Is MaaS Really the Future of Digital Marketing?

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Marketing isn’t the forefront of automation in our world. We’re behind industries like accounting or customer relations. This is due mostly to the fact that our profession relies mostly on asset creation.

When you build a marketing business, you’re doing a lot of content creation, link-building, campaign re-tooling. Automation saves time outside of those tasks. But it’s difficult to make those tasks automated.

This is where Marketing as a Service (MaaS) comes in. And in the next few paragraphs, I’m going to explain exactly how it will completely revolutionize the marketing world.

What Exactly is Marketing as a Service?

When we say “as a service” what we really mean is laissez-faire. When you employ Servers as a Service, you don’t have to mess with your server. All security, backup, APIs, storage etc are done for you.

Marketing as a Service should be no different. You should have to do the bare minimum to set up the service and from there on, you take your hands off the wheel and watch it work for you.

You Don’t Know Marketing and That’s OK

It’s extremely difficult to keep up with marketing trends even if you’re a full-time marketer. If your full-time job isn’t marketing, then it will be near impossible to stay abreast of the ever-shifting market. Marketing as a service makes this absolutely OK.

When you let someone else do your marketing, you can spend your market research time improving product and service value to a customer and investing in relationships. In essence, the purpose of marketing as a service is to free up the business owner and the entrepreneur to actually work on their business.

The Technical Side Is Taken Care Of

Since the advent of the internet, the need for technical knowledge in marketing has increased a thousandfold. And many business owners shirk marketing due to fear of technology. Marketing as a Service assuages the business owner’s fears in this area.

Don’t understand how to optimize pay per click ads? No problem, marketing as a service has you covered. When you hire a MaaS company, you’re up and running in a few minutes.

It’s a Centralized Model

Marketers often hole themselves up in particular niches. One might focus on SEO, another on pure content marketing, another on ad copy, etc. You sometimes have to hire multiple marketers to do the entirety of the work.

With marketing as a service, you should get an entire package in one service. No more shopping around through hundreds of marketer bios. Just find a service that fits your style and go with it.

Marketing as a Service May Not Be For Everyone

There may be a few reasons that a full-service marketing offer may not be for you. Not every service is a viable solution for every possible customer.

According to Story Block Media, lack of familiarity is one of the top reasons a company may not want to hire out their marketing. If a service does not fully understand what your business is about or your business is more complicated than an outside agency could fully grasp, then perhaps you should consider an in-house solution.

This doesn’t mean that outsourced solutions like the MaaS model can’t learn as they go, it just means that the beginning might be rough. Mixed signals often frustrate or cause confusion and the value a MaaS platform might be limited for certain industries.

This doesn’t mean fields that require expertise shouldn’t consider MaaS and do their research. Perhaps a marketing service will have prior experience in your field of expertise.

Some Services Might Be Too Slow for Your Needs

If you’re on a tight timeline, some marketing services might be too slow for your needs. Marketing is becoming more and more automated. But we still need hands-on work for most marketing efforts.

And if a marketing service acquires more contracts than they have time for, their services slow down. An in-house team may be able to keep you up to date and help steer your marketing ship more efficiently than an off-site marketing service.

But with an on-site marketing office, you do use up more resources than you would with an off-site marketing service. What you gain in efficiency, you lose in resources.

How to Get the Most Out of Marketing as a Service

While MaaS is a fairly hands-off experience, it’s still up to you to make sure you get the most out of the service. You should have a roadmap already worked out for your marketing campaign before you finalize your MaaS contract.

This will ensure the marketing service knows exactly what you expect. While a marketing plan may eventually become moot after a time, it’s a great way to gather data and establish goals.

But don’t expect a marketing service to follow your plan to the letter. A marketing plan is dynamic. It shouldn’t be a static document meant to constrain your marketing service.

Pay Attention to Your Customers

This may seem like common sense advice, but when it comes to marketing many companies forget that their goals should tailor to their customers. You might think the goals you have for your company’s future are perfect until your customers leave.

Marketing plans often fail because they don’t focus on how a service or product solves a customer’s problems. Usually, these failed campaigns focus too much on specifications. “Here is what we offer!” their ads yell.

Nobody cares.

Make sure you know how your service or product solves your customer’s problems before hiring a marketing service.

Not a Fix All

Of course, no solution will fix all your marketing problems. Often the problem is deeper than any outward marketing campaign can solve.

But MaaS is where most marketing is heading. Maybe it’s time to see if it’s right for your business.

If you’re interested in more marketing advice, check out the rest of Shoemoney.com.

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source_link MMO mastermind