31% of businesses outsource part or all of their Marketing & PR

When it comes to marketing and PR, more businesses are looking to work with a third party – and with key motivators including, improving efficiency, reducing employment costs and having more time to focus on other areas of the business, it’s easy to understand why.

A recent YouGov report – which analysed small, medium and large firms – cited 70% of UK businesses have outsourced key services with 31% of these services including Marketing, PR and Social Media Management.

Working with a communications agency brings many advantages – whether outsourcing all of the marketing and PR, mixing in-house teams and agencies to work collaboratively on the marketing strategy, or acquiring an agency on a project basis to help bridge the gap between internal recruitment gaps or an increased workload. Rather than pilling more work onto the existing team when resources are strained, recruiting an agency to manage a project will reduce the pressure of employees which otherwise could lead to demotivation and poor productivity.

Other advantages to outsourcing include reducing bottom-line costs as well as benefiting from a specialised skillset to deliver better results. An agency specialising in public relations will write press releases regularly so they have experience of understanding what will make a great story and know who to pitch the release to.

Agencies employ creative people who thrive off generating ideas for campaigns. When working with an agency, companies gain from having multiple people’s input, all of whom have experience in developing a marketing strategy and knowledge of trends.

An integrated agency will also think about the wider communications approach and will weave in PR moments to the marketing calendar. Having the agency part of the strategy process will mean that when it comes to execution, content and campaigns will be rolled out smoothly. They’ll also have a better understanding of the desired results and be able to react quickly to changes throughout campaigns.

Getting the balance of outsourcing right is important. Retaining some of the marketing strategies in-house while outsourcing creative development, content creation and PR to an agency can provide the perfect mix. The in-house team know the company inside out while the agency will bring new ideas as they’ll have dedicated time to focus on campaigns – this will increase productivity and results.

Heather Murphy, Owner of Brand Mission comments: “Outsourcing marketing and PR provides organisations with access to a wider pool of expertise and a fresh approach to their marketing strategy. At Brand Mission, we have a team who are switched on and actively seek opportunities for our clients – developing content and campaigns that increase talk-ability and desirability. We are passionate about understanding what our clients’ objectives are and work hard to achieve them, going beyond traditional media relations. We work with everyone from business start-ups to national clients and treat each organisation with the same approach – no matter the size of the scope of work.”

Brand Mission, based in Milton Keynes, is a full-service communications agency specialising in Public Relations and Marketing. The agency creates tailored integrated marketing and PR solutions to meet clients’ requirements and all budgets for both longer-term and short term commitments.

Reap the benefits of outsourcing marketing and PR. Contact Brand Mission at info@brandmission.co.uk or visit www.brandmission.co.uk for more information.