Friday's Marketing Idea Concept
Discussion
I've been chatting a lot to colleagues/business acquaintances this week and from these discussions the idea again raised its head of a business that does the following (I am sure someone else on here did something like this?).
It would supply part time marketing staff to SMB/SMEs. They would typically work 1-2 days a week and be charged out at £150-£200 a day. Each one would be supported by a 'head office' and senior marketing manager. So, for example the head office would provide a marketing plan/set up to follow and help them to maximise the quality of the execution of this.
The SME/SMB would gain their own marketing member of staff within their business, supported by more senior marketers and agency for less than the cost of outright employing someone and with a greater degree of effectiveness.
However, first thoughts are how much to pay someone and how much to charge them out at? Its a new concept and my experience of new concepts is that changing the way people have always done something can be slow and costly, would businesses see the staff as their own or always as an external contractor (is that a problem?), do SME/SMBs typically acquire staff in this way, is this even attractive to an SME/SMB?
It would supply part time marketing staff to SMB/SMEs. They would typically work 1-2 days a week and be charged out at £150-£200 a day. Each one would be supported by a 'head office' and senior marketing manager. So, for example the head office would provide a marketing plan/set up to follow and help them to maximise the quality of the execution of this.
The SME/SMB would gain their own marketing member of staff within their business, supported by more senior marketers and agency for less than the cost of outright employing someone and with a greater degree of effectiveness.
However, first thoughts are how much to pay someone and how much to charge them out at? Its a new concept and my experience of new concepts is that changing the way people have always done something can be slow and costly, would businesses see the staff as their own or always as an external contractor (is that a problem?), do SME/SMBs typically acquire staff in this way, is this even attractive to an SME/SMB?
Oceanic said:
jammy_basturd said:
You'll want to try and charge someone out at double what you're paying them. Any decent marketeer is going to cost you at least £150 a day.
And the rest!!!stuthemong said:
It would be a good fit for us, I'd be interested.
Our plan is actually to find a young grad who is good value, but give them support by linking up with an experienced marketer. So if this service existed, it could be a good model for us.
Am trying to figure out how this would work for you in reality. You want someone who is ultra cheap but get the services of someone who knows what they're doing? I guess you could recruit a graduate as a marketing assistant and then pay a consultant to create the plan that the assistant could implement?Our plan is actually to find a young grad who is good value, but give them support by linking up with an experienced marketer. So if this service existed, it could be a good model for us.
Hoofy said:
How is this different to having a marketing consultant? We use a contractor on an ad-hoc basis.
Because some businesses prefer having someone in house to manage marketing, because its less cost than a marketing consultant. Marketing consultants suit some, but not all businesses. I think the capability of a marketer you could sell out for £150-200 per day would be questionable. As has been pointed out, you need to make a profit from them, and by the sounds of things you have to pay some more senior marketers in the background too so would be looking at someone at maybe £75 per day. I deliver qualification courses for professional marketers from those starting their careers to the experienced ready for the move to director level and those at the beginning with limited capability are almost all earning at least that in Yorkshire. For what you are proposing if I was the client I would expect someone with more capability and experience and they would be earning nearer your lower charge out rate as take home pay.
The basic idea sounds OK as it could provide an advantage over an independent consultant with the background support you discuss, but the costing would need to be right for both sides - otherwise why not just pay for that background expertise upfront and hire the guy/gal as needed to deliver the marketing plan with their own skill.
The basic idea sounds OK as it could provide an advantage over an independent consultant with the background support you discuss, but the costing would need to be right for both sides - otherwise why not just pay for that background expertise upfront and hire the guy/gal as needed to deliver the marketing plan with their own skill.
Hi, we've used marketing services in this way for the last 10 years, it's a relatively common model. A few thoughts from a customer perspective & also as a services provider (albeit in a different industry).
From a customers perspective the strategy/plan part is important. When it comes to achieving the plan be very specific where you will help and what the responsibilities of the customer are. If you are offering senior manager & agency facilities then make sure that:
1. The manager is senior & actually knows their stuff. This is often missing & the manager lacks sufficient client time to make meaningful contributions.
2. The agency facilities really do cover everything & gaps are known. It is irritating to engage a marketing service only to find out that I have to find my own designer to knock up some flyers.
3. The client knows exactly what they can expect from the service, the manager (including face time) and where gaps in service may be (e.g. designing conference stands).
4. The head office costings are included in the rates/service price
Plenty of marketing admin activities can be done by someone with a bit of nous and some direction. Obviously you are being paid to take a problem off someone's hands (the analogy of it being cheaper to clean my own house but I pay a cleaner is valid). Junior marketing staff are relatively cheap and can be used to do/support other business functions.
We pay £4k/m for 10d/m. For that we get 8d marketing exec and 2d marketing director. This has been relatively common across various providers.
Good luck!
Undirection said:
It would supply part time marketing staff to SMB/SMEs. They would typically work 1-2 days a week and be charged out at £150-£200 a day. Each one would be supported by a 'head office' and senior marketing manager. So, for example the head office would provide a marketing plan/set up to follow and help them to maximise the quality of the execution of this.
Concept is sound, as I mentioned, there are plenty of co's offering this service so it is viable.From a customers perspective the strategy/plan part is important. When it comes to achieving the plan be very specific where you will help and what the responsibilities of the customer are. If you are offering senior manager & agency facilities then make sure that:
1. The manager is senior & actually knows their stuff. This is often missing & the manager lacks sufficient client time to make meaningful contributions.
2. The agency facilities really do cover everything & gaps are known. It is irritating to engage a marketing service only to find out that I have to find my own designer to knock up some flyers.
3. The client knows exactly what they can expect from the service, the manager (including face time) and where gaps in service may be (e.g. designing conference stands).
4. The head office costings are included in the rates/service price
Undirection said:
The SME/SMB would gain their own marketing member of staff within their business, supported by more senior marketers and agency for less than the cost of outright employing someone and with a greater degree of effectiveness.
How will you define effectiveness? Is it outcome based (in which case you will need to factor that in to your costs) or just T&M? If it is T&M then how do you make sure that stuff actually gets done? What happens when (inevitably) there is marketing effort required on a non-working day?Plenty of marketing admin activities can be done by someone with a bit of nous and some direction. Obviously you are being paid to take a problem off someone's hands (the analogy of it being cheaper to clean my own house but I pay a cleaner is valid). Junior marketing staff are relatively cheap and can be used to do/support other business functions.
Undirection said:
However, first thoughts are how much to pay someone and how much to charge them out at?
It's not a marketing related metric but in professional services it is common to aim for rates that break down as 1/3 salary, 1/3 costs, 1/3 profit. It is pretty optimistic, we run about 1/2 salary, 1/4 costs, 1/4 profit.We pay £4k/m for 10d/m. For that we get 8d marketing exec and 2d marketing director. This has been relatively common across various providers.
Undirection said:
Its a new concept and my experience of new concepts is that changing the way people have always done something can be slow and costly, would businesses see the staff as their own or always as an external contractor (is that a problem?), do SME/SMBs typically acquire staff in this way, is this even attractive to an SME/SMB?
It's not a new concept (which is a good thing) but may be new to a client. I can only talk for ourselves but we treat our outsourced functions as part of the team which is a good thing. It certainly makes it easier to interact with people. All the SME's that I know of in my industry niche use this kind of service. We do for Accounting, Marketing & PR. As we are growing we will probably be bringing marketing admin in-house but retain an external partner for strategy etc. Good luck!
bga said:
We pay £4k/m for 10d/m. For that we get 8d marketing exec and 2d marketing director. This has been relatively common across various providers.
You are therefore paying £400 per day which is twice the highest suggestion by the OP - I suspect this is a more realistic level at which to get someone with enough experience and capability to contribute successfully.andyps said:
bga said:
We pay £4k/m for 10d/m. For that we get 8d marketing exec and 2d marketing director. This has been relatively common across various providers.
You are therefore paying £400 per day which is twice the highest suggestion by the OP - I suspect this is a more realistic level at which to get someone with enough experience and capability to contribute successfully.jammy_basturd said:
bga is paying that, which means the marketing company will probably be paying the exec somewhere in the region of £150 a day (either as a contractor or more probably, in salary).
I understood that - the OP suggested charging out at £150-200 per day which would leave very little for the marketing exec.TBH at £200/d I would be wondering what sort of quality I was getting.
Based on a great utilisation of 220d/year chargeable then at £200/d then that is £44k/year revenue for the junior.
Assume a salary of £25k then that's £19k left to cover costs and provide some profit. Add in some general costs like employers NI (circa £2.5k on £25k), pension (£3k) and you are looking at a profit of £13.5k ish for the individual.
That £13.5k excludes operational costs (I provision £5k/y for my team to cover operational costs like office, IT, training etc).
At £150/d then your profit would be closer to £2.5k excluding operational costs. That is assuming a great chargability rate of approx 90% (75% is more common in my industry but we focus on project delivery model rather than embedded services).
Based on a great utilisation of 220d/year chargeable then at £200/d then that is £44k/year revenue for the junior.
Assume a salary of £25k then that's £19k left to cover costs and provide some profit. Add in some general costs like employers NI (circa £2.5k on £25k), pension (£3k) and you are looking at a profit of £13.5k ish for the individual.
That £13.5k excludes operational costs (I provision £5k/y for my team to cover operational costs like office, IT, training etc).
At £150/d then your profit would be closer to £2.5k excluding operational costs. That is assuming a great chargability rate of approx 90% (75% is more common in my industry but we focus on project delivery model rather than embedded services).
Gassing Station | Business | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff