Should I pay people to market for me?

I wasn't taught the ins and outs of business in design school which is why I suck at finding work and it is time consuming. I was wondering if investing in a marketing professional or team will do any good. I figure I could use Fiverr to my advantage. Does anyone have ideas that I could use? I have tried marketing myself and I do that more than actual working and and learning new skills and techniques not to mention it's not working so any advice for outsourcing my marketing will be appreciated.

 

if you have a business you think will be huge one day....fiverr is probably not the best choice. If this is a small, short term project then fiverr is a great way to keep your overhead down.

 

Marketing isn't that hard, you can learn that along the way, and you don't need people to do that for you.
If you think you are skilled enough then looking for a job shouldn't be that hard.
Fiverr is a good start but you can also try odesk. If you want to market yourself then get an account on linkedin and create a great profile.
The first few steps will be needing a lot of effort but it will be all worth it once you already build a reputation.

 

I have not been good at marketing and I don't think it is easy its been challenging for me. I guess I need to be guided in the right direction. Maybe I'm doing it wrong

 

Hi!
If you want to make your skill in marketing better, i advise you to find part time job on elance. There are a lot of people who is very busy to do buisiness along and they offer to do small job for them. You can become helper of marketing manager who will share with knowledges with you. And also you can earn some money.

 

IMO, if you are not a marketing pro, do not test your skills at freelance workplaces like Elance, oDesk and others. If you are unable to deliver, you stand the risk of receiving a poor rating from your buyer, which can be a complete disaster.

These are a few things you can do:
a) Post a project at any of the freelance job websites - Be specific about your requirement. Ask for a marketing plan to get a feeling how people would market your services / product. Review and discuss plans with individual freelancers to get a feeling how realistic they are. Insist on daily / weekly / fortnightly reports.
b) Depending upon your resources, finalize a deal from the list of applicants - Tell them that it would be a trial project and you would review the outcomes after a week / fortnight and then decide if you should continue.
c) Go through all reports and ask questions (as many as you can). Remember, this is a learning experience for you. You have invested to learn what they did not teach you in your design schools.
d) Share your thoughts / inhibitions with your freelancer and keep a record of all outcomes.

Done methodically, it should give you enough ideas to market yourself / you products / services.

Hope this helps.

 

Like what I've said you can learn marketing along the way. So do not force yourself if it is not your specialty.
Anyway, experience is still the best way to learn. Sharpen your skills, start from small gigs.

 

It would be a bad idea to use Fiverr, I suggest you not to use Fiverr for marketing purposes. Because the people there don't even know marketing themselves, real marketers wouldn't do anything for $3.90 (after Fiverr fee).

I think you should partner up with a person who knows online marketing well because then you will be able to focus only on what you are good at. And plus, you don't have to pay anyone to market yourself.

 

You should learn sales/marketing by hiring and watching an experienced sales and marketing professional do it correctly for your business at this initial stage. The trick is to hire the best person that you can afford while avoiding the millions of sales/marketing impostors out there offering their useless services. Find a potential mentor in the business world that you know and trust and who is successful running his or her own business. Have that person recommend a sales/marketing professional that s/he has used and that you can afford to engage.

Having been a high tech sales and marketing professional for 25+ years, I am amused at the advice above that you can "learn marketing along the way" or "it is easy to do yourself." Those are the comments of people who have no idea what sales/marketing actually entails nor the skills and knowledge to do it right. Anyone who has taken a business to more than a hobby or low-paying job level knows that sales/marketing is hard work filled with many different tasks requiring many different skills. Despite my significant experience, I still hire experts to do specific sales/marketing tasks because of the complexity or skills involved and the fact that it is really, really easy to waste time and money with inexperienced and/or misguided efforts. The human equation is infinitely more complex than any programming algorithm and working it correctly with your sales and marketing efforts requires as much skill and training as any engineer or other such professional. Get it done right the first time and your business will be on a solid path to success.