How hard can it be?
You’re a successful business owner. You’ve got the capital to start the business all yourself, you can up with the concept and executed all yourself, and (minus the important roles filled by employees), you’ve basically built this business from the ground up, yourself. So why would you bother to hire someone outside of your business to manage any aspect of it, or even consult? Let’s preface this by saying, you know your business like other professionals know theirs. If you trust yourself enough to do your services for a customer, why wouldn’t you trust someone to do their job for you? Outsourcing work can be very tricky because you have to get in contact with the right partner which takes the time of scouting, vetting, going back and forth on how they can or can not help your business, etc… But after some time, you outsource work you can not do, to someone who can. Most commonly small businesses bring on third party accountants to handle finances, contract security companies to take care of the safety of your business and/or employees, you work with contractors to do work in your business you yourself, can’t. So why wouldn’t you work with an agency or a third party to develop a digital marketing strategy and implement it for you?
My guess is that as you’re reading this, you can probably do most of the mentioned above, but how well? If you try and handle all of your personal and business finances, is there a chance you could screw things up and get audited and/or be leaving money on the table? If you decide to do your own security, do you run the risk of stretching yourself too thin or leave yourself open to potential lawsuits if things go awry? How about you decide you’d like to install brand new commercial kitchen appliances yourself, you run the risk of damaging the appliance, it not working correctly or at all, or even hurting yourself. So when it comes to attempting to run your own in house marketing with little or no experience, aren’t you worried about the risks?
Let’s start with the obvious, you could easily lose a lot of money. I’ve ran into many business owners and professionals who shun the idea of (for example) Facebook ads because they possibly had a bad experience and decided they weren’t worth it. When I asked how it happened, they say they handled it, and found it inefficient. Poor experiences should be learning experiences and often times some business owners learn the wrong thing. Just because it didn’t work out for you or heard a horror story, doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. Someone just didn’t know how to make it work.
Once you start drilling and the damage is done, is it too late to go back?
Let’s say you’re doing it yourself and have been for awhile. You see some success, enough to keep going with the investment into your business. Are you really getting the best out of the platforms? There could be a better ROI but because you’re rudimentarily using the tools at your disposal, you’re not letting the platform work for you. There’s a laundry list of items you could be doing to improve your social media marketing game. Plain and simple, you could be leaving a lot of money on the table.
Long story short, yes you can absolutely attempt to run your own ads, just like you can attempt to manage your financials and taxes, try to do your own electrical work, or managing your own security. Just because you can, does it mean you should? Not always. You may either be doing it wrong, doing it inefficiently, or just don’t have the time to either learn it or execute proper practices. In any case, though you can always do a job, there’s probably someone who can do it to the best of their ability which unfortunately, may not be you.
Brad James Consulting is a full service social media management agency offering social accounts as well as paid advertising management. We also offer a variety of creative services like photography, videography, and copywriting. Let Brad James Consulting remove the stress and time consumption of social media and help you grow your brands and businesses. Contact us for pricing and services that fit your needs.