When is it time to get outside help with your marketing?

Most small and mid-sized companies don't wake up one day and decide they need help with marketing. It builds up. At some point you notice you're spending more than last year and getting roughly the same back.

That's the moment to stop and take a proper look, before you change anything else.

Eight signs you've reached that point

• Your ad spend keeps growing, but the results don't grow with it.
• You can say which campaigns bring clicks, but not which ones bring revenue.
• Enquiries come in waves: too many one month, almost none the next.
• Your competitors show up everywhere online, and you hardly show up at all.
• There's traffic on the site, but few visitors become customers.
• Campaigns are running, but there's no plan tying them together.
• Sales and marketing don't agree on what a good lead is.
• Every marketing decision still waits for you.

One or two of these are normal. If three or more are true, the budget is rarely the real problem. You can run a quick self-check on my homepage.

Don't expect one person to do it all

A common first move is to hire one in-house marketer and expect them to be a strategist, copywriter, designer and ads specialist all at once. That rarely works. The campaigns may get some reach, but the brand never quite comes together. You stay involved in every decision, and everything gets finished at the last minute.

I don't do everything myself either. I run the ads, the tracking and the automation. For photo, video and design in Hungary and Sweden, I bring in a subcontractor, but I write the brief and check the results myself.

Five steps to a decision you won't regret

1. Name the problem. Say exactly what isn't working, for example that you spend more and sell the same.
2. Take stock. What are you doing now, who does it, what does it cost and what does it bring in? Without this, every offer looks good.
3. List the options. Hire someone, bring in a freelancer, sign with an agency, or fix it yourself. Waiting is an option too, and sometimes the right one.
4. Compare them properly. Cost, expertise, how much of your time it takes, what you can expect and how big the risk is. Price on its own tells you very little.
5. Decide, and write down why. In six months you'll want to check whether your reasons held up.

Step two is the easiest to skip. It's also the one that makes the other four work.

Questions to ask before you hire anyone

These show you quickly how clear the working relationship will be:

• What exactly is in the price, and what counts as extra?
• How are urgent requests handled, and what does that do to cost and deadlines?
• Who is my contact, and is that the person doing the work?
• Is there a set reply time and a regular report?
• What counts as done, who signs it off, and how long can I ask for changes?
• What happens when you're overloaded, ill or on holiday?
• Can you show references and results I can check?
• Do you take responsibility for delays on your side?

Also look at how they present themselves. If their own website is slow, has no tracking or hasn't been updated in years, that tells you a lot about how they'll treat yours.

The cheapest offer is rarely the cheapest

A low monthly fee looks good on paper. What counts is how much is left for you at the end of the month, once both the work and the ads are paid for.

Where are you now?

If you're somewhere between steps two and four, send me a short brief. The first conversation is free. If I'm not the right fit, I'll tell you and recommend someone. My own answers to several of these questions are on my homepage.