Digital marketing can make or break the overall success of your business. How, then, is the best way to ensure that it will be done to a high standard by a well-trained, dedicated team which access to the most up-to-date software and techniques? In-house or outsourcing? Perhaps a hybrid approach? Fifteen examines the differences.
In-House
- Digital marketing is a constantly changing landscape, and building a team will not only require an exhaustive search for individuals with varying ideas and talents but will also require ongoing investment in their training.
- Your in-house team will need to consist of specialists in digital marketing, web design, social media management, content writing, graphic designer and SEO. With this kind of backing, you can easily cover all aspects of your digital marketing.
- In-house teams can be monitored internally and will be required to dedicate themselves wholly to your brand. However, with a few aspects of digital marketing only being required for a short amount of time, there will be periods where some specialised employees will be short of work.
- In-house teams are dedicated 36 hours a week to you, which means they are passionate about your company and will work with a focussed objective.
- In-house teams are not easily detached – if your employees are not working to the standard you require, you will have to re-start the process of building a DM team. Bullhorn has estimated that for every job opening in specialised areas of digital marketing there are only 2 potential candidates.
- Website Design and Building, App Development, PPC, Display Advertising and Creation of Campaign Content Assets are all finite processes which are best outsourced – this will save a considerable amount of money.
- Marketing is a deeply personal aspect to any business, and an in-house team will be able to, over time, build up a good idea of your brand’s key objectives, target audience, and understanding of your industry.
Outsource
- Digital Marketing agencies have a duty to their employees and their clients to ensure that their team remains firmly in the loop with latest training and technologies, and they invest heavily in training and programmes to ensure this.
- Agencies create teams which deal with the elements of digital marketing on a specialised basis, which means as a collective they will cover the complex skills required for successful digital marketing to an incredibly high standard.
- Agency staff will, in most cases, collaboratively brainstorm for your company, creating more space for conversations, ideas and time to take into consideration all aspects of the business, it’s clientele and its brand image, and identify areas for improvement.
- Agencies deal with multiple clients and will be able to view your brand objectively, tell you what is actually possible in terms of strategy, and create bespoke marketing which is engaging for your customers.
- Working with an agency allows you to assess the service which is being provided to you, change strategy if/when necessary, and even switch agency when you feel you are not being given the attention you require.
- Agencies will happily take care of mundane but necessary tasks such as social media updates and engagement in order to secure campaign success and ongoing business.
- Agencies will have a depth of knowledge and understanding of a wide breadth of industries which may provide unexpected benefits with your business in ways you might not have considered before.
As an agency, we are obviously swayed to promoting the use of outsourcing for your Digital Marketing! Although we can understand that having an in-house team is useful purely as a matter of convenience, in the age of instant messaging and fast-paced working environments, there is no reason why you can’t expect the same level of dedication, efficiency and understanding from an outsourced agency.
In terms of cost effectiveness, bigger companies feel that a dedicated in-house team works best for them. Fifteen understand this, which is exactly why we have previously trained and continue to offer training to a plethora of in-house teams across the UK.