Consultants

Best for offering advice on long-term strategies.

Consultants offer strategic advice or services that are used to guide clients. Think of them as the big thinkers that can be counted on for a longer-term partnership. 

Marketing consultants can be tasked with creating detailed marketing plans, determining marketing messages, identifying the appropriate marketing to get the message out to the target market, and more. They can also take on independent contractor roles within larger organizations. 

Freelancers

Best for when you need an extra set of hands.

Freelancers are people, usually creatives, that work as writers, designers, or performers. They typically sell their work or services by the hour, day, or job, rather than working on a regular salary basis for one employer. Picture freelancers as the “doers” like writers and graphic designers. 

Virtual Assistants

Best for managing and taking care of routine tasks. 

Virtual assistants are independent contractors who provide administrative services to clients while operating outside of the client’s office. Technically, virtual assistants are a type of freelancer who specialize in a broad range of management functions such as social media, content management, blog post writing, or graphic design. They tend to be less expensive as they’re the assistant to whoever hires them but this doesn’t mean they’re less experienced. 

Consultants, freelancers, and virtual assistants can be tasked with many different projects. We’ll break down examples in the next section. 

Next, let’s identify specific outsourced marketing roles.

Now that you know the general outsourcing categories, let’s take a look at specific marketing roles that you can leverage. Keep in mind, each title can wear multiple hats. Each professional has their own set of services. Be sure to check in with them about what they offer rather than assume what they might offer. 

Brand Strategist

Best for businesses that seek to rebrand or expand to a new market segment.

Brand strategists fall under one of those hats that can play multiple roles. They can help businesses with branding and visual identity like redoing a website or creating a brand guideline with fonts, colors, and logos but they’re also experts at analyzing consumer insights, crafting briefs for creative teams, and developing guidelines for company-wide marketing efforts. 

Brand strategists work closely with managers to develop methods to increase a brand’s reach. The role combines strategy, creativity, and analytics to develop strategies that increase brand awareness, drive growth, and generate revenue. A few of the responsibilities that brand strategists often cover are: conducting research, analyzing data, collaborating with teams such as creative and copy, and presenting complete strategies to businesses. 

Community Manager

Best for enhancing communication with a public audience.

A community manager focuses on communication with the public audience. They tend to take on partnerships as social media coordinators or outreach strategists. 

They can also be moderators who manage online communities, blog comments, or website forums. They’re experts at answering questions and responding to compliments or negative comments from audiences. This role is valuable to businesses with private Facebook or LinkedIn groups and highly trafficked blog posts. 

Content Creator

Best for creating content.

Content creators can strategize marketing plans, write copy as well as publish various types of content such as articles, ebooks, and social media posts to a company’s web page or other platforms. They can also create marketing strategies and plans. Their jobs entail researching, creating, and distributing various types of content. Because content creation is timely, it’s one of the most common B2B tasks outsourced. Do you really want to spend extra time making a promotional video, writing ad copy, or designing social media posts? Maybe not. 

Content Marketing Manager

Best for creating content, content strategies, and content plans.

Content marketing encompasses all types of content and is at the core of organic marketing practices. Content includes blogs, case studies, ebooks, sales articles, and more. These specialists or managers research target audiences and consumer trends to develop content strategies. Often they also offer content creation services. Content like this is important as it offers valuable information to clients and aids in customer retention. 

Copywriter

Best for ads, sales-focused content, and emails.

Sometimes confused as the grammar police, copywriters actually do more than correct spelling and grammar, they take care of the “copy,” or written materials. Copywriting is the process of writing persuasive marketing and promotional materials that motivate an audience to take some form of action such as making a purchase, clicking on a link, or scheduling a consultation. Copywriters are experts at writing social media captions, blogs, landing pages, emails, ad copy, chatbots, and more. 

Data Analyst

Best for interpreting results and ROI. 

Also known as the math geeks or number nerds. Well, let’s be nice, these people are pretty important. And we’re some of them. They’re the ones who determine if our marketing efforts are producing a return on investment and being seen by our intended target audience. They can even tell us how many views our social media posts get, how long a viewer stayed on our page, and other metrics important to marketing and decision making. Data like this is crucial to making business decisions and must be a key part of any marketing strategy.

Graphic Designer

Best for visual design.  

Graphic designers use their artistic abilities to communicate ideas and further promote a brand’s products or services in a visually appealing way. Think of them as the creatives on a team. They’re experts at visual design with skills that can take on anything from website layout to social media graphics, or even to the large billboards on the side of the road. Eye-catching visual designs are key to drawing in an audience. 

SEO Specialist/Strategist

Best for driving website traffic.

SEO experts are the people who get your website to rank at the top on search engines like Google, Bing, or Yahoo. Have you ever heard the term “keywords” thrown around? SEO geniuses know how to use keywords to rank higher on search engine results which is vital to attracting prospects and web page visits. SEO experts tend to go by the title SEO specialist, SEO strategist, or SEO marketing managers. They often partner with content creators to ensure the best practices for SEO are being performed. 

Social Media Strategist

Best for social media tasks.

These professionals handle the daily social media posting responsibilities and create long-term social media strategies. They may even respond to comments and generate social media engagement with followers and other accounts, similar to the work a community manager may handle. Strategists or coordinators can also help determine which social networks are best for your business and what type of content to post when and where to reach the widest audience of customers. They may even work as or alongside a data analyst or community manager.  

In many cases, the people behind these titles will collaborate with one another or perform more than one job title. Businesses may choose to hire a team or one individual to join their team. It’s up to the business and what works best for them.