Outsourced Marketing for Small Business
Outsourced marketing isn’t just for businesses with big teams and bigger budgets.
Some of the clients we work most closely with are small businesses — a handful of staff, a founder who’s been doing the marketing themselves, and a growing sense that it’s time to hand it to someone who does this full time.
If that sounds familiar, here’s what outsourced marketing actually looks like for a small business — and how to know if it’s right for yours.
Getting started with outsourced marketing
one
Discovery & strategy
We kick off with a 2-hour discovery meeting — a deep dive into your business, your goals, your customers, and your current marketing. From there we review your existing assets and channels before building your marketing objectives, key messages, and strategy.
Once the strategy is set, we move into execution. From that point, every month looks like this:
- 1
Monthly planning call
We align on goals and upcoming activity for the month ahead.
- 2
Execution
We get the work done across whichever services are the priority that month.
- 3
Monthly reports
A clear end-of-month report showing what was done, what moved, and what’s next.
- 4
Ongoing access
You can reach Ange or Katie directly by email whenever you need us. No ticketing systems, no waiting queues.
No lock-in contracts. If your needs shift month to month — more hours in peak season, less in quiet periods — we flex with you. One month’s notice to scale up, scale down, or pause.
A real example: Inteliprint
When Wayne Hunter bought Inteliprint, a Newcastle-based printing business, the business was ticking along — but it wasn’t growing. There was good work, loyal customers, and strong capability behind the scenes. But marketing wasn’t really doing its job.
Instead of hiring a marketing employee, Wayne engaged Method Marketing as his outsourced marketing team. We started by getting clear on the business goals, identifying the right customers to target, and building a connected strategy across the website, SEO, and digital channels.
- 445.9%increase in website revenue
- 216%growth in completed orders
- 72.7%increase in average order value
Over a six-month, year-on-year period.
The difference has been having a proper strategy and sticking with it. Not everything happened straight away — but over time, the results started to stack up.
Frequently asked questions
What does outsourced marketing mean for a small business?
Outsourced marketing means bringing in an external team to handle your marketing — rather than hiring staff in-house. Instead of recruiting, onboarding, and managing a marketing employee, you access a team of specialists under a flexible monthly retainer.
For small businesses, that usually means getting access to skills you couldn’t afford to hire individually: an SEO specialist, a content writer, a paid ads manager, a designer, and a strategist — all under one arrangement, all working on your business.
Why do small businesses choose outsourced marketing?
The most common reason we hear is simple: the founder has been doing the marketing themselves, it’s taking time away from running the business, and the results aren’t where they should be.
The second most common reason: a business has tried hiring a marketing coordinator, but one person can only do so much — and the strategy, creative, digital, and analytics skills needed to run effective marketing rarely live in one person.
Outsourced marketing solves both problems. You get a full team. You get the strategy behind the execution. And you get it for less than the cost of one full-time marketing hire.
Is outsourced marketing right for your small business?
It tends to work best when at least one of these is true:
- You’re doing the marketing yourself — and it’s pulling you away from the work that actually grows your business
- Your marketing is inconsistent — a flurry of activity when there’s time, nothing when there isn’t
- You’re not sure what’s working — budget is going out but you can’t trace it back to leads or revenue
- You need more than one skill set — SEO, content, ads, and social all at once, which one person can’t cover well
- You want to grow but don’t want to hire — not yet, anyway. Outsourced marketing gives you the capacity to grow without the overhead of an employee
How much does outsourced marketing cost for a small business?
Every engagement is tailored to the business — there’s no one-size-fits-all retainer. The right starting point depends on how many hours of work your marketing needs each month, which services are the priority, and what growth stage you’re at.
What we can say is that outsourced marketing consistently delivers more marketing capability for less cost than hiring even one mid-level marketing employee — without the superannuation, leave, recruitment costs, or management overhead.
Contact us for a quote based on your specific situation. We’ll recommend a starting point that fits your budget and your goals.
Do I need to have a big budget for outsourced marketing to work?
No. Outsourced marketing is specifically suited to businesses that can’t justify or don’t want the cost of a full-time marketing team. The retainer model means you scale the investment to what your business needs right now.
How involved do I need to be?
As involved as you want to be. Every month includes a planning call and a clear end-of-month report so you always know what’s happening. Day-to-day execution is handled by us — you can reach Ange or Katie by email whenever you need us, but you won’t need to manage the work.
What if I already have someone doing our social media?
That’s fine. We can work alongside existing team members or freelancers, taking on the strategic and channel-specific work they don’t cover.
How do I know if I’m getting value?
Every month you’ll receive a report showing what was done, what moved — rankings, traffic, leads — and what’s planned for the next month. If something isn’t working, we tell you and we change it.