Marketing’s Dilemma: In-House or Outsourced?

“Naturally, budget is always a factor in in-sourcing and outsourcing decisions,” Brenits says. “But if you have the budget to spend, you can look at hiring full-time help. If not, outsourcing is a practical alternative.”

A common area of weakness for marketing that often used to get outsourced was project management, he adds. “What we are now seeing, though, is an increasing number of marketing departments hiring new employees with project management skills.

“Especially in creatively oriented departments, project management skills are not necessarily present, and marketing managers coming from creative backgrounds may not have or recognize the need for these skills,” Brenits continues. “When you don’t have someone with direct responsibility to manage a project or to manage a vendor that is being used for outsourced work, it can be a recipe for disaster.… You need to empower some of the people on your marketing staff in the area of project oversight and to engage them in project planning over a span of the next 12 months.”

Brenits also says that as more internal marketing teams move to a project management approach, there could be less reliance on outsourcing. “In many cases, the ability of these outsourcers to manage projects so you didn’t have to was what you were paying for.” 

Best Practices for Determining the Marketing Mix

Although marketing deployments are unique in every company, there are a number of best practices that are emerging when it comes to internal staffing and outsourcing, including these seven critical ones:

1. Do your own strategic planning. Your marketing department should be able to look at your objectives and project six months, one year, and two years out. Empower your team members so they have some of this visibility as well. This enables everyone to brainstorm more effectively and to come up with creative approaches to the market.
2. Encourage collaboration on marketing beyond the boundaries of the marketing department. “In the past, many companies have worked in silos of sales and marketing,” says Andrew Brenits, CEO of Brenits Creative, a marketing consultancy. “But with more project management and the expansion in internal communications, we are seeing greater levels of collaboration between marketing, sales, and other company functions. This collaboration is shortening time frames for projects and other marketing activities and is enhancing marketing outcomes.”
3. Get help with your technology. Marketing must concentrate on branding and creative work, messaging, channel outreach, campaigns, and trade shows. At the same time, new technology is coming in that is simply impossible to keep up with. This builds a strong case for outsourcing the technology setup work to a third party. “We recently installed a new CRM system and engaged a consultant to help,” says Elizabeth Sinclair, manager of verticals marketing at Seagull Scientific. “We are an engineering company, so we originally had engineers map out the systems, but the extra know-how that the CRM consultant brought in really made a difference.”
4. Use automation where it makes sense. “Most companies have cycles of sales and marketing campaigns for products that are relatively predictable year in and year out,” Brenits says. “They already know what they are going to be promoting in January, or in March, or in June. They might be able to automate some of this cyclical marketing to improve the efficiency of their operations.”
5. Avoid the competitive impulse with outsourcers. If you have projects or activities that you’re outsourcing, your internal staff could feel that they are competing against this. This can generate internal resistance. Find a way around this. You can do this by actively engaging staff members with your outsourcers and encouraging collaboration. Also impress upon your staff that you secured an outsourcer not because the staff couldn’t do the work but because you wanted to augment the work that the staff was already doing. In all cases, staff should get the sense that they are the irreplaceable core of the marketing effort and the company’s most valuable resource.
6. Be open and transparent about career development. Sinclair advocates for working with staff members to help them hone their skills and prepare for the next step. “Millennials in particular are committed to lifelong learning,” she says, noting that the degree to which you invest in your employees enhances your ability to retain them.
7. Develop a solid lineup of great outsourcing vendors. “Get to know your vendors as people and treat them as partners,” suggests Kevin Payne, marketing vice president at Zest Labs. “I like to have a cadre of vendors in place that I’ve worked with for years. If you need something that is critical, the vendor already understands your business and can deliver. These relationships are important. They are founded on mutual give-and-take.”

Mary Shacklett is a freelance writer and president of Transworld Data, a technology analytics, market research, and consulting firm. She can be reached at mshacklett@twdtransworld.com.