Marketing teams are being challenged to achieve more with less. Brands are having to create more content, maintain more channels, analyze more data, and respond more quickly to shifts in customer behavior. Meanwhile, seasoned marketers in large cities are hard to come by and costly. That’s prompting more firms to take another look at where their teams are forming and how they are organized.
If your company is looking into this option, an Offshore Marketing Manager can be a pivotal figure in the plan. Rather than hiring offshore marketing talent as a low-cost extension of an internal department, companies are increasingly seeking global marketing talent to create full-fledged content, SEO, paid media, CRM, analytics, and campaign execution departments.
Marketing Talent Acquisition Is Becoming Global
Geography was one of the challenges of classic marketing talent acquisition. Even if the work could be done remotely, a company based in London, New York or Sydney might hire primarily from its own market.
Outsourcing marketing expertise provides businesses the opportunity to tap into a far bigger pool of experts. Businesses can hire local top talent in areas like performance marketing, social media, email, design, or search without relying solely on local salary expectations.
There can also be other market perspectives from international marketing talent. It can be helpful for brands entering new areas when it comes to rewording messages, understanding platforms, or handling campaigns among various customers.
An Offshore Marketing Manager Can Add Structure
An offshore marketing manager can be extremely useful when a company wants to maximize its marketing efforts beyond having only a single freelance individual, and technology makes this easily possible to implement.
A good offshore marketing manager will be able to handle the coordination of campaigns, manage deadlines, review performance and link specialists from one channel to the next. That provides accountability in a distributed environment.
Moreover, an offshore marketing team can work as a more structured team, rather than having an internal marketing director dealing with multiple independent contractors.
This is significant with the increasing size of remote marketing teams. Distributed work can get out of hand when there is no clear ownership. By having a manager who is familiar with the brand, commercial objectives and workflow, consistency can be maintained.
Lower Costs Can Support Faster Marketing Team Scaling
One of the greatest draws of employing offshore marketing talent is still cost.
There are widely different salary expectations across markets. It can mean that a company can expand its team for the same cost as one or two senior hires in the local market.
It’s not just about paying less for the same job.
Scaling your marketing team is easier when you have budgets for multiple complementary skills. A company might be able to hire an SEO specialist and a paid media manager, and design or content support if necessary.
For example, this can boost execution speed and reduce reliance on agencies.
But don’t let price be the sole factor that determines your company’s hiring decision. Lack of communication or lack of work can rapidly wipe out the savings.
Remote Marketing Teams Need Better Processes
Global hiring is only possible if the operating model allows it.
Clear briefs, documented brand guidelines and reliable reporting systems are necessary for remote marketing teams. Ownership of the campaign should be clear and campaign performance information should be accessible to all who need it.
Time zones must also be carefully handled.
There can be some overlap, but asynchronous work can be a big plus, especially when it comes to meetings and urgent decisions. A campaign can continue even if another section of the organization is down.
So the top offshore marketing team is not one that attempts to emulate a traditional office. One that is developed from the start with a distributed collaboration model.
Global Marketing Talent Can Reduce Agency Dependence
The other economic benefit is being able to in-house more capability.
Businesses hire agencies because they don’t have the resources to have experts in all aspects of marketing. Offshore marketing talent can alter that equation.
A company might be able to develop in-house skills in paid search, content, lifecycle marketing and analytics without the burden of an extensive internal team.
But it doesn’t mean agencies are not needed. External partners can still provide strategy, specialist knowledge or additional capacity.
However, outsourcing marketing skills can provide businesses with greater flexibility when it comes to what skills they wish to have on their own payroll.
The Economics of Marketing Are Being Rewritten
Today, the economics of marketing are becoming more location-independent.
Companies can gain flexibility in terms of cost and capability by hiring an offshore marketing manager, building an offshore marketing team and accessing international marketing talent. It can also facilitate the speedy scaling of the marketing team when the proper management and communication systems are already available. The largest change is conceptual.
Outsourcing isn’t just about repetitive tasks anymore. Marketers are now able to sit in the middle of campaign strategy, execution and analysis, with a global perspective on talent.
If skills over geography is a mindset adopted by companies, then the outcome can be a bigger, more specialized, and flexible marketing talent acquisition team without the associated cost base of a major city marketing team.
