HOW TO OFFLOAD YOUR IN-HOUSE MARKETING
In an era of outsourcing, one of the biggest questions organizations face is what to bring in-house and what to outsource. It’s a tough question, and many companies find themselves struggling with the decision. The truth is that there are advantages and trade-offs to both options, and a good manager needs to understand both in order to make the right choice for their organization. Once you have made your choice, you also have to execute on the decision.
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF IN-HOUSE MARKETING?
Keeping your marketing in-house gives you a number of advantages over working with a marketing agency, though not all organizations are in a position to take advantage of those benefits. Your organization has to be in a position to support a full marketing department, and have enough work to justify it. Should you meet those criteria, there are advantages:
- Focus: Your team is focused on your business, with no other clients to call on their time and efforts.
- Knowledge: Its singular focus gives your team a great deal of in-depth knowledge of both your own business and your competitors in the same industry.
- Control: With an in-house operation, you can push high-priority projects to the top of the queue and assign everyone to them if necessary.
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF MARKETING AGENCIES?
Using a marketing agency, rather than keeping all your marketing in-house brings its own benefits to the table although you do have to be in the right position to take advantage of it. Should you
- Creativity: Agencies work on multiple projects and so their people are less likely to go stale from focusing on the same product lines all the time. Agency work feeds their creativity so they can often bring fresher ideas to the table.
- Mastery: With a larger talent pool than most organizations, an agency can often bring experts in a wide variety of marketing fields giving you access to expertise that would otherwise be unavailable.
- Resources: Many agencies have a greater variety of resources than you can bring in-house, and because their overhead is shared among all their clients you don’t have to foot the bill for everything.
HOW TO ON-BOARD A MARKETING AGENCY
Bringing a marketing agency on board takes more than just clicking the link at the top of your search results and filling out the “contact us” form. It’s important to take the time to find the right agency, one that you can trust and that brings a compatible culture to the association. Once you have found that agency, there are a few things you can do to bring them fully on board. Start by setting up regular communications; that makes it easy to set your expectations and stay on track. Open communications help you direct their skills to your needs. Next, focus on results rather than tactics; take advantage of their expertise. That’s why you hired them.
Lift your organization to new heights by teaming up with an agency that believes in you. Contact MDINC today to explore how an agency can help your business grow.
