About Us
Outsourced Marketing makes marketing easy for businesses by providing the strategic thinking and the daily implementation of systematic and powerful marketing activities.
We create exponential results by installing a marketing system into your business that delivers a holistic integrated approach with high yields. We ensure your website, SEO, email marketing, blog, social media, PR, and advertising are all working together to drive great results.
Ready for results, try us out by completing a free marketing audit at https://www.outsourcedmarketing.ca/marketing-au...
How We Got Started
We're here to save businesses from lousy marketing investments. Our 20+ years of marketing experience combined with a proven marketing system provides our clients with exceptional value for their marketing investment.
Too often we've been brought in to fix some really bad marketing made by well intentioned people, but more often than not there was no marketing plan or system to guide their marketing activities.
Avoid the common marketing pitfalls by calling Outsourced Marketing for a totally free discovery consultation, no strings attached,no selling, just educating and sharing the options available to you.
The products and services we offer
Recommendations Received (13)
"Ian is a top notch consultant and marketing master!
If you want strategy over tactics, backed by..."
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"Ian is a top notch consultant and marketing master!
If you want strategy over tactics, backed by a careful analysis of your online presence, Ian will offer a solid plan for success. I highly recommend OMI!"
"Outsourced marketing has the knowledge and experience to take your business to the next level...."
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"Outsourced marketing has the knowledge and experience to take your business to the next level. Highly recommend."
Products & Services
Get a new perspective while getting the help you need from the experts. With over 20 years helping businesses of all sizes get marketing right, we...
80%of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations and 92%
of consumers read online reviews for local businesses, and 73% f...
Marketing has changed. Nearly everyone turns to the web to find local businesses. Being found through local search has never been more important....
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Recommendations Given (16)
"The CoCo Mortgage team is fantastic. They provide in-depth and alternative financing and mortgage..."
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"The CoCo Mortgage team is fantastic. They provide in-depth and alternative financing and mortgage options often unavailable from the banks. Super friendly and deep understanding of the mortgage options available.
I recommend CoCo Mortgage. "
"Martin is outstanding at home inspections. He is extremely thorough and detailed in documenting..."
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"Martin is outstanding at home inspections. He is extremely thorough and detailed in documenting everything that could impact you in the short or long term.
Martin is very personable, friendly and professional.
I highly recommend Martin and Comprehensive Home Inspections. "
Recent Activity
The best answer is yes... and no. Every website my team creates is optimized with SEO best practices so that your site is maximized for search engines from the moment it goes live. Having said that, here are some things you need to understand about SEO and why you are never done with it. It's...
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The best answer is yes... and no. Every website my team creates is optimized with SEO best practices so that your site is maximized for search engines from the moment it goes live. Having said that, here are some things you need to understand about SEO and why you are never done with it. It's just a part of ongoing business management that is required to ensure you gain the most leads from search engines. These factors include: •Ongoing knowledge sharing that aligns with peoples searches (keywords). Google cares about relevance and recency, so if you consistently share blog posts and articles of value that align with what people are searching for you will rank better. •Off-page SEO: There are a host of elements that Google references that are outside of your immediate website but play a large part in your search engine rankings. These include: •GoogleMyBusiness optimization. Google loves Google, so you have to optimize this important property. •Online Directories - These are vital as Google looks to these to check if your business info is correct, up to date etc. •Social Networks - Google sees all. •Online reviews - these are now a very important ranking factor for your business. If you ignore your online reputation, you do so to your demise. •Youtube - Google loves Google, Google owns Youtube, so you should be there. •Backlinks to your website from reputable websites. •and much more.... But this gives you an idea of all the off-page SEO factors that can help you rank better than your competitors. So yes, any reputable web development company, web designer, or marketing agency will include SEO best practices. The challenge is, everyone says they do it, but few do it well. And no, the broader elements of off-page SEO are not included in website design/development because they are ongoing activities that need to be performed to benefit your business and its search engine rankings. I hope this helped. If you want to jump on a free Discovery Call, I'm more than happy to learn more about your business and provide some free consulting to you on the call. Ian P.S. as an added comment about how many developers/designers/agencies don't do SEO well, it's really important that you equip yourself with the right questions when talking with potential developers/designers, be sure to ask for examples of their clients sites, and if they can provide ranking reports that are redacted to protect the innocent, this will hopefully help you choose someone that can help you. The reason I recommend this is that it's really hard for the average business person (even an above-average business person) to know if the company is good or not. We often find ourselves fixing the problems that other designers/developers have created because they talked a good talk, but couldn't deliver the goods on SEO.
A systematic approach starting with strategy has proved very successful for myself and my clients. The short answer is: whatever gets you and your unique difference in front of your ideal customer, wherever that may be. The longer answer: Strategy. . Know who you are . Known who your ideal...
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A systematic approach starting with strategy has proved very successful for myself and my clients. The short answer is: whatever gets you and your unique difference in front of your ideal customer, wherever that may be. The longer answer: Strategy. . Know who you are . Known who your ideal customers are . Know what makes your business different. . Target the places where your ideal customers hangout and/or search for your product or service. The top strategies that we find working are a combination of: . A great website that attracts and guides your ideal customers through their buying process. . SEO (getting found on Google) . Online reviews and directory Listings (including GoogleMyBusiness) . Targeted social media including paid ads. And add in some: . Networking locally . Paid Google ads . Email marketing . And the list grows as you continue to invest more in growth. I love helping business owners 'crack the marketing code' for their business, so if you like what you hear and wish to chat, send me a message. Ian
Hire an expert. I know that sounds self-serving when I'm an expert in this field, but it's very true. Ranking at the top of Google takes a big effort in numerous areas of your online marketing especially if you're in a highly competitive geography/field. SMALL BUSINESS - NO MONEY FOR SEO...
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Hire an expert. I know that sounds self-serving when I'm an expert in this field, but it's very true. Ranking at the top of Google takes a big effort in numerous areas of your online marketing especially if you're in a highly competitive geography/field. SMALL BUSINESS - NO MONEY FOR SEO However, if you're a small business with no or very little budget I would suggest: 1- Before you do anything else, get listed on GoogleMyBusiness and optimize your profile to the max. This means providing details about the products and services you offer (preferably keyword targeted), listing and detailing the services you offer, business hours, areas you serve, etc., and uploading and tagging photos, uploading articles, events, deals etc. 2-Ask customers to leave you a Google review. This is massive, do not neglect this. 3-Have your website built by an SEO expert, or updated by an SEO expert. Many websites are built by designers who know very little about the requirements to rank well on Google. I can't tell you the number of times I get called in to fix websites that were created by well-meaning designers that truly didn't understand the science of SEO. READY TO BLAST-OFF TO GREATER RESULTS Now if you are at the place in your business that you can afford to invest in the future of your business growth, I would highly recommend investing in SEO. Hiring an SEO agency/consultant can create a river of leads for your business that you can't create any other way. Want to learn more about SEO, check out my FREE eBook 'The Local SEO Playbook - Your Guide To Local Rankings' https://www.outsourcedmarketing.ca/free-ebook-local-seo-playbook/
As a marketing agency I see the following challenges with video:
1-Cost - It's not inexpensive, and not everyone is good in front of the camera. Of course there are other types of videos that can be done such as animations, whiteboards, etc.
2-No Strategic Plan - I've seen a lot of businesses...
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As a marketing agency I see the following challenges with video:
1-Cost - It's not inexpensive, and not everyone is good in front of the camera. Of course there are other types of videos that can be done such as animations, whiteboards, etc.
2-No Strategic Plan - I've seen a lot of businesses burn through their cash by investing in videos that actually serve no purpose for their business other than make them as the business feel good (vanity purposes). I always recommend to people considering video to first do the following:
a) Have a marketing plan and see if video fits into the plan, and where it fits from a priority of investments. You may want to invest on other marketing strategies and elements long before investing in video.
b) Your marketing plan will help ensure you know who you're targeting, what your message is, what your goals and objectives for those videos are, how they fit within the buyers' journey to help move people along it etc.
c) Unless your videographer is a marketing genius, don't let them guide the objectives or the script writing. I would certainly lean on them to help refine the script and storyboard once you know what you want and why you want it, but most videographers won't have the big picture marketing plan to help guide you.
d) Know how you'll measure success before you invest. Is it views? Is it clicks to your website? Is it sign-ups to your service after they watch it? Is it downloads? Ultimately everything should lead to sales because that's what keeps us all afloat.
Once you do all this hire a videographer or have your marketing consultant do that because they have worked with many and can tell the good ones from the bad ones, not just on the look of a video. Of course any vendor needs to be about relationships, so choose someone you have an affinity with and understands your business and your objectives and will help you achieve them.
That's what my observations have been, I hope they're helpful. I'm a strong believer that video can be an important part of a businesses successful marketing but it needs to be part of a well thought out plan.
I hope that's useful,
Ian
1 Reply
It depends what the final use is. Here are some of my favorites:
For storing important info:
-Evernote and Skitch - amazing. You can capture the screen, text, images etc in a variety of ways and store it in your evernote account (free)
For Capturing a screen and providing voice over...I do...
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It depends what the final use is. Here are some of my favorites:
For storing important info:
-Evernote and Skitch - amazing. You can capture the screen, text, images etc in a variety of ways and store it in your evernote account (free)
For Capturing a screen and providing voice over...I do this a lot with helping customers solve online issues:
-Jing or Loom - both are great free tools that allow you to capture your screen and mouse movements while also adding your voice over top.
Those are my top choices.
Ian
It depends what you're looking for. If you simply want a nice looking website than a web designer can help you for sure, but if you want your website to be the online hub of your marketing efforts that gets found on search engines, engages visitors, converts them to customers, and helps with...
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It depends what you're looking for. If you simply want a nice looking website than a web designer can help you for sure, but if you want your website to be the online hub of your marketing efforts that gets found on search engines, engages visitors, converts them to customers, and helps with retention then I'd recommend hiring a marketing agency or consultant.
Don't get me wrong I started my career as a graphic designer and web designer but a lot has changed over the years and as a marketing agency we don't even hire web designers any longer because there's just so much more expertise involved in creating an online presence than simply the look (we still make them look amazing of course). I know there's some semantics at play here and that there's a whole sliding scale of peoples abilities. Meaning you might find a web designer who also understands a bit about marketing and conversion, or a bit about SEO. But if you don't have someone that can step back and see the whole plan, the big picture of your entire marketing plan and how each piece will reach and resonate with the right people, and generate the actions you need than you are going down a path that is a dead end.
I've fixed many websites that were built by well meaning web designers but were like cars without engines. They just didn't perform what the business owner was hoping because they placed unrealistic expectations on the web designer, or the web designer created unrealistic expectations for the business on what their website could do.
My recommendation is that when hiring someone to help you build your website that you ask the bigger questions related to your business goals and how the site will help you reach them, and less about what colours or imagery you think it should have. (don't worry you'll also get to talk about the look and feel as well).
You'll be glad you did,
Ian
P.S. If you'd like to talk to a marketing expert I offer a free consultation...no strings attached.
I strongly recommend Wordpress, but I don't recommend your website yourself, it's just too important for your business to leave it to a layperson.
Having developed websites for years I have chosen Wordpress as my platform of choice for a lot of reasons.
1. It's a solid, stable platform with a...
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I strongly recommend Wordpress, but I don't recommend your website yourself, it's just too important for your business to leave it to a layperson.
Having developed websites for years I have chosen Wordpress as my platform of choice for a lot of reasons.
1. It's a solid, stable platform with a lot of development energy put towards it. It's quite secure and is updated often to fill any security gaps that may arise. It's the most used platform on the web and has considerable free or inexpensive add-on capabilities, and most integrations with almost any CRM, email, reviews, social platforms etc are available.
2. It's very flexible. If you know what you're doing you can create any website to look how you want it to look with the features that the best sites have.
3. It's strong in SEO. I know, every platform says this, but I can tell you that not every platform lives up to it's claims. When you combine Wordpress with plugins that specialize in optimizing for search you create a powerful combination. To truly understand how Wordpress is above the others in this way you'd have to dig deeper in what search engines are looking for, and how the 'easy' plug and play type web platforms simply have no way to truly compete with an expertly developed Wordpress site with keyword research to guide the way.
4. Themes and plugins - The quickest way to get your website up and running and looking fantastic, and also having increased capabilities is to choose a proven, top performing theme that comes with a lot of extra's. It may put you back about $50-100, but if you carry that cost over 3 years that's a drop in the bucket. Wordpress also has the largest plugin options and if you have a particular challenge you can almost always find a proven plugin to solve that problem.
I would state that with any web development project that you hire a professional to do it for you. If you choose well you will get exactly what you want (if not more), in a timelier manner, with expert guidance, at a reasonable cost. Just because a tool is accessible doesn't mean it's in a businesses best interest to do it themselves, most discover this after trying.
I hope you find this helpful.
Ian
P.S. If you'd like a free web development consultation, please connect with me, I'd be happy to help you.
