It’s often said that your product is only as good as your marketing efforts. Providing the right message at the right time to the right audience is the objective of all marketers, but it’s easier said than done. With new social media platforms gaining traction every few months and algorithms seemingly changing every time you open an app, it can be hard to stay on top of what’s trending without an expert marketing team. Companies spend millions of dollars to build a team of marketers that can spot and take advantage of a trend before their competitor does. However, it doesn’t have to be this way.

Understanding Marketing as a service (MaaS)

Why think outside the box when you can think outside the organization? As business operations such as customer service, sales management, and product management increasingly become automated and integrated into cloud CRMs, marketing still lags behind. However, that’s beginning to change with external marketing service providers able to deliver new marketing experiences quickly and effectively. MaaS providers create a blueprint and a framework for marketing campaigns and then deploy these unique elements as building blocks for individual campaigns. All of these activities are stored in the cloud which is accessible by all stakeholders, leading to ‘on-demand’ marketing.

How is MaaS different from the traditional agency model?

Traditional marketing agencies operate with rigid schedules, and even though they might score highly for creative skill sets, they typically display a lack of technological know-how. MaaS helps mitigate timelines and cost escalations. MaaS providers work more efficiently as they use automation software for asset creation activities such as campaign design, landing page creation, lead nurturing, analytics, etc. Often many full service agencies also prefer to use white label social media management services.

While, of course, not a magic formula, MaaS helps brands extract maximum value from expenditure on marketing efforts through all-around accessibility and agility.

Why do businesses need MaaS?

The biggest roadblocks for a marketing department usually include poor client retention, missed deadlines, a poor ROI, or just general inefficiencies. As marketing becomes increasingly omnichannel and all-encompassing, it presents a major challenge for established brands to stay relevant and for upcoming brands to provide long-term competition. Solving these issues internally by hiring more talent is not a feasible solution because scaling marketing efforts too much too fast could lead to resources being spread too thin. MaaS providers address these resource constraints while at the same time bringing unparalleled expertise to the table. MaaS allows you to outsource and optimize the following functions:

• Content development

• Content presentation

• Online and print media design

• UI and UX design

• Public relations activities

• Lead scoring

• Automation of marketing programs

Why choose to outsource?

Even though an organization’s in-house marketing team may know their brand inside out, an outsourced team brings with them niche specialties that facilitate optimal resource allocation and gaining a competitive advantage. If you are an agency, you might even want to explore white label social media management services. Here’s why:

• Expertise: An MaaS service provider adds to the expertise and skill sets of your marketing team. Some MaaS service providers choose to associate themselves with brands in specific industries. On-boarding such service providers will help small businesses gain the marketing niche necessary to get an advantage over bigger brands and help established businesses tip the scales in their favor in a hyper-competitive market.

• Cost-effectiveness: Marketing departments at many organizations remain short on staff and long on work. Outsourcing non-core functions allows such companies to better allocate their resources and get more bang for their buck.

• Flexibility: Marketing is all about capitalizing on real-time opportunities. With automated services, MaaS ensures that you never miss a trend. An agile marketing strategy fueled by the cloud computing capabilities of MaaS, will increase the likelihood of engaging your audience with current and relevant messaging, and translating that into leads.

In a hyper-competitive world, a marginal gain may be the difference between your organization thriving or merely surviving. However, with the multitude of benefits that MaaS has to offer, it may be an increasingly easy choice to make.