According to a survey conducted by Salary.com, 64% of respondents reported wasting one hour or less each day, 22% waste approximately two hours daily, and 14% waste three or more hours each workday.

What are these employees wasting time on? Well based on the survey, the most time was spent on internet use, socializing with co-workers and conducting personal business.

One interesting thing to note from the survey is that three out of four people feel that office related activities cut into their own productivity time on the job. Office related activities include fixing someone else’s work, dealing with office politics, waiting for co-workers to finish something you need, attending work-related meetings or events and administrative work.

A common issue that a lot of employers face is making sure they are getting the highest level of productivity out of their employees as possible. It is important to remember that a $50,000 salary costs the employer a lot more than $50,000 because of benefits, sick days, wasting time online etc. Plus you have the cost of an office space, utilities, bonuses and technology.

What might be a good solution to this issue that so many business owners are facing?
With budget cuts and lower revenue, it would appear that hiring a full-time employee is not a smart business decision in all situations. Why don’t employers consider outsourcing some areas of their business? An outsourced employee is considerably cheaper because there is no need to pay for benefits, training, sick days, etc. Not only does it cost less money, but it is less of a risk than hiring a full-time salaried employee. Outsourcing areas of your business means you are allowing industry experts to take ownership in their personal area of expertise.

At Three Hats Marketing, we offer outsourced marketing employees to companies. Imagine getting a very experienced marketing director or marketing manager for a fraction of the cost of an in-house marketing employee.

Give us a call to learn more about our outsourced marketing services.

Kris and Karen Conover recently purchase Aaron York’s Quality Heating and Air Conditioning from Karen’s father who was ready to retire after 32 years in business. After this transition occurred, Karen and her husband Kris were ready to leverage the company’s tremendous foundation to expand into a new geographical markets and identify new ways to better serve clients and the community. They wanted to be prepared to communicate these changes in ownership and direction to the employees, clients, prospects, and the community. In addition, the company had relied on word of mouth marketing for years. Their current company materials were grossly out of date and didn’t speak to the opportunities and direction that Kris and Karen wanted to take the company. The contracted with Three Hats Marketing to solve these issues.

Our Solution

Three Hats Marketing worked with Kris and Karen to create a new and fresh logo that represented the desired direction of the company. We also worked to shorten the name of the company and create an important tagline: “generations of quality built on trust” Quality was an important ingredient in everything the company stood for so the name and all marketing materials needed to reflect that. In addition to the new logo and tagline, we created new sales and marketing materials including stationery, business cards, note cards, sales folders, new website, van designs, and more. Once these materials we done, we worked with Kris and Karen to create a detailed marketing plan for 2010 that aligned with their business objectives and defined the marketing strategies and tactics to support those goals. This “roadmap” has given York’s Quality Air the direction and confidence they need to tackle this new business in 2010.

Our Services

Marketing Strategy

Marketing Management

Creative Execution

Stuckey Farm Market, a family-owned apple orchard tucked into the country in Sheridan, Indiana has over 1,700 dwarf apple trees with 27 varieties of apples. Owners Jeff and Shannon Pierce purchased the 40 year old business from the Stuckey family and has been working hard to grow the business over the years by continuing the tradition of providing a family-friendly fall destination.

Jeff and Shannon’s greatest problem is that being an apple orchard, 80% of their yearly revenue comes during 5 weekends in the fall. This also is their greatest opportunity as if they could figure out how to add more revenue during the rest of the year, they would grow tremendously

Our Solution

Three Hats Marketing saw the need for Stuckey Farm to have an identity. With no logo to speak of, we started working with Stuckey Farm to create an identity that was modern, but reflected their roots and tradition. Once the logo was completed, we worked to translate that look into other marketing materials, including a new website, new brochure, adding social media accounts and more.

Once many of the basic marketing items were in place, Three Hats Marketing worked with Jeff to create a 2009 marketing plan for the farm. This focused on supporting his business objectives with marketing strategy and tactics – from working to increase school tours, to adding an online store, to planning community events.

Our Services

Marketing Strategy

Marketing Management

Creative Execution

Even though your focus is to find a resource for one of the above roles, honestly a business’s overall marketing needs cross over into all three areas: strategy, management and execution. But most companies are hard pressed to make that kind of investment on full-time in-house employees

If you are looking to hire a new full-time marketing resource, then more than likely you have defined a list of needs you hope that an individual can fulfill for you and your business. If you are looking for a director-level role you probably need help with your overall strategy, if you are looking for a manager-level role you need help with getting the initiatives done on time and on budget and if you are looking for a designer, coordinator, or assistant-level role, you need someone to help you execute.

Even though your focus is to find a resource for one of the above roles, honestly a business’s overall marketing needs cross over into all three areas: strategy, management and execution. But most companies are hard pressed to make that kind of investment on full-time in-house employees

If you are looking to hire a new full-time marketing resource, then more than likely you have defined a list of needs you hope that an individual can fulfill for you and your business. If you are looking for a director-level role you probably need help with your overall strategy, if you are looking for a manager-level role you need help with getting the initiatives done on time and on budget and if you are looking for a designer, coordinator, or assistant-level role, you need someone to help you execute.

Even though your focus is to find a resource for one of the above roles, honestly a business’s overall marketing needs cross over into all three areas: strategy, management and execution. But most companies are hard pressed to make that kind of investment on full-time in-house employees

The Estridge Companies, an Indianapolis area homebuilder has always been known for their innovation and quality of homes. In the spirit of this innovation, they chose to launch a new pilot program – Fully Furnished and Finished Homes. Basically as the name implies, when you build a home with Estridge, you get the entire home furnished for free.

Estridge needed to get the word out about this end of the year program, and had an incredibly tight timeframe to do so.

Our Solution

Three Hats Marketing worked with Estridge’s marketing department to create a marketing plan for this program and then worked hand in hand with them to implement the plan. Tactics included a 7 different program logos, program microsite, web videos, over 20,000 postcards, emails, a new brochure and a major social media campaign run inside of Facebook called the 12 Days of Estridge – all within 6 weeks. The marketing brought incredible awareness for the program and set a precedent for how future programs may be launched at Estridge.

Our Services

Marketing Strategy

Marketing Management

Creative Execution

Estridge Homes is giving away enough furniture to fill an entire home. Estridge recently launched a new program that packages furniture with their homes. Now when you build a new home with Estridge, they’ll give you new furniture for every room.

Now you can move into your new Estridge home, fully furnished and completely finished – on move-in day. Work with our professional designers, who decorated our Estridge model homes, to fully furnish your home exactly the way you imagine it – with you living in it, not just building it. Not only will you have a brand new home, but brand new furniture to go in it!

Learn more at www.Fully.Estridge.com

Outsourcing is less expensive than an in-house marketing position

When you hire a full-time marketing employee, not only are you committing to pay for their salary, but you are also committing to paying for benefits, operating expenses, training, vacation and personal time. Often times this overall cost can add as much as 50-75% to the overall cost of the employee above their salary. And none of this cost is based on results.
With outsourcing, you are paying for nothing but results – period.

Outsourcing offers the skills and experience of an entire marketing department

Hiring a marketing director gives you strategy, hiring a marketing manager gives you management, and graphic designer or copywriter gives you execution. But outsourcing your marketing gives you the power of an entire marketing department.

Outsourcing offers more flexibility than a full-time marketing employee

Hiring a full-time in-house marketing employee is a 40 hour per week financial commitment. If your marketing needs are less for a period of time, you still are paying for that full-time resource. If your marketing needs grow for a period of time, there is a real limit to what you can get done, unless you are willing to hire another in-house resource.

Outsourcing offers real flexibility. Not only can resources with the needed skill set be used for each task, but the resources can grow as much as needed to fill the busy time, and shrink as much as needed when marketing is not needed. Pay for what you really need, both in skills AND in time needed. That’s real flexibility.