What You Should (and Shouldn’t) Outsource When It Comes to Digital Marketing

Digital marketing has many moving parts, so it’s quite tempting at times to just outsource it all to take the burdens off your shoulders. But for some reason, you just can’t take this route because this strategy might come back to haunt you.

The reality is — there’s a time and place for outsourcing. The key is to know when to outsource what.

If the task calls for strict compliance with your brand’s voice and value, it’s best to have someone in-house to execute that to guarantee consistency and quality. Look within your organization and see if you can play on your employees’ skills.

But if your team does not truly have the bandwidth to take on a task despite your due diligence, it’s a good time to look for outside help.

What You Shouldn’t Outsource

Some things are way easier done in-house. Here are some tasks that are done best internally:

1. Content

Although content can easily be outsourced, there are a couple of reasons to consider doing content in-house instead. One that pulls a lot of weight is the expert knowledge about your company, products, and/or services.

It’s possible for a freelancer to get a full grasp of your products as quickly as possible, but it takes some time for an outsider to learn and adapt to the ins and outs of your industry and business. This might lead to a few more problems in your content, including limited access to your industry experts and off-brand voice and style.

Having someone internally to take care of content from the ground up ensures you are hitting the nail right on the head.

2. Video

Like written content, video creation is easy to outsource too. However, outsourcing video production could mean a couple of things — a lot of missed opportunities, expensive, and the lack of output.

Inside your company, there are so many occasions to capture trust-building moments that a freelance videographer will not be able to. I’m talking about random or candid footage. Outsourcing video can also be expensive, given you make video a mainstay in your content. For instance, producing two 1-minute videos a week can cost a hundred thousand dollars or even more per year. The same amount allows you to bring an expert videographer in-house to cover company culture videos, video testimonials, bio videos of your sales team, big company meetings, and trade shows.

Therefore, it’s best to bring video production in-house if you decide to make video a core part of your company.

What You Should Outsource

Finding great talent within your organization first is great. But if they have enough on their plates, you don’t want to pull them in too many directions and run the risk of losing their focus and effectiveness at their core responsibilities. Here are some instances where you are better off working with a freelancer or agency outside your company:

1. Web Development and Graphic Design

These are two great expertise to have in-house but not actually necessary to achieve perfect results. If you are still building your digital assets or don’t have a lot to maintain at this point, you are better off using a freelance developer or designer.

If you are thinking of a website redesign, you might want to consider hiring a freelancer or agency, even if you have an internal development team. Why is that so? An in-house development team normally has a lot on their plate, thus adding more tasks, like quality and safety checks, Q&A, website launch, and review, might result in missed marks.

2. Paid Media

Paid media like PPC and display ads is something you should avoid passing on to your marketing team. The person responsible for it should only have this responsibility.

With all the rules and regulations and restrictions, the paid space can be tricky waters to navigate, especially by someone or some team who dabbles at everything. Paid media is constantly changing, so having an ads manager who focuses on it can pay dividends in the long run.

I promise — you don’t want to end up paying on your Google Ads more than your product costs because your in-house marketer — someone you randomly bequeathed the ads manager crown to but knows nothing about paid media — targets the wrong keywords.

3. Sales and Marketing Coaching

If you have the budget to spare, I highly recommend outsourcing a digital sales and marketing coach. It’s not the same thing as having an in-house marketing team. If you think you have the best in-house sales reps and marketers, awesome! But having an external sales and marketing expert can help you see the bigger picture and provide clarity on complex problems.

A sales and marketing coach working outside of your company can also lend you a hand to make better and smart decisions. Having an outside perspective, that person can see things as they really are versus what they appear like within the corners of your company.

Key Takeaways

To wrap it up, here’s a good rule of thumb.

Go in-house if the task involves communicating your brand’s voice and value. If you can find people within your organization to do it, by all means, ask them. But avoid spreading them too thin; otherwise, you risk your staff spinning the wheels while your company’s money goes down the drain.

Outsource digital marketing if your company does not have the best people cut out for the task and if it involves a high level of expertise. In such cases, you can definitely benefit from an outside perspective.

These things, however, are not cut-and-dried. At the end of the day, it’s your priorities that should dictate what positions you will fill in internally and what you should trust to a third party. You need to put your business first.

Which area in digital marketing do you need help with? Talk to us so we can discuss how we can help your business grow!

If you liked this article, please share it on Twitter using the link below:

[ss_click_to_tweet tweet=”What You Should (and Shouldn’t) Outsource When It Comes to Digital Marketing” content=”What You Should (and Shouldn’t) Outsource When It Comes to Digital Marketing” style=”2″ link=”1″ via=”1″]

Editor’s Note: This article was first published on 16 July 2020 and has been updated regularly since then for relevance and comprehensiveness. 

Related Articles

• Top 9 Questions to Ask When Hiring a Digital Marketing Agency
• How to Create a Social Media Calendar: A Step-by-Step Guide
• How to Run a Successful Low Budget Google Ads Campaign