How much of your marketing should you do yourself?
Do the parts of marketing that depend on you: talking to customers, asking for reviews and referrals, and replying to new inquiries quickly. Hand off work that takes you far longer than a specialist, keeps slipping down the list, or needs skills you do not want to learn. Whatever you hand off, keep ownership of the accounts, so the website, domain and profiles stay yours.
What owners usually do best
- Customer conversations: you know the work, the prices and the trade-offs better than anyone you hire.
- Asking for reviews: a request from the owner, at the end of a good job, is hard to beat.
- Referrals: past customers and partner businesses respond to you personally.
- First replies: a new inquiry answered by someone who can actually quote or book the job tends to go further.
What is often worth handing off
- Building or rebuilding the website.
- Ongoing work to be found in search and AI answers.
- Setting up how inquiries are captured, routed and tracked.
- Monthly reporting that pulls the numbers together.
- Paid advertising, if you use it.
The time test
For each task, ask three questions. How many hours a month does it take me? Would a specialist do it in far less time, or better? And is my hour worth more spent on paid work or with customers?
If a task has sat on your list for months, that is often the clearest answer. Marketing that never gets done often costs more than marketing you pay for, because the missed inquiries do not show up anywhere.
A split that often works
| Owner | Help | |
|---|---|---|
| Talking to customers | Yes | No |
| Asking for reviews and referrals | Yes | Can remind you or send the request |
| Replying to new inquiries | Yes, or a trained team member | Can set up how they reach you |
| Website | Approve the words and photos | Build and maintain |
| Search and AI visibility | Answer questions about the business | Do the ongoing work |
| Reporting | Read it each month | Prepare it |
Keep ownership, whatever you hand off
Keep your domain, website, profiles and any ad accounts in your business's name, with helpers added as users with their own logins. The related answer on who should own your domain name covers why.
Related answers
- Who should own your business's domain name?
- What is a marketing retainer, and how should one work?
- How fast should a business reply to a new lead?
SEO for service businesses
Get found on Google by the people already looking for what you sell, in the places you serve, and see which searches turned into inquiries.