J Hamel Solutions

Elevate Your Business: 3 Smart Tips for Preparing to Outsource Web Design and Social Media

Thinking of outsourcing your web design and social media management? Fantastic! This guide outlines three strategic tips to prepare yourself for a seamless outsourcing experience, optimizing your online presence for success.

1. Clearly Define Your Business Goals:

Before trusting someone else with your marketing, take a moment to define your business goals, and specifically, your goals for your online presence. Consider the specific aspects you want to enhance:

• Increase local awareness
• Drive in-store traffic
• Boost sales and promotions
• Enhance customer engagement
• Showcase your products or services
• Collect customer feedback
• Build brand loyalty
• Promote events and collaborations
• Educate customers
• Improve your online reputation
• Drive online sales

Articulate your goals and include why it is so important to you. Creating a detailed roadmap of your desired outcomes will not only guide your outsourcing strategy but also serve as a benchmark for measuring success.

Example: Suppose you own a local bookstore and aim to boost community engagement and foot traffic through an effective social media strategy. As you work with your social media manager, ensure that the strategy is based around your priorities. Make sure they can answer questions such as:

• How can social media help boost foot traffic?
• What strategies will you use to improve customer engagement?
• How will you measure the results of these goals?
• What else do I need to get in place in order to facilitate these goals? 

Being clear on your goals helps you hire a professional ready to meet them!

2. Assess Your Current Track Record:

Moving beyond a cursory assessment, conduct an in-depth analysis of your current strategies. Explore what’s working well and what needs improvement, considering key performance indicators (KPIs) and analytics. If you don’t have that kind of information, be sure to hire a professional who will start with an audit and help you understand how to interpret it. 

This deeper understanding will empower you to communicate more effectively with your chosen professional. It’s not just about acknowledging areas for improvement; it’s about crafting a narrative around your business’s evolution and recognizing the lessons learned from previous strategies.

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Example: If you’ve been grappling with inconsistent posting schedules and low engagement, identify what caused that, and what you need from a professional in order to fix it. If you had specific challenges with content creation, perhaps you’re looking for someone to do it for you. But if you were stymied by insecurity or a lack of clarity on what to post, a strategy-only plan might be just what you need.

For both web design and social media management, a great professional can help you solve the problem, but it starts with your reflection on your own work so far. Addressing these nuances provides valuable context for your outsourcing journey.

3. Prioritize Clear Communication:

Effective communication is pivotal in outsourcing success. Clearly articulating the following elements will help you ensure you’re on the same page as your professional:

• Brand: this includes colors and style of images, but also your voice. It is the entire foundation for how you present your business to the world.
• Values: as a community-based, values-driven business, it is helpful to identify your top values so you keep them front of mind. Mine are integrity, connection, and collaboration. So hiring someone who encourages results at any cost wouldn’t work with my value of integrity.
• Target Audience: I wrote about this how to use your ideal client profile, and I encourage you to go deep and keep refining what this looks like. Remember that your target audience wants what you’ve got to sell!

When you meet with a potential professional to outsource social media or web design, ensure that they understand your messaging. This is critical for maintaining consistency in messaging and ultimately, aligning with your overarching business strategy.

Example: If sustainability is a core value for your brand, communicate this to align strategies with eco-friendly practices, creating a cohesive online identity. The value of sustainability can be communicated consistently in a wide range of ways, including:

• The products you sell
• Where and how products and other materials are sourced
• The ways you run your business (perhaps you don’t offer plastic bags)
• Events you host
• Causes you support
• Community events you participate in

In this example, there can be a great impact of eco-friendly practices on customer perception and loyalty, especially if your business is centered around this value and it is also a top value for your ideal customer.

Ready to Outsource?

As you consider what parts of your marketing to outsource, remember that it’s not just about saving costs; it’s an investment in the growth and success of your business. 

Contact me to explore how I can help turn your online dreams into reality!

Remember, your business deserves the spotlight. Let’s shine it together!