The product we sell the most is “subscribe to a marketing department“. Read more about what it entails and why you should subscribe to us rather than hire.
“Within five years, we will see that managers no longer want to ‘own’ competence by hiring them. We will see more people working on contracts for more companies.”
Solaima Gouranhi, a Danish speaker and business developer known for her precise predictions, says hiring is expensive and risky. Trends and needs change rapidly, especially in web and marketing. Therefore, more people now want to make looser agreements with one or more people, rather than hiring.
Hiring hours from a small team, as we are, has the advantage that you get access to broader expertise than if you have a freelancer. We also work very well together; we have one specializing in content, one in design, one in web development, one in digital marketing, one in illustration and animation —for optimal results.
How does it work?
Our subscription solutions work so that you subscribe to a certain number of hours a month. The most common is 32 hours a month (8 hours a week) or 64 hours a month. During these hours, you get access to all our expertise.
You’ll get one person who is your main contact, though, your marketing project manager. It means that one person will help you do the planning, have weekly follow-up meetings on Teams, and coordinate tasks within the team.
Me, who is writing this blog, is a project manager in Contenting. Earlier, I have been in a Silicon Valley Startup. Also, I have been a Content Marketing Manager in Visma, one of Norway’s biggest IT companies. Microsoft is one of the more prominent companies that has hired me to help out their partners and resellers excel in marketing. Maybe I can help your company too?
Working with companies
Both large and small customers can subscribe to a marketing department. Our smallest marketing department subscription client, CloudWay AS, is a company with 7 people. We have also had large cooperations subscribing, like ALSO. They have their own marketing resources, but they want to add extra people to help them when marketing activities get out of hand.
As a rule, it works to have one or more contact persons in the company that we work with. We then have regular strategy meetings with the person(s) where we layout strategy, look at what has been done, and what needs to be done.
What are we working on?
We always have a kickoff meeting with the customer first to get to know them and start sketching up what we are to do and how the collaboration will be. For many of our customers, we start off focusing on creating good websites that appeal to search engines and create sales. We have also helped several to get a uniform design on all surfaces.
When we finish working on typical tasks, we tend to create good content (this can be text, animation, etc.) and spread them on different surfaces. For example, we have created several creative Facebook ads that give customers sales. We always measure results and ensure that customers get the maximum effect from all the work done.
We also help customers with ongoing marketing work such as sending out newsletters, preparing for various events, updating the website with product information, blogging, spreading on social media, and more. Different customers have different needs. We always look at what the customer has, their goals, and recommendations on what we think is wise to do.
We help customers in a niche with marketing. We know the niche and the products very well, and therefore know how we can create results.
Favorable for us and the customers
Such a price gives us low margins, but it gives us some benefits as well. These subscriptions give Contenting security in the form of giving us a predictable workload and revenue stream at the bottom. They allow us to work continuously and create results that we can later demonstrate. At the same time, it is incredibly exciting to be allowed to be part of a company’s marketing strategy in this way.
For ongoing projects, we invoice €119 per hour. So, the subscription customers give us security, and in return, they get a good price.
For companies, the solution is very cost-effective. They avoid paying more per hour than having employees, at the same time as they avoid the risk. They can scale up and down as needed and gain access to broader expertise. And we send monthly reports on how the hours are spent and the created results, which gives us the desire to work purposefully, smartly, and efficiently.