He has a brilliant product – perhaps even the next “killer app.” The past year was spent on development and testing. Now he’s ready to go to market.
Over coffee, he tells you that he knows that he needs someone to launch the product, generate leads, talk to the press among other things. He know that’s typically the responsibility of marketing, but that’s about all he knows about marketing.
He has some funding (thank goodness!) but it’s not much. He estimates that he can afford to sink about 100K this year into marketing. He thinks he’s being realistic by not expecting too much of a return on the marketing investment in the first year. Afterall, it makes sense that even marketing needs to ramp up by creating the website, product brochures and other materials before they can start generating leads. He confides that he hopes that it’s realistic to assume that marketing will pay for itself in year 2 and 3.
His first question to you is “who much does it cost to hire a marketing professional?”
You tell him that that you get what you pay for when you hire marketing staff. Someone with limited experience, but with a marketing degree, could be had for about 30-40K a year in your region. A more seasoned marketer could easily cost you 60-70K a year. A real pro…well more than he has in his budget this year.
He’s given this considerable thought and has decided he has a couple of options:
1. He could hire a full-time marketer. He can obviously only afford one. If he hires someone with less experience, he’ll have money left over for programs, but will a newbie be able to get the job done? If he hires someone with more experience, they will take up more of his budget, but maybe they will be more effective and self-sufficient. Is it a worthwhile trade-off?
2. He’s also heard of companies that outsource their marketing. If he follows this route, does he still need someone on staff to manage it? Does he outsource all of it, or a part of it?
You are happily employed and wouldn’t dream of going to work for his start-up. However, you want to point your friend in the right direction. What do you tell him?
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