickly and efficiently?

2. Do I want to keep up with SEO?

Staying up-to-date with the constant changes in Search Engine Optimization is among the most complex aspects of online marketing. It requires keeping tabs on which search engines people are using the most and ensuring that your website and web presence perform well on search-engine results pages after these updates.

Follow-up Questions:

• Does looking at SEO information make me go cross-eyed?
• Am I more interested in running my business than managing where it shows up on Google?
• Am I willing to spend the time to keep up-to-date with new SEO changes?

3. Am I getting results from my search engine advertising?

Techniques like Google AdWords can be one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways of generating new prospects, but if you've ever tried it you know that it requires much more than signing up, setting a text ad and waiting for the customers to roll in.

You need effective, compelling text that drives searchers to an optimized, relevant landing page, and a knowledge of your target audience so you're spending your money on driving visitors who are likely to buy from you. Understanding how to do this requires daily maintenance and analysis.

Follow-up Questions:

• Do I have the time to dedicate to analyzing and refining my campaigns to yield better results?
• Do I know what Google Pigeon is? Do I care?

4. Is my social media fan base my target audience?

You've signed up for a Facebook page and you've got a handful of 'Likes' - but what does that mean, exactly? Are you concerned in vanity numbers (aka, how many 'Likes' you have) or are you looking deeper at what sorts of people have shown an interest in your page?

How often are you looking at things like how many of your fans and followers are even in your immediate service area? How regularly are you updating your sites with relevant, interesting content that engages followers on your social media platforms? How are you leveraging paid advertising opportunities on these sites?

The key to successful content marketing is creating content that generates word-of-mouth and site traffic which boosts your website's SEO.

Follow-up Questions:

• Do I really know how to reach out to my target audience?
• Am I engaging with the right people?

5. Do I know my marketing ROI?

Anyone can pull together charts and graphs which show likes, follows and visitors to your site, but when you look at these numbers and figures, do you know how to make sense of the information there? Do you know how to translate this information into steps that will help your business grow?

Follow-up Questions:

• Do I want to look at daily, weekly, and monthly analytics to pull information from them and then apply them across all all of my marketing efforts?
• Does trying to make sense of my marketing efforts seem like more work than I want to do?

Do you recognize any of these signs as ones that indicate that you might need to start outsourcing your marketing? If not, do you think it's valuable to outsource your marketing? I'd love to know!

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