The title of this post makes it seem like a black and white question. It really isn’t. Digital marketing will take efforts from both in-house resources and external agencies. What you really need to decide is how much of each you should do and that will depend on your marketing goals, existing expertise, and budget.
We all look to DIY as a way to save money and to outsourcing as a way to buy expertise without adding staff. If you examine the thinking behind each approach you will find that it isn’t a cut and dried decision. There are many variables to consider and only you know your company well enough to decide what would serve you best.
Let’s examine what each approach brings to the table.
The Home Team: What In-House Resources Provide
Company Expertise
The people inside your company are the best equipped to understand your product or service, your culture, and your voice. This depth of knowledge is earned over time and comes with a deep commitment to the success of the company.
A “local” will be in a better position to sell the inbound marketing program to the various stakeholders because he has gotten to know them and what makes them tick. The insider can put together personalized presentations for each individual with the exact information he or she needs to know. And your in-house resources will know what influences these decision-makers simply through experience with trial and error.
Adequate Resources for Moderate Goals
If your marketing goals are not extremely aggressive, your in-house team may be adequate in numbers and strength to run the campaign. A moderate marketing goal implies more time is available to develop and promote the campaign. It is less critical to bring in big numbers quickly.
Moderate goals may also mean content production, promotion, and lead nurturing will not be as work intensive. All of these activities take time to handle but if the expected numbers are low enough it may not be worthwhile to engage a third party.
The Agency: What Outsourcing Provides
Marketing Expertise
Just as an in-house team will have better knowledge of your product and internal processes, an outside agency will likely have extensive knowledge of a broader array of marketing tactics.
An agency catering to multiple clients across a range of industries is exposed to promotional opportunities internal marketers may not realize are available.
A marketing agency is invested in keeping up-to-date in modern marketing practices because it must serve its clients well or go out of business. The agency’s product is marketing. That is where the depth of knowledge will be as well as the commitment to the success of marketing campaigns.
Marketing Authority
It can be disheartening to know but sometimes an outside expert is needed to convince or reassure internal investors about the value of digital marketing. Maybe the culture at your company is that management, for some reason, doesn’t have faith in their own resources or, more likely, feels like in-house staff may not be well versed yet in something as “new” as digital marketing.
For Every Plus There Is a Minus
Of course, both in-house and outsourced marketers have their downsides.
In-house Weaknesses
The biggest problem with DIY digital marketing is the intense resource requirement. For effective inbound marketing your team really needs to have talent in marketing, designing, web development and content writing. Each of these disciplines is not exclusive to the other but you will need so much from every area that you can’t expect just a couple of people to handle it.
The same is true if your marketing goals are very aggressive. Where moderate goals may be do-able with your own team, an aggressive campaign requires aggressive action from a larger number of people who all have experience in inbound marketing. Each piece must be coordinated and completed on a shorter time-line and analyzing the resulting data and performing follow-up will have a higher resource requirement as well.
An in-house team to perform all your marketing may be cost-prohibitive. You are competing for talented individuals so salary expectations may be higher than you expect. Add in the need for benefits, office space, specialized software, and time to learn your product line and this option may be out of range for all but the largest companies.
Agency Weaknesses
Agencies, on the other hand, lack the knowledge of your company, culture and product. Agency marketers will always be outsiders because they don’t deal with your business day to day. This can also weaken their commitment to the success of your company.
Putting It All Together
As you can see, the pros and cons of marketing in-house and hiring a digital agency sort of cancel each other out if you balance the work well. Outsourcing brings in marketing expertise with knowledge of social media venues, best marketing practices, and up-to-date knowledge about metrics as well as access to highly effective marketing software. Your company team has the depth of product and culture knowledge to guide content development and customer intelligence to determine how well everything is working.
Having both types of teams will be to your benefit in expanding the quality of your marketing reach while staying within budget. Proof of ROI will be easier to come by and, most likely, will occur more quickly as well.
