Outsourcing
Whether to outsource or not is no longer a question. In fact, the question that is more often asked today is what to keep in-house. This holds true for B2B tech marketing as well. Best practices these days recommend keeping core marketing assets in-house and using them efficiently, while non-core assets or temporary requirements (even those that will be required on a recurring basis) should be outsourced to niche experts. This enhances efficient, focused leveraging of expertise in areas where professionals are either too rare to recruit, or too expensive to keep on a permanent basis.
Outsourcing may seem expensive at first glance, but when you consider the time and cost of recruiting, training and maintaining expert in-house staff, the true picture emerges.
The devil, however, is in the details. When outsourcing, it’s wise to carefully consider the following:
The website? SEM/SEO/PPC functions? The CRM? Industry analyst relations? Social media marketing? In short – what are the critical activities that impact ongoing marketing deliverables?
For which of your core assets do you need a dedicated in-house resource?
Which of those can you recruit?
Which of those can be handled with a part-time, outsourced resource?
Which high-priority marketing activities can be outsourced? Which can be outsourced, but are not of immediate priority?
Once you’ve considered the above and formulated the answers that are right for your organization, it’s time to research, assess and select the right agencies or contractors for your company’s specific objectives and for the present life-cycle stage.
So how does one find the right resource? What’s right for your budget and the results you require? Who would your team find easier/faster/more “natural” to work with, and most importantly – how can you find hyper-dependable, hungry-as-I-am, fire-in-the-belly providers for whom you are not just another client??
