15 October 2024
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By
Chris Hamlin
For start-ups, small businesses and emerging enterprises, having the right marketing resources available can be the difference between executing successful campaigns that convert into sales and flushing valuable capital down the drain.
There is a wide variety of marketing resources out there, including tools, templates, content guides and more. But if you’re considering building up your resources library or on the hunt for a specific tool to assist you with your next campaign, you might be wondering whether you should ‘buy or build’.
In other words, which option offers a greater return on investment for your business: To purchase pre-made marketing templates and tools from an online provider or develop these resources in-house?
The best approach ultimately comes down to your specific needs and your business. Because there are templates and tools of all sizes and levels of complexity and for all purposes, there is simply no one best approach for all businesses.
If you are looking for a small and simple tool, you might just need an SEO keyword research template or perhaps even a series of marketing email templates. These affordable and easy-to-use resources can help small and medium-sized enterprises get up and running as quickly and seamlessly as possible.
More established and robust businesses might consider purchasing a tool to support their existing Customer Relationship Management software, such as Hubspot, eCommerce platforms, such as Shopify, social media platforms, or their productivity and processes software, such as ClickUp.
In some cases, neither a pre-made marketing resource will suffice nor an in-house developed one practical. In these instances, you might want to consider exploring a custom template quote from our team.
The first and main thing to understand is what you are trying to achieve. Knowing what you need from the particular resource in question will help you determine whether or not you need to source a pre-built one to buy or build one yourself.
For some businesses, product tracking requires more than a standard Google Sheet or Microsoft Excel document to scale with a growing business. That is when it is time to start considering whether or not you need to procure a tool from an external provider.
Choosing between buying already existing resources or creating your own from scratch ultimately comes down to your own needs, preferences and experience. Both approaches bring advantages and disadvantages.
This is perhaps the most obvious advantage of the buy approach. Purchasing pre-made resources allows you to direct your irreplaceable effort, time and human resources towards operating and growing your business. Creating marketing resources can be a lengthy and involved process, so outsourcing it to external experts can be useful.
A good example is this Google Data Studio template. Across 27 pages, it offers your digital team a comprehensive overview of your website’s performance and can integrate data from various marketing channels. To build such a template from scratch, assuming that your team has the time, resources and experience to do so, would take at least 20 hours. To purchase it, on the other hand, will cost just $99.
Buying resources from a renowned supplier means you’re leveraging the cumulative knowledge and experience of other marketing professionals and experts. Pre-existing marketing resources, especially ones backed by social proof, such as testimonials, are tried and tested. There is no need to reinvent the wheel here.
Tapping into the networks and support systems that come along with or are associated with purchased resources can be highly beneficial, especially for businesses new to the marketing world. Comparing best practices, having the support you need to succeed, and connecting with like-minded entrepreneurs are great ways to get started.
byMarketers offers after-sale support across all of our templates and resources. So, if after purchasing a template, you need a hand getting it all set up, customising it according to your needs or need to troubleshoot an issue, you can contact our support team for assistance.
Not every template and tool out there will suit your specific needs or brand identity. It is important when considering purchasing marketing resources that you both ensure they align with your needs and intended marketing campaigns, and/or provide enough of a blank canvas upon which you can carry out your own customisation.
Similarly, if the marketing resources you buy are not fit for purpose or your team lacks the skills and knowledge to properly utilise them, you might find yourself recurring additional and ongoing expenses that add up over time.
For example, Looker Studio Marketing Templates require connections to external data sources to display reports. While you can buy the template for a one-off fee, there may also be an ongoing 3rd party monthly subscription to feed in real-time data. For example, the Shopify Template requires a data connector subscription with PowerMyAnalytics.
Not all marketing resources are equal. That’s the truth. The quality of available tools and templates varies significantly, so it is imperative that you conduct your own due diligence before entering any credit card details.
Building your own marketing resources allows your in-house marketing team to customise their tools from top to bottom. This helps to ensure complete alignment with your marketing goals and campaigns and can be beneficial in the long run.
For businesses with the right human resources in-house, developing marketing resources can also help to hone valuable (and invaluable!) skills among your team members. It can foster a culture of learning and development that will help ensure ongoing success.
Businesses that build their own marketing resources retain full control over not just the content but access to the content. They can adapt as necessary without any dependency on external sources, and they can retain any competitive advantage gained by having a truly unique resource at their disposal.
As mentioned above, building your own marketing resources takes significant time and effort. The opportunity cost of creating high-quality resources from scratch can affect your marketing campaign’s implementation by causing delays and diluting your team’s ability to work on other integral aspects of the business.
Not all in-house teams have the necessary expertise or requisite experience to build effective marketing resources. Many small businesses need to provide additional training or hire more team members to facilitate the creation of usable tools.
Additionally, building your own marketing resources and templates means that you need to provide (or source) your own support yourself as well. Adding the cost of this to other ongoing expenditures, such as subscriptions or upskilling in-house resources, can contribute to blowout costs associated with self-made marketing resources.
The team here at byMarketers.co knows a thing or two about how valuable purchasing expertly-made and high-quality marketing resources can be. That’s why we’ve crowd-sourced the best templates from the best experts in the industry and curated them into one convenient spot for budding marketers and growing businesses alike.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a crucial digital marketing strategy in today’s world. With the right keyword research tools, link-building resources, and technical SEO guides, this relatively complex area can be made simple. Our customisable resources help marketers strategise how to optimise their content, improve their website and enhance user experience.
Looker Studio (formerly referred to as Google Data Studio) is a powerful data visualisation tool. With interactive dashboards and reports, drilling down on helpful data and pulling out invaluable analyses can help set your business up for success. Our ready-to-buy resources include pre-built templates and dashboards to help get you started tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) and identify trends as soon as possible.
Google Ads is a leading pay-per-click advertising platform enabling businesses to reach new and greater pools of potential customers. With the right templates behind you, your marketing team is best positioned to create effective campaigns that will actually increase traffic and conversions.
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is Google’s analytics platform and gives businesses excellent capabilities to track and report on their digital performance. byMarketers’ range of pre-made resources helps to streamline data analytics and ensure you can maintain the effectiveness of your marketing investment and efforts.
Email marketing has long been and still remains one of the most effective and widely used channels for reaching customers and clients. But with the deluge of content and emails your target audience is forced to contend with daily, having the right tools and templates to cut through the noise and engage with your subscriber list is critical.
byMarketers offers marketing resources made by marketers for marketers.
By pooling expertise and experience from across the industry, you can save time, effort and hassle by finding the right pre-built and yet customisable template for you. While the buy vs build consideration might be different for different business owners, make sure to cross all the Ts and dot all the Is by checking out the extensive range of proven marketing templates available right here at byMarketers.
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