What you'll learn:

  • The three questions to run any marketing task through before you decide who does it
  • Why compounding work belongs close to you, and why one and done work is where hiring an expert pays for itself fastest
  • The hidden costs of doing it yourself 
  • How to tell a cheap mistake from an expensive one, and why the expensive ones are almost always silent
  • What genuinely belongs in house (or hybrid at least)
  • What to hand off (almost always, except for you Martin and Ben)
  • Why content and email have to be shared, and why owning all of it or outsourcing all of it are both expensive
  • Six things nobody should be paying for, and six DIY habits quietly costing you customers
  • What you never hand over, even when you hire out everything else

Digital Marketing: What's Worth Doing Yourself, and What You Should Hire Out

Most small business owners are not spending too much on marketing or too little. They are spending in the wrong places. The work only they can do well gets handed off, and the work that really needs a professional gets white-knuckled through on a Sunday afternoon.

Part of the reason is that we talk about marketing like it is one job. It is at least five. Search, which now means both traditional SEO and getting picked up by AI answers. Email marketing. Building and maintaining your website. Social media, across platforms with different rules. And paid search, where real money moves every day whether you are watching or not. Each of those is a career. You can learn any single one of them, but you already have a full time job, and it is running your business.

So something has to give. This session is about deciding what.

Pairs well with Live Homepage Teardowns, which shows you how far you can get on your own website with a checklist and an honest eye.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I decide whether to do a marketing task myself or hire it out?

Run it through three questions. First, does it compound, meaning does doing it every month build something, or is it done once and finished? Compounding work like asking for reviews and taking photos usually belongs close to you because you are the source of it. Second, what does a mistake cost? Cheap mistakes are loud and harmless. Expensive mistakes are silent, like a broken contact form or a misconfigured email record. Third, will you actually keep doing it, judged by your calendar rather than your intentions? If the answer is no, hand it off or drop it, but do not leave it half done.

What marketing should a small business owner always do themselves?

The spontaneous, in the moment work. Asking for a review while you are standing there with a happy customer. Taking photos of your crew, your projects in progress, and finished work. Capturing the questions customers actually ask you, in their words. Nobody else is in the room for any of that. The planned, scheduled side of the same work, like publishing posts on a calendar and keeping your profiles current, can be handed off once you are supplying the raw material.

What marketing work should a small business hire out?

Anything where a mistake is expensive and silent. That includes building and structuring your website, page speed and technical SEO, security and backups, email authentication (SPF, DKIM, and DMARC), conversion tracking and analytics setup, Google Ads, schema markup, and anything that touches your DNS. These are also mostly one and done tasks, so you are buying a correct setup one time instead of building a skill you will use once.

What should I never pay a marketing company for?

A guaranteed number one ranking, because nobody controls Google's results. Bulk directory submissions. Bought reviews, followers, or engagement. Cheap backlink packages, which can actively get you penalized. A monthly retainer with no named deliverables and no report. And any tool subscription you have not logged into in ninety days. Separately, no legitimate call from Google asks you to pay to claim or verify your listing.

Should I outsource responding to my Google reviews?

You can, and many businesses should. Two things matter if you do. Work with someone who knows your voice and will check with you on wording, especially on difficult responses. And recognize that having a partner respond can be a real advantage, because a less than stellar review stings and you are too close to it in the moment. Someone a step removed usually writes a calmer, better reply than you would.

What should I keep control of even if I hire a marketing agency?

Ownership of every account with your business name on it: your domain, Google Business Profile, ad account, analytics, and email list. You are the administrator and whoever helps you is a user. Your voice, especially anywhere a customer is speaking directly to you. And the judgment of whether the work is working. Ask for the numbers and check them somewhere you can see for yourself, because nobody should be the only scorekeeper for their own work.