Admittedly, we are going to be a wee bit biased in this article. Incredo is an Armenian company, founded and headquartered in our nation’s gorgeous capital, Yerevan. Every single man and woman of the Incredo team is Armenian. Whether born and raised here in Hayastan (that’s how we say it in our mother tongue), or having moved here from the United States, Russia or Syria, Incredo is a 100% Armenian company. If you need to, please take a minute and get all of the Kardashian jokes out of the way before we start. It will make it so, so much easier for you to concentrate on this post, after you have rid all of the Kim giggles from your system. And, no, none of our 30 person team are related to her, though some wish they were. Some of us are in fact rabid fans of System Of A Down (your author excluded), but do you know what we love even more than our rich culture and history? Being one of the fastest-growing companies in our country, and one of the most globally trusted SaaS content marketing companies anywhere in the world (in the top 10!). How did we beat out hundreds of competitors this year from the US, Australia, Europe, Canada, etc.? Was it something in the brandy?
It is not all simply about saving money, paying an agency in dram or rupees instead of dollars or euros. Though, that being said, it is the primary reason why CEOs even consider outsourcing at all, as outsourcing is a compromise – in an ideal situation, you would run your company with each team member from maintenance to board members all under the same roof. Yet, especially for SMEs, the less your in-house team has on its plate, the better everyone can focus on the developing the heart of the company, rather than running around doing the legwork. With the proliferation of web access in even the most remote regions of the world, why not keep your office in Cupertino while saving costs by outsourcing tasks to Mumbai? With 84% of companies outsourcing their content marketing, there is more than enough reason why going overseas for marketing purposes is now the status quo. The bulk of SaaS companies headquartered in Silicon Valley (41% are located there alone), New York City, and other enormously costly cities for real estate and salaries. It only makes sense to outsource whenever possible, as seen in the image below.
Why not save costs by outsourcing your marketing team overseas? In fact, SaaS is practically designed to have many of its tasks outsourced. For example, take a look at this image for app development, which is important for two reasons: 1. It shows how fees vary enormously from region to region 2. It shows why nobody outsources development to the US or the UK
PROS:
The list of pros and cons can go on forever, but here were a handful of the more common benefits and challenges to outsourcing. If you ask us, SaaS companies have enough on their plate with regards to development and vision. Especially that effective digital inbound marketing requires more effort than traditional marketing, we don’t see any detriment to finding an outsourced partner, investing a little time in onboarding them to your company’s vision, educating them on your target audience, and saving a mountain of costs along the way. Outsourcing makes particularly good sense for the SaaS industry because the majority of SaaS customers never meet their vendors in person. This is important for a couple of reasons, but primarily what this means is that SaaS companies need to put a nearly overwhelming emphasis on customer service and support. After a customer subscribes to your product, they cannot pop out their door and walk down to your shop. If a customer even has a simple question about their software, if you take a week or more to get back to them then you have likely lost them for good. After communicating your goals, vision, and target market to an outsourced marketing agency, not only are you saving money to invest it elsewhere in your company, but you are also freeing up your in-house team to focus more on the customer, website redesign, developing new product features, etc. The simple, but time intensive marketing legwork (SEO, social media, blog posts, etc.) will be handled at the hands of your outsourced partner. Sure, you will still have a marketing team in-house, the staff responsible for determining new campaign strategies and the like, but the hands-on tasks can be handled by your partner marketing agency.
To give you a real-world example of how affordable Armenia is compared to the West, a newer, nicely renovated two-bedroom apartment in the center of the capital can be rented for $350-500. Compare that to $4000-8000 in Silicon Valley, or $3000-6000 in Manhattan! To wrap up, while India might be a great choice for call-center outsourcing, if you want your SaaS company in the most affordable, but more importantly trustworthy and reliable marketing hands, you may not need look any further than Armenia. Feel free to drop us a line to hear more on how an Armenian SaaS marketing agency may be the right choice for you.