In-housing marketing operations has been dominating the digital marketing landscape for the past few years. Estimates show that up to 36% of teams in the US are fully functioning without any agency support.
4 Things to Consider When In-Housing Your Marketing
If you’ve been considering in-housing any aspect of your marketing operations, here are a few things to consider to determine if you’re ready:
1. Finding Talent
One of the most obvious yet often overlooked tasks of bringing operations in-house is the struggle actually to find the talent. The shift to remote work has alleviated much of this concern for brands that aren’t located in central locations. However, these skill sets in demand may be new to your recruiting team. Ensure your recruiters are educated on the best types of employees to fit niche roles like trader, producer or marketing data analyst.
2. Organisational & Process Readiness
New in-house resources at a marketing organisation will undoubtedly be a welcome addition to employees looking for internal support. However, without a top-down message of what the roles, responsibilities and overall goals are, the resources can easily be swallowed up into business as usual. Ensuring a process is in place to interact with and request support from an in-house team will prevent burnout and ensure the team’s success.
3. Training Plan
One of the benefits of external agencies is the continuous education their employees receive. Not only do they have internal training plans, but they are also learning about new technologies and services that the agency is employing for their other brands. When bringing operations in-house, that benefit can be lost without a plan for keeping internal employees educated on current trends. Ensure your teams are tapped into your company’s Learning & Development group, and that a separate track is built for them to attend conferences, trainings and conduct self-directed learning on topics they encounter on a daily basis.
4. Administrative Layer
Bringing any part of operations in-house will typically mean bringing the contracts and invoicing along with it. To avoid your new teams’ drowning in administrative work, hire administrative staff to sit on their teams and support with these tasks.
If you feel your company is ready to tackle each of those challenges, there are several benefits to bringing any portion of your marketing operations in-house.
- Your brand will be consistently represented across all aspects of marketing. Without agency fragmentation, nothing will be lost in communication.
- Your workstyles, timing and goals are consistent and don’t have to be forced on an agency that may not match your culture.
- Measurement is in your hands, no longer will agencies be putting their spin on performance. You can evaluate everything with an objective view.
- You’re in complete control!
If you’re considering bringing operations in-house, take it step by step. Identify the line of business with the most operational readiness or willingness to grow, and try out a few in-house roles there. Use that as a test case, and pay attention to learnings for the next group of hires. And don’t forget to hire people that are ready for the hurdle and embrace the changing dynamic!
If you’re interested to understand more about how we could help bring your marketing operations in-house, get in touch.
