Outsourced Marketing Versus Hiring In-House | What’s Best for Your Business?
You’ve reached a limit and know that you need more muscle behind your marketing. Perhaps your company is small and doesn’t have a dedicated marketer. Or, your in-house marketing team has their hands full. Either way, you need to bring in more leads and you know that investing more in marketing is the solution. The big question is, “How do we get the marketing help that we need, when we need it, and within our budget?”
Will an outsourced agency or in-house marketer help your business hit its goals? You might have considered outsourcing your marketing before but weren’t sure how to start. How do you know when it’s more efficient to outsource marketing instead of hiring a marketing strategist or a digital marketer?
Below are the factors that businesses should consider when investing in their marketing:
Flexibility
Where would you like to inject some power into your marketing? Are you launching a new product or are you entering a new market? Do you want to reposition your brand or overhaul your website? How long term or short term are you thinking?
Outsourced
Outsourcing your marketing lets you turn it up or down, depending on your current needs. Go from all-hands-on-deck to just the basics. By outsourcing, you can have experts come in, strategize, and execute the project to your specifications. Then, as your needs change, you can pull in different experts.
For example, let’s say you want to overhaul your website. It’s time to pull in the web experts. After that’s over, you need to concentrate on building up your marketing materials to support the website and the sales team. The web team exits and the content team rolls in with copywriting and media experts.
You can also easily scale up or down. Let say your busiest time of the year is during the summer. You need to amp up your marketing during that time but can pull back during the fall when things cool off.
In-House
Within the constraints of a normal day, meetings, management, and administrative tasks, it’s tough for an in-house team member to quickly scale-up marketing output when needed. When things ramp up, they’ll have to pick and choose their priorities, leaving a few tasks off the list in order to be effective in other areas.
On the flip side, when things slow down, the costs remain the same, even if the output is minimal. Unfortunately, it’s a hard situation when the budget shrinks and you have to make a decision about permanent staff.
Expert Knowledge
When comparing options, think about how much expertise you need. Is there someone who can oversee a new employee and train them in different marketing areas that they might not be as strong in? Or do you want a well-seasoned professional to waltz in and execute?
Outsourced
When you hire an outsourced marketing team, you’re getting a diverse group of experts. Your outsourced marketing team is made up of writers, designers, developers, strategists, SEM experts, product marketers, demand gen specialists, and operations/systems talent. Good agencies include experienced consultants who bring fresh, innovative ideas, and can also leverage what they have seen work for other companies in your sector. No matter what you need, the right agency will have you covered.
In-House
An in-house marketer will naturally have a few areas of expertise, but also a few areas where they aren’t as strong. It’s not their fault, marketing is so vast that it’s impossible to be an expert in all areas. When hiring a new team member, you’ll end up sacrificing some marketing know-how and still might need to outsource work like design, SEO, or website development to achieve your goals.
Some businesses believe that hiring an in-house marketer whom they can train on their products is superior over hiring an agency that doesn't know their industry inside and out. Over time, a marketer who stays for six months or more will reach a point that they understand the business intimately. That's helpful but it does take time to get over the learning curve. But, even after all of that training, the marketer could pick up and leave at any time.
Experience
When investing in marketing, how much experience and know-how do you want behind your marketing?
Outsourced
One advantage with an outsourced agency is that they bring years of marketing experience, proven methods, and a diversity of skills and industry knowledge. Plus, when an agency signs a contract —they are obligated to fulfill it, even if someone on their team leaves.
With our powers combined, the Think Better team has decades of diverse marketing experience. We want to use that experience to help your business bypass common pitfalls and fast-track to positive results.
In-House
You get to choose the level of experience your in-house team member has, but you’ll certainly pay for it. Hiring a less experienced marketer might save money on salary, but you’ll take a hit on time and training costs. And like we mentioned before, in-house training is no guarantee since the marketer could leave at any time. On the opposite end of the spectrum, if you hire an experienced, strategic marketer, they might have great ideas, but no execution.
Capability
How capable are your marketers? Do they have access to the right tools?
Outsourced
A good agency will get to know your business, your customers, and your market. At Think Better, we take the time to do extensive research, interview our clients’ customers, and take a deep look at past marketing efforts and their results. We can do a complete competitive analysis that will uncover strengths, weaknesses, and help formulate a plan of action.
While it’s true that agencies may have clients in a variety of industries, that can be a huge plus. With diverse experience and skills, they bring an outside perspective to support and elevate your strategy. They’ve seen strategies in action, know where the pitfalls lay, and can spot opportunities that may be outside the box for your industry.
It shouldn’t be all ideas and no elbow grease with outsourced marketing. The right agency will have experts on staff to strategize, execute, and deliver that strategy. Plus, outsourced marketers often have access to a variety of online marketing tools, saving businesses money on licenses and product training.
In-House
In house-employees live and breathe your business. They are familiar with the industry, they know your partners, and they see the trends. They also have instant access to the rest of your in-house team for clear communication and fast results.
While this is great, sometimes it’s hard for an in-house marketer to see the forest through the trees and might get caught in the same routine and patterns which results in stale marketing. They also might not have access or the knowhow to all of the online tools available to outsourced marketers.
Cost
It would be wonderful if your marketing budget was limitless, but it’s not. You need to use every dollar wisely to pull off the best return on investment possible.
Outsourced
Especially when a wide variety of skills are needed or when marketing needs greatly fluctuate throughout the year, an outsourced marketing team can be much more cost-effective than hiring and training a new in-house team member. You can make the most of your marketing budget by only paying for what you need when you need it.
In addition, with an outsourced team, you don’t need to worry about overhead costs. Small, nimble teams, like Think Better’s, won’t be passing on inflated costs to you, ever. See Think Better’s pricing.
In-House
As the employer, you’ll need to think about taxes, training time, PTO, equipment costs, office space, technology, health benefits, etc. The HR responsibilities add up. And, with an annual salary, there’s no guarantee that your projects will be delivered cost-effectively.
Like we mentioned before, you get what you pay for; you’ll pay much more for an experienced marketer with a few areas of expertise and much less for a greener marketer that will need extensive training in multiple areas of marketing.
You’ll need to decide which option will best suit your business needs and help you achieve your goals. Both options can work for businesses for different reasons.
From our experience, outsourced marketing agencies have the tools and the expertise to do a thorough competitive analysis and suggest marketing tactics that companies may be missing. You can maximize your marketing investment by hiring an outsourced marketing company to lead your marketing or work with your in-house team, build the foundation that is needed for a successful marketing plan, and execute flawlessly.
Are you curious about outsourcing your marketing? Schedule a short informational meeting with Think Better founder Andrea Steffes-Tuttle. She is happy to review your marketing needs and provide honest feedback on whether your business could benefit from outsourced marketing.
