When Should You Outsource Marketing? In-House vs Outsourced Marketing
Outsourcing your marketing efforts can provide the expertise, flexibility, and savings that make it a smart option for growing businesses.
Picture this: your marketing team is working around the clock, juggling deadlines, strategising campaigns, and trying to keep up with the latest trends. Yet, despite their efforts, the results don’t match the hard work.
Sound familiar?
It’s a common challenge for many businesses, especially as marketing becomes more complex and demands a wider range of specialised skills.
That’s where the decision between in-house and outsourced marketing comes in.
While some may think it’s an either-or choice, the real magic happens when both approaches work together.
Let’s explore how combining forces can elevate your marketing efforts to new heights.
Benefits of Outsourced Marketing
No matter what size your organisation is or what your internal resources look like, outsourcing your marketing always offers advantages. Here are some key benefits.
Access to a Larger Pool of Experts
Outsourcing connects you with marketing professionals who are up to date with the latest trends and technologies. These experts bring fresh perspectives and innovative ideas, which can keep your marketing efforts dynamic and engaging.
Think about it this way – at Itineris we have a team of over 40 digital experts, each one deeply skilled in their own specialist field. When you work with us, you have access to this diverse expertise.
Now, unless your organisation already has a 40+ strong marketing team, it makes sense to work with a digital agency that does.
So, outsourcing your marketing means you can get a wider group of vetted experts working on your campaigns, while you focus on the broader aspects of your strategy and business.
This prevents you from spreading your internal team too thin, and it ensures that whoever takes on the job knows exactly what they’re doing.
Cost-Effective Marketing (At Scale)
Hiring a full-time in-house marketing team can be seriously expensive. Instead, outsourcing your marketing allows you to pay only for the services you need when you need them.
This makes it a more flexible and affordable option.
It’s easier to scale up and down when you have outsourced marketing, and you never have to pay for marketing services that aren’t being utilised or producing an impact.
Outsourcing Marketing Saves Time
Managing marketing campaigns is time-consuming. In fact, it never really ends.
By outsourcing your campaign management, you free up time to focus on your core business activities while experienced marketers handle your campaigns.
In many cases, internal marketing teams will outsource digital agencies to manage the time-consuming parts of their plan – like managing paid media campaigns. This frees up the internal team’s time to focus more on strategy and less on implementation.
Scalability
As your business grows, your marketing needs will change.
Outsourcing gives you the flexibility to scale your marketing efforts up or down based on demand, without the commitment of full-time staff.
Whether you operate at an enterprise level or are a small business, this is always a major advantage.
Access to Fresh Ideas
Working with an external marketing team provides an objective view of your business, offering new strategies and insights that you may not have considered internally. This can lead to more creative and effective marketing solutions.
It’s only too easy for your internal marketing team to get comfortable in its old ways. Instead, by outsourcing marketing to a larger team, you get more fresh ideas and perspectives.
Plus, when you outsource marketing, you should always do it to digital agencies that have plenty of proven experience and success within your sector. So, when outsourced teams have worked on other successful campaigns for businesses like yours, they can bring much of that knowledge (and comparable results) back to your organisation.
Focus on Strategy
Outsourcing allows you to focus on the bigger picture – your overall strategy and business goals – while the details of execution are handled by professionals.
Every marketing team is different, and every team has its own gaps to fill.
by working with an outsourced digital agency, you can be specific about which skills and areas of expertise you want to tap into, giving your internal team more time to focus on what they’re good at.
Outsourcing Your Marketing: When it Makes Most Sense
Every organisation and internal marketing team is different. So, outsourcing marketing can be done in many different ways, depending on where you see gaps and opportunities.
From our 23 years of experience, here are some of the most beneficial areas where we help organisations with outsourced marketing.
Outsourcing Website Design
Website design is the face of your brand online. Your website is your most important online asset, and it serves as the foundation of your entire digital strategy.
Quite simply, you need absolute expertise in developing and designing your website. Otherwise, all other facets of your marketing strategy will be affected.
As modern websites are complex, you need a vast range of skills and areas of expertise to manage your website effectively. This is where outsourcing to a specialist agency is so valuable.
Outsourcing website design allows you to tap into professional designers with the right expertise and creative flair to make your site stand out. Agencies specialise in user experience (UX), ensuring your website is not only visually appealing but also functional and easy to navigate.
They’re also experts in making websites responsive, and fully optimised on a technical level. Often, marketing teams lack the technical knowledge of enterprise-level web design agencies.
Instead of relying on in-house teams who may not specialise in web design, or have the time to do it properly, outsourcing ensures you get a high-quality, up-to-date website that engages visitors and drives conversions.
Plus, when you work with the right digital agency, you can ensure your website seamlessly fits into your broader digital strategy.
This includes factors like integrations and user journey and channel optimisation. This way, your website doesn’t stand alone but helps deliver greater marketing results across the board.
Outsourcing Digital Strategy
Crafting a winning digital strategy requires a deep understanding of market trends, audience behaviour, and emerging technologies. It also requires a solid grasp of your industry.
By outsourcing your digital strategy, you gain access to specialists who focus on staying ahead of these trends. They know how to create tailored strategies that align with your business goals.
Plus, they work with other top organisations within the same industry, which means they have plenty of specialist knowledge in your field.
Outsourced digital strategists can identify opportunities you might have missed and develop a roadmap to maximise your online presence. With an expert team guiding your digital efforts, you can focus on executing your business vision while they drive your marketing success.
Plus, working with a team with deep industry expertise can help you gain fresh insights and perspectives around strategy. This is essential for developing more impactful marketing campaigns.
Outsourcing Your SEO Plan
SEO is a complex, ever-evolving field. Outsourcing your SEO plan to an agency ensures that experts manage everything from keyword research to on-page optimisation and link building.
SEO specialists know how to improve your rankings, drive organic traffic, and keep up with Google’s ever-changing algorithms.
By entrusting your SEO to a third party, you benefit from tried-and-tested techniques and avoid the steep learning curve. This approach helps you achieve better visibility in search results, which can significantly boost traffic, leads, and sales.
However, outsourcing doesn’t mean giving up total control of your website.
For example, at Itineris, we’re SEO specialists. But, we also work closely with internal marketing teams to balance SEO strategy and execution.
We recently won a gold award at the 2024 Digital Impact Awards for the Best Use of SEO for Corporate Communications, which we achieved with our client Mullis & Peake Solicitors.
A large part of the success of this campaign came from the fact that Mullis & Peake’s team helped write and upload the content we recommended to them. Their team also made the on-page optimisations that our SEO team requested. This allowed them to achieve a 78% increase in organic visibility and an over 1400% surge in organic leads.
This is a perfect example of how you can outsource important technical and strategic elements of SEO to help your brand achieve impressive results. At the same time, your internal team can execute other elements of the strategy.
Outsourcing Content Marketing
Creating consistent, high-quality content is a time-consuming business. It also requires a range of skills, from writing to graphic design and video production.
Outsourcing your content marketing allows you to collaborate with experts who understand your industry and audience. They can craft engaging blog posts, videos, and social media content that positions your brand as a thought leader.
This means you can produce professional content without stretching your in-house team. Outsourced content marketers are also well-versed in content strategies that drive engagement and conversions, ensuring your content delivers results.
As this is one of the most time-consuming elements of executing any marketing plan, it makes sense to outsource it to experts in the field.
Outsourcing PPC and Paid Media Management
Pay-per-click (PPC) and paid media campaigns require careful management to maximise return on investment. Outsourcing this to a dedicated agency gives you access to experts who know how to optimise your campaigns for the best results.
They can set up, manage, and refine your paid media strategy, ensuring your budget is spent efficiently. Professional paid media managers also use advanced analytics to track performance, so they can adjust your strategy in real time.
By outsourcing, you ensure that your paid campaigns are handled by experts who can drive traffic, leads, and sales without wasting resources.
Outsourcing Marketing Analytics
Data is the backbone of modern marketing. Analysing your performance metrics helps you understand what’s working and what isn’t.
However, marketing analytics can be complex and time-consuming.
By outsourcing this, you get access to data analysts who specialise in turning raw data into actionable insights. They can track KPIs, spot trends, and provide recommendations to improve your marketing efforts.
Outsourced analytics teams use advanced tools and methodologies, allowing you to make informed decisions based on accurate data without investing in in-house analytics training or expensive software.
Outsourcing Branding and Design
Your brand is more than just a logo; it’s how customers perceive your business.
Outsourcing branding and design to professionals ensures that your brand identity is strong, consistent, and appealing. External designers and branding experts have the creativity and experience to develop a visual identity that resonates with your audience. They can refresh outdated logos, create impactful brand guidelines, and design marketing collateral that aligns with your business goals.
With outsourced branding, you can confidently build a strong, cohesive identity that sets you apart from competitors.
Outsourcing Website Maintenance
Website maintenance is crucial for keeping your site secure, compliant, and running smoothly. Outsourcing this task ensures that all technical aspects, including security updates, performance optimisation, and SEO improvements, are handled by experts.
External teams can monitor your site for vulnerabilities, ensure it meets accessibility standards, and make technical adjustments to enhance speed and user experience.
By outsourcing, you avoid the hassle of managing these tasks in-house while ensuring your website remains up-to-date, secure, and compliant with industry standards.
Outsourced Marketing vs. In-House Marketing
Clearly, there’s a lot you can achieve with strategic outsourced marketing. So, how could you make it work when you already have an in-house marketing team?
Outsourced marketing is all about bringing in external expertise, allowing you to tap into a wide range of skills and specialisations without the costs of hiring full-time staff.
As we’ve covered above, it’s flexible, cost-effective, and provides access to the latest trends and technologies. It can also help you achieve a lot more in shorter spaces of time when you need to make an impact.
For example, our team has worked with top universities during their most important periods, like the clearing period, where institutions need to fill courses. When we worked with the University of Westminster to execute a multi-channel clearing period campaign, we achieved enormous results for the university over this period alone.
In contrast to flexible campaigns like this, in-house marketing teams have the advantage of deep knowledge of the brand and can respond to immediate needs more quickly.
However, both approaches can complement each other.
In-house teams can focus on day-to-day tasks and maintaining brand consistency, while outsourced experts handle specialised areas like SEO, PPC, or content strategy. When implemented together, you’ll be amazed at just how much your entire marketing function can achieve.
At Itineris, we always like to work closely with organisations’ internal teams to ensure our strategies and plans are as effective as possible. It’s all about helping businesses find the right balance to achieve their goals.
Invest Wisely in Growing Your Organisation
In today’s fast-paced world of marketing, no single approach fits all. Relying solely on an in-house team can limit your access to specialised skills, while fully outsourcing may leave gaps in brand consistency.
However, when both strategies work together, you get the best of both worlds – internal teams who understand your brand’s nuances and external experts who bring fresh perspectives and cutting-edge techniques.
By combining forces, you can create a dynamic, agile marketing operation that delivers powerful results. Whether you need full-scale outsourced support or a mix of both, this balanced approach sets your business up for success.
Interested in achieving more by working with an outsourced marketing agency? Get in touch to see how we can work together.