There is a gap between small business owners that do outsource marketing, and those that want to outsource. In Constant Contact‘s recent survey, they found that small business owners will generally outsource marketing for large-cost projects, like billboards, but not low-cost marketing, like social media.

96 percent of those surveyed handle social media in-house but 19 percent said they would prefer to outsource this responsibility. They know this is not their forte and are frustrated by the rapidly-changing technologies but are worried about cost.

“Survey respondents estimated that they, their employees, and their volunteers spend a combined total of approximately 33 hours per week on marketing activities.  When asked to provide a dollar amount to the value of an extra hour in their day, the mean came out to $273, with responses ranging all the way up to $5,000.”

If you’re wasting you or your staff’s time on social media marketing that they’re not equipped to handle in the first place, wouldn’t those hours be better spent on core business activities? That is to say, only if someone else is taking care of the marketing. The saddest thing for me is seeing businesses attempting to handle social media in-house and ruining their digital image by doing so. A good marketing consultant will keep you informed of what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, and what you need to know without the knitty gritty details.

You are the expert in your business. Hire experts to work on your business.