Should I Hire an Internal Marketing Team or Outsource to a Local Agency?


Marketing is crucial to the success of a business. It helps you meet your sales goals, increase your brand awareness, and tell your story. Though many understand the importance of marketing’s role in growing a business, few are sure of how to go about it. Should you hire an internal team, or should you outsource to a local agency? For the most robust, effective marketing strategy, we recommend outsourcing. Let’s talk about why.

In this article, we’ll cover a few reasons to consider outsourcing, including:

  • Staying ahead of the curve
  • Getting more out of your marketing budget
  • Having a comprehensive marketing team without searching for employees
  • Focusing on your core business operations

With an outsourced marketing agency, you can…

Stay Ahead of the Curve

A marketing agency lives and breathes innovative tools and effective strategies. They are working daily to research new methods, test the effectiveness of a tactic, and identify the best way to connect with your audience. Not only do agencies stay ahead of the latest trends, but they also invest the time into learning about your internal operations and your target audience’s expectations and needs. 

Agencies live in the marketing mindset, whereas internal teams are living inside of your industry’s world. When you outsource your marketing, you know that you’re working with a team that will identify your vision, build a strategy, monitor that strategy continually, and do everything in its power to deliver results. 

Get More Out of Your Marketing Budget

Can you believe that hiring an external marketing team could actually make your budget stretch further? When you think of it in terms of overhead, you can skip hours of searching for an internal employee and the countless dollars you would spend hiring, training, and managing that new person. 

Having an agency on retainer also ensures that your marketing strategy will not be put on hold when someone leaves your team—allowing you to continue growing even during times of turnover. Finally, consider the continual training costs necessary for professional development, such as conferences and classes, and industry organizations’ membership costs.

All in all, agencies bypass your overhead costs and provide you access to a diversely talented and well-trained marketing team that always has a finger on the pulse. 

Have Access to a Comprehensive Marketing Team without Hiring 

An agency removes the need to hire someone to fill every role—content, digital marketing, graphic design, photography, web development, and so on. You will have access to each of these skills, all in one place. It’s as simple as that. In Green Apple’s case, we approach each new client strategy by handpicking a team of marketing professionals to fit your business’s specific needs. We serve as a full-service, one-stop-shop for all things marketing, and you’ll find that it takes the stress off your plate. Rather than piling marketing tasks onto your to-do list, you know that an agency is already five steps ahead of you. 

Focus On Your Core Business

Your business’s core operations are where you want to spend your time. If you’re a roofing company, for example, you don’t want to spend your days wading through marketing tasks, nor should you have to. When companies have the internal capacity to tackle their core focus, that’s when they reach their highest potential. An agency identifies that potential and makes sure that your marketing aligns appropriately. You, on the other hand, focus on what you know and what you love doing. We take care of the rest. 

Are you ready to take your business goals to the next level? Contact Green Apple Strategy today to schedule a consultation. To have marketing insight sent straight to your inbox, sign up for our newsletter—The Core.

7 Reasons You Shouldn’t Cut Your Marketing Budget in a Recession

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“But, we have to cut something.” You may be feeling as though marketing is the easiest line item in your budget report to slash. We get it. As we’ve worked through this recession, Green Apple has made cuts of our own to ensure that we’re financially strong enough to serve our customers. We’re right there with you. However, cutting your marketing budget can hurt your business long-term, even when it might help it slightly in the immediate future. 

To ensure that your business can continue serving its customers, you must consider a few key points. Here are seven reasons to reconsider reducing your marketing budget in a recession.

1. What if your competitors don’t?

You may consider cutting your marketing budget, but if your competitors don’t, where does that leave you? When you reduce your marketing budget, you decrease how and how often your customers see you—allowing your competitor to move in.

2. Your marketing team can help your customers support you.

The return on investment for your marketing strategy is still valid during a recession. While things are “normal,” your strategy is to drive sales and build relationships; however, during a recession, you are more focused on the relationship-building side of things and can keep your customers invested in your success. They love you as much as you love them, and they don’t want to see your business struggle. Your marketing team can help you show the right amount of vulnerability and transparency, while still sending the message that you are here to help.

3. Your marketing team protects you.

Clients often think about marketing as advertising, but it’s so much more. Your marketing team is telling your brand’s story, and that story must be shaped to align with the social climate—so as to not be insensitive or offensive. Using COVID-19 as an example, companies needed to quickly shift their messaging strategies to be sensitive and empathetic. Having a team on your side that can help shift and shape your message allows you to support your audience, while keeping your brand top of mind.

4. You don’t want your customers to feel abandoned.

Your marketing strategy strengthens your relationship with your audience. A reduction in your budget can leave your customers wondering where you went—or worse, if your business is in jeopardy of shutting down.

You will, of course, be there for your audience in a different way during a recession. Your messaging will focus on how you’re taking care of customers as the tides change. Marketing can tell your audience what you’re doing to keep their best interests in mind, strengthening their trust in your brand.

5. It may be time to launch that new product.

You have less competition during a recession, as other companies are focusing on staying afloat. They aren’t putting their time and effort into launching new products or growing their business. If you are in the position to, and you have ideas ready to launch, work with your marketing team to put your new product out into the world.

6. You will not bounce back as easily.

If you reduce your marketing efforts, it leaves you in a difficult position when you’re ready to bounce back. You’ve spent a great deal of time and money growing your brand’s reach. Rather than scaling back, discuss a strategy with your marketing team to find ways to keep your reach consistent. Once the economy is on an upswing, you will appreciate not having lost months—or years—of progress.

7. It can take you off course to meet your goals.

Even amid a recession, you still want to move forward. Your marketing team can help you keep your goals in mind and find new strategies to meet them. Don’t underestimate a marketing team’s versatility and the potential to keep your business growing, even when the economy is less than ideal. 

Talk Strategy Before You Make Cuts

Before you decide on your budget, discuss all the options with your marketing team. They can likely work with you to achieve your goals, even with necessary budget accommodations. Your relationship with your marketing team should be transparent—they want to see you succeed, too, and will do everything they can to make that happen. 

Ready for a marketing team with your best interests at heart? Contact Green Apple Strategy today to schedule a consultation.

20 Questions to Ask Yourself that Will Improve Your Customer Profiles

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Customer-focused culture is everything. After all, serving our customers is what we’re here to do, right? When you take care of your patrons, they take care of you—and tell everyone they know about how much they love your business. One of the best ways to provide exceptional customer service is to understand your customer. The customer profile can help you do that. In this article, we discuss the basics of a customer profile, along with 20 customer profile questions that will help you build your own.   

What is a customer profile?

A customer profile paints a picture of your current or target audience. You can create in-depth profiles to understand your customers on a deeper level and use that information to better serve them. You can create a profile in any format you’d like, whatever helps you visualize your audience the most.  Here are a few ideas that might help you build your profiles:
  • Create a separate document for each of your target customers. For example, if one of the groups you are targeting is young families with children, you will create a profile document for that group.
  • Consider using stock images to help you visualize your customer. You may find that visuals help fuel your brainstorming process as you dive into your customers’ needs.
  • Make the creation of your customer profiles a group effort by opening the discussion to your team. Group brainstorms can give you multiple perspectives and open doors to new ideas. Tip: Try free brainstorming platforms like Mind Meister to map your thoughts.
  • Use the 20 questions below to take notes on your customers’ motivations, roadblocks, needs, and wants—among other identifying factors. Leave space to note actions that you can take to further cater to that target audience category. 

20 Questions to Improve Your Customer Profiles

  1. How would you describe your typical customer? 
  2. What do your customers have in common?
  3. What age is your typical customer?
  4. What types of jobs do your customers usually have? 
  5. What problem does your business solve for your customers?
  6. How do your customers usually shop: online or in-store?
  7. What level of education do your customers usually have?
  8. Do your customers generally live in rural or urban areas?
  9. Where do your customers get their information—news, ads, etc.?
  10. What are your customers’ typical motivations and interests? 
  11. What keeps your customers coming back? 
  12. What is a frequent compliment you hear from your customers?
  13. What would keep your customer from buying from you?
  14. What is your customer passionate about?
  15. What is your customer actively against? 
  16. How do your customers usually find your business?
  17. What makes your customers choose you over the competition?
  18. What do your customers worry about the most?
  19. What do your customers do on a typical weekday?
  20. What hobbies do your customers enjoy?
Are you looking for a marketing partner to help you better understand your customers? We’re here to help! Contact Green Apple Strategy today to schedule a consultation.

Green Apple Named Among 8 Best Marketing Consultants in Nashville by Expertise

When we founded Green Apple in 2012—we wanted it to be a marketing agency that was always committed to helping businesses solve their biggest challenges. Rather than growing into a behemoth company, our desire was to stay small and agile, bringing together freelancers who were experts in their specific skill sets to work collaboratively in serving our clients. We sought to be an agency that was able to focus more on our clients and less on ourselves.  While every business leader knows that running a business is hard work, it’s been incredibly rewarding for us—which is why achieving recognition for all the work we’ve put in over the years makes it even more meaningful. Most recently, Green Apple was recognized as one of the best marketing consultants in Nashville by Expertise.com. 

How Green Apple Was Selected as One of the Best Marketing Consultants in Nashville

Expertise.com is one of the leading online research platforms designed to feature businesses that have been identified by its research process as the best in a specific city or area. Its proprietary research and selection process has been used to identify the top service professionals in over 200 different industries across the top cities in the United States. Each month, Expertise.com helps over 10 million customers find the best qualified service professionals for their needs. To date, the Expertise.com has analyzed over 10 million companies. For identifying the best marketing consultants in Nashville, Expertise.com started with a list of 139 different marketing agencies, scoring them on more than 25 variables across five categories:
  • Reputation—A history of delighted customers and outstanding service
  • Credibility—Building customer confidence with licensing, accreditations, and awards
  • Expertise—Masters of their craft, based on years of practical experience and education 
  • Availability—Consistently approachable and responsive, so customers never feel ignored
  • Professionalism—Providing service with honesty, reliability, and respect
After each agency has been evaluated, the team at Expertise.com hand-picks the best by conducting a manual review to verify that each company on the list is truly one of the best.

Experience the Green Apple Difference for Yourself

If you’re looking for marketing support, we’d love to connect and show you why we were ranked as one of the best marketing agencies in town. Here are a few specific ways our team at Green Apple can help:
  • Green Apple Strategy—As a full-service marketing agency, we can mold our marketing practices around your business to help you be successful. Whether it’s strategy, design, content development, digital marketing, media relations, paid search, or SEO, we take a hands-on approach to delivering custom marketing services that demand results.
  • The Orchard House—Whether you’re looking for a space to host your next retreat, brainstorming session, team training, presentation, or meeting, The Orchard House is the ideal environment to help you and your business flourish. The Green Apple Strategy team is also available to host a variety of strategic planning and learning sessions. 
  • The SEO Silo—The SEO Silo is Green Apple’s latest project to help local businesses maximize their search efforts. Over the past several years, our team has helped our clients dramatically increase brand awareness and improve lead generation through our SEO services. At the same time, we recognize there are many businesses who could use help but might not be able to hire a full-service marketing agency. The SEO Silo is our answer. 
To learn more about how we can help you grow your business, connect with our team today.

Frustrated by the Fact that Marketing Is Constantly Evolving?

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When it comes to marketing, the only constant is that it’s an industry that’s always changing. Think about it. Less than a decade ago, businesses were thriving because they were posting on Twitter, getting tons of comments on every blog post, and sending a monthly e-newsletter. Today, those tactics aren’t producing nearly as much engagement. 

As the owner of a marketing agency, I understand why it’s easy to get frustrated by the constantly-evolving nature of marketing. I’ve had dozens of discussions with small business owners over the past seven years who tell me their marketing isn’t working. They express that finding a marketing tactic that works and provides the reach or scalability needed to drive results seems impossible. For small businesses with limited resources and budgets, this can be maddening. For everyone else, it makes business development hard to sustain for an extended amount of time.

4 Principles to Remember as Marketing Continually Evolves

Here are some encouraging reminders I share with business leaders or marketing managers who are frustrated by the fact that nothing seems to be working like it once did: 

  1. Embrace the fact that marketing always changes. The reason marketing seems to be evolving so quickly is because customer behaviors are rapidly changing. Today’s customers have an incredibly finite amount of time and attention to give to something. Rather than getting frustrated by this fact, embrace it. Recognizing we only have a few seconds to capture our audience’s attention opens up creativity to solve this new challenge.
  2. Stop looking for the silver bullet. There isn’t a single marketing tactic that is guaranteed to work without fail for the next five years. Just because your competition is trying something doesn’t mean it’ll work for you. Instead, focus on what your customers want. Your customers need solutions to their problems, not more information about your brand.  
  3. Focus on strategy, not tactics. Wondering why your marketing efforts aren’t working like they used to? When most businesses say their marketing strategy isn’t working, what they typically mean is that the tactics aren’t effective. Rather than focusing on tactics, it’s important to recognize the underlying strategies the tactics are built upon—and hold onto those rather than the tactics themselves. 
  4. When all else fails…be human. Certain marketing principles are timeless. Remembering to be human is one of them. What works today—something that has always worked—is grassroots, person-to-person, authentic, transparent actions. Creating personal and meaningful connections with potential customers will always work when it comes to growing your business.

The world of marketing is undergoing a profound evolution. Things that worked yesterday won’t work as well today. But, that’s a good thing because we know there will always be new tactics and strategies we can deploy to appeal to basic human emotions of potential customers.

3 Biggest Obstacles to Marketing & Sales Alignment (and How to Overcome Them)

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Marketers have always had a love-hate relationship with sales. But, making sure your sales team feels supported and happy is essential for the relationship to be successful. If your sales team is frustrated with marketing, no one is happy. So, getting to a state of alignment is crucial. 

Most marketers have issues aligning with their sales teams to create a true partnership. However, new technology and the evolving roles of both teams have created new obstacles for alignment. The good news is that there are ways to ease these burdens and create a working partnership that creates a better customer experience.

Overcoming the 3 Biggest Obstacles to Marketing & Sales Alignment

Here are three obstacles that marketing leaders find most challenging when it comes to alignment, along with some recommendations to overcome them: 

1. Accountability

Being a marketer is tough. You spend a lot of time on lead generation activities, trying to generate new conversations for your sales team. Sales teams who don’t follow up with leads can be one of the biggest frustrations for marketers. 

Holding sales teams accountable to follow up with marketing leads starts with making sure both teams understand their roles and expectations. It also requires developing processes and systems that enable both teams to collaborate together, even if it’s for 30 minutes a week. Some teams even put together formal service-level agreements to define the responsibilities of each team. 

2. Measuring ROI

Marketers must have confidence that the strategies and tactics you’re investing in are going to help your business group. If you can’t define and quantify the role marketing plays in driving conversations for sales, it’s difficult to understand the contributions you’re making.

In order to measure the ROI of your marketing efforts, both teams must be up-front about what has worked (and what hasn’t). It’s also important to identify the specific marketing metrics that impact sales. Discovering these numbers isn’t always easy on the front end, but it’s important if you want to quantify the ROI of your marketing efforts. 

3. Feedback & Data Input

Feedback from your sales team is the only way to know whether or not the leads you’re creating are worth anything. However, getting sales teams to provide feedback or update Salesforce, for instance, can be a considerable challenge. 

To get ahead of this, you might need to explain why marketing and sales alignment is important. You might need to educate your sales team on what you need. It’s also important to earn their trust by coming up with quick wins for them.

When sales and marketing teams are on the same page, everyone’s job is much easier. Not only do you optimize your marketing efforts, you also enable sales teams to be more effective by creating a seamless journey from lead to customer.

How to Pivot Your Marketing without Abandoning Your Entire Strategy

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As the owner of a marketing agency, I’m constantly getting emails from frustrated business leaders asking for help. They’re discouraged because their marketing isn’t working. But, they also want to know what adjustments they could make to start gaining traction again. We also see this with our own clients—when certain tactics take time to pay off or other strategies don’t produce the results we thought would happen.

Most businesses can’t throw out their entire marketing strategy and start over from scratch. They’ve invested a lot of time, energy, and resources into their long-term plan. And, most of the time, I encourage them NOT to throw the baby out with the bath water. What they need involves finding a way to course-correct and stay on track to meet their goals.

How to Pivot Your Marketing Strategy

So, how do you balance the short-term course corrections without abandoning your long-term strategy and larger objectives? Here are a few principles I’ve seen work really well for our clients at Green Apple:

1. Build short-term adjustments into your long-term plan.

One reason course corrections can be so frustrating is because we don’t plan for them. But, if you’ve been in marketing for more than five minutes, you know things don’t always go according to plan. You can do all the due diligence, and a strategy might still fall flat.

One way to avoid the frustration of course-corrections is to proactively plan for them. Recognize there will be three to four course corrections you must make each year, and build margin into your strategy. Actually include them in part of your annual planning process. When you assume the worst and recognize there will be marketing campaigns that fall flat, you can be more proactive about building in short-term adjustments into your long-term plan.

2. Set aside a portion of your budget for testing new ideas and tactics.

Marketing is always evolving and changing. If you rely on the same strategies year after year, you’ll pay for it down the road. Therefore, it’s important to constantly test new ideas and tactics that help you reach potential customers.

A good rule of thumb is to reserve at least 5-10% of your budget for testing and learning. Whatever number you land on, it’s important to reserve funds for testing marketing tactics that could improve short-term results and provide insights for future campaigns.

3. Make it a priority to constantly measure performance and leverage data in your decision-making.

Creating a data-driven culture where everyone understands the value of data is a crucial aspect of marketing. Constantly measuring the performance of each campaign will help you know when to pivot before it’s too late. As you gather data over time, you should be able to develop a more effective long-term strategy. Ideating around strategy is fun, but measuring results leads to growth. With discipline, you can deliver both.

Bottom line: Long-term planning and short-term course corrections are both essential when it comes to effective marketing. If you are frustrated because your marketing isn’t working, make sure to evaluate which short-term methods can be executed quickly and are proven to have an immediate impact.

How to Align Sales & Marketing in Just 30 Minutes a Week


Let’s face it: Aligning your sales and marketing teams isn’t easy. For many businesses, there are big obstacles to overcome—from breaking down the silos between the two departments to getting everyone to agree on the ideal customer for your business.

While business leaders understand the importance of marketing and sales alignment, most businesses can’t stop everything they’re doing to make sure marketing and sales are on the same page. Leaders are left asking, “How do we improve marketing and sales alignment as we go?”

How to Align Marketing & Sales in Just 30 Minutes a Week

One solution I often recommend is to establish a weekly 30-minute standing meeting between key stakeholders. These stand-up meetings don’t have to be complicated. In fact, each meeting agenda can be built by addressing three simple questions:

  • What progress have we made since the last meeting?
    • What insights can sales team members provide that are valuable for the marketing team?
    • What is the marketing team working on that would be helpful for sales team members to know?
  • What is the plan going forward?
    • Are you gaining traction on sales conversations? What can the marketing team do to support those conversations?
    • What parts of your strategy need to be tweaked? What new ideas should you consider implementing?
  • Blockages
    • What information do you need from the other team to do your job well?
    • Where are you getting stuck? What potential problems do you see?

The biggest piece of advice I can give is to spend time focusing on what matters the most for your business. If you have a major event coming up, you could focus the stand-up meeting on how you’ll set up meetings at the show. It’s OK to be flexible on the topics covered, as long as everyone has a clear sense of next steps.

Sales and marketing stand-up meetings are one of the most important things a company can do to create alignment and foster face-to-face collaboration between the two teams. Don’t let it become a simple review of the existing marketing programs and schedule. Instead, use the time to collaborate and problem-solve together.

3 Marketing Metrics Every CEO Should Know By Heart

As a CEO or business leader, you’re responsible for a lot. Leading your company and making sure everyone is set up for success requires a working knowledge of each area of your business. Because of this, it’s essential that you focus on the metrics and key performance indicators that are truly driving your business forward. While there are hundreds of metrics that impact your company’s marketing performance, your primary concern should be ones that directly impact the bottom line. 3 Marketing Metrics Every CEO Should Know By Heart If you want to keep a pulse on how your company is really doing when it comes to marketing, here are three metrics to keep top of mind:
  1. The Number of Customers Influenced or Generated by Marketing. Identifying the number of new customers that were either directly generated through marketing or influenced by your marketing activity gives you a high-level overview of your marketing effectiveness. Calculating the number of marketing-generated customers can be done by simply dividing your total number of new customers by the number of marketing-generated leads. Calculating influenced customers is a little more tricky, but it can be estimated by identifying all your new customers divided by the percentage of customers who had interaction with marketing material or activities during the sales cycle.
  2. Conversion Rate Through the Marketing and Sales Funnel. Being able to identify the conversion rate from an impression to a lead, a lead to a sales opportunity, and a sales opportunity to a customer is critical. Not only does it help you effectively evaluate your new business pipeline, but, more importantly, it helps you identify the strengths and weaknesses in the customer journey so that you can constantly make strategic improvements.
  3. The Cost to Acquire a New Customer. Defining how much you spend to bring in a new customer is critical to measuring ROI and is a question that’s important to your board and stakeholders. By adding up all costs (both marketing and sales) and dividing it by the total number of new customers for the same period, you’re able to get a rough idea of how much it costs to acquire a new customer. If possible, breaking it down by specific activities (conferences, inbound marketing, advertising, etc.) is even better.
If you’re looking for a way to evaluate your marketing efforts, these metrics will give you a good start toward proving marketing ROI to your board or stakeholders.