Outsourcing infrastructure work to marketing agencies may be your only option as marketing roles are getting harder to fill in the wake of the Great Resignation. Companies of all sizes face significant challenges with filling their in-house marketing roles at all levels. Now many companies outsource their marketing departments to maintain marketing operations while recruiting for those roles.
Why Companies Are Outsourcing Infrastructure Work?
Despite what many people on the internet will tell you, we are not all natural marketers. Digital marketing isn’t something you get good at overnight, and though you may have a stellar business plan, marketing that plan may not be your particular skill set. And that’s just one of a few other reasons your company will need outsourced infrastructure to market agencies:
- Can’t afford to hire an in-house marketing team
- No time to make consistent marketing efforts
- Don’t have clear campaign goals or strategy
- Want to try a new marketing method
- Not your area of expertise
Whether you are a new business owner, a budding startup, or an established business leader, at some point, you may need marketing help. Now, with people leaving their jobs more than ever, it may be time for you to adjust your workforce and outsource digital marketing infrastructure. And if your business is one of those companies whose in-house marketing team is suffering from the Great Resignation, you might want to pay extra attention to the rest of this post.
What Digital Marketing Infrastructure Can Be Outsourced?
Outsourcing infrastructure work can be done in three ways:
- Fully outsourced
- Partially in-house with most of the marketing infrastructure outsourced
- Mostly in-house with a few digital marketing services outsourced
Depending on which direction you choose, that will be a crucial indicator of the budget you need to allocate to professional services marketing. Other budget indicators would be your industry, current reach, marketing capacity, and marketing campaign. In other words, the more complex your industry and marketing needs, the bigger the budget.
Types of outsourced marketing services and what they can include are:
- Content Marketing – We’re talking blogs, whitepapers, e-books, reports, infographics, keyword research, internet search, search engine optimization (SEO), content planning, and web content. In some instances, it can extend into copywriting for ads, landing pages, presentations, and even in-house corporate communications.
- Front End Development – Includes website design, HTML and CSS, accessibility, and user experience.
- Email Marketing – Using connected content management systems (CMS) or connected data platforms (CDP) and customer relationship management systems (CRM) to send newsletters, campaign offers, and company updates.
- Social Media – Includes organic and paid search ads, stories, videos, reels, hashtag research, and brand awareness.
- Digital Advertising – Any digital marketing and advertising such as Search Engine Marketing (SEM), remarketing, rich media creation, cross-device, and programmatic marketing
- Marketing Research and Analytics – Outsourcing marketing research is nothing new, usually done by Google analytics. But do you and your in-house marketing team know how to use that research and data correctly?
- Marketing Strategy – Decide when to use specific channels like geofencing mobile marketing or combine them as an omnichannel marketing strategy. Designs the entire marketing campaign and strategy for your company.
Please note these are just some of the types of services you can get from outsourcing infrastructure work. While some agencies may specialize, others can offer more than one type of service under one roof.
When to Outsource Infrastructure to Marketing Agencies?
Even if you are a digital marketing expert, you may still desire outsourced marketing services to save time and increase productivity. As a new entrepreneur, outsourcing may be your best chance to make a solid entrance into your industry without paying for an entire in-house marketing team. For established enterprises, outsourcing infrastructure work can help you adjust marketing budgets. You can pay per campaign or service and provide fresh ideas from a new field of expertise.
Choosing what and when you want to outsource will depend on what goal you want to achieve. If you’re conducting a massive campaign and currently have a small in-house marketing team already stretched thin, then an outsourced marketing firm can help fill the gaps. Perhaps you need to use a new marketing channel or strategy that your current team is not skilled in.
A reputable outsourced marketing firm can even help you decide what infrastructure marketing you should outsource. They can objectively assess the strengths of your in-house team help you design a marketing strategy that plays to their strengths while taking on the more complex services themselves. Or they can replace your in-house team entirely.
In the instance where you may have lost key players or your entire in-house team to the Great Resignation, replacing these members with outsourced infrastructure may not solve your marketing problems. Aside from money and job security concerns, many employees left because they saw businesses headed in the wrong direction, and key decision-makers were not listening to suggestions and feedback. If this is still the case at your company, all you will do is expose that bad corporate culture to the outsourced marketing firm. The repercussions of this can end up further damaging your company’s reputation and wasting money on outsourced marketing services that will never further your unclear or misguided marketing goals.
What to Consider When Using an Outsourced Marketing Team?
You should not consider cutting back on crucial digital marketing infrastructure to save money. Depending on the stage of your business, it can be adjusted using other means while still giving value to both you and your target audience. Here are three main things you should consider before choosing your outsourced marketing company:
In-House Marketing Team vs. Outsourced Marketing Team
Your company should consider a price and value comparison between having your in-house marketing team versus using an outsourced marketing team. Part of that price comparison should be the type of ROI you will get from building your in-house marketing team compared to contracting an outsourced marketing team. And, of course, you must decide if you want to fully outsource all digital marketing infrastructure or just some key services.
In-House Marketing Team vs. Outsourced Marketing Team
|
In-house |
Outsourced |
|
Easy access to your marketing team |
Access to various marketing experts |
|
Saves money on searches and hiring process |
Saves money from hiring an entire in-house team |
|
Fully immersed in your brand |
Invested in continuous learning |
|
Driven by company success |
Driven by results and accountability |
|
Potential loss of creative vision and expertise |
Provides more creative freedom and insights |
Even before the first campaign, in-house marketing teams set a company’s marketing budget in the six-figure ranges. However, hiring an outsourced marketing firm without communication with your in-house team can lower productivity as they feel threatened with their job security. Another aspect you should consider before choosing between in-house and an outsourced marketing team is whether or not your account will be given the attention it deserves by the agency.
SaaS Marketing Agency
Another central point to consider is agencies that use technology in their outsourced marketing services. In using a (Software as a Service) SaaS marketing agency, be sure to check for compatibility with your current systems, ease of use, and backend functions. One particular strong selling point of a SaaS marketing agency is the use of an application programming interface (API) in the form of headless Customer Management Systems (CMS) and Customer Data Platforms (CDP) for the creation of customer databases.
The benefits of using these connected APIs can vary by agency and range from managing your data storage and customer connections to directing programmatic ads and a complete omnichannel marketing strategy. Using APIs helps streamline your customers’ buyers’ journey by integrating with your current CRM, making digital advertising and email marketing.
Short and Long-term Business and Campaign Goals
It’s the basics of any marketing campaign, yet objectives can be forgotten as the company grows. Maybe they went in a new direction, and the in-house marketing team wasn’t brought up to speed. Or perhaps they are just a new business with an unclear marketing strategy and no long-term goals. It can also be that times have changed, and their marketing strategy cannot meet current campaign objectives.
It can be a cornucopia of why companies forget their own short and long-term business and campaign goals. Leadership changes can lead to a change in direction for the whole company that breaks with previous long-term goals. You should not bring that to an outsourced marketing company without warning, no matter the reason behind the chaos.
Once you can see the value in choosing an outsourced marketing company and know what you want to achieve with your current budget, outsourcing infrastructure work is now a simple matter of knowing what you should be outsourcing and what can remain in-house.
In-House Infrastructure Marketing You Should Outsource
Certain marketing services should always be outsourced because they cost more in-house or can be done more effectively by an outsourced marketing company. Of course, the benefits of outsourcing infrastructure work come from the type of outsourced marketing company you use.
Research, Data and Analytics
Your company will never be able to amass, manage, protect, or maintain the amount of data necessary for all your marketing research. The cost of doing so will ramp up your marketing department’s budget exponentially. It’s significantly easier to select what you need from an outsourced marketing company and have them do the cleaning, protecting, and analytics as well.
Digital Advertising
Who will know your competitor better than an agency that has probably worked for them, understands the industry, and how best to maximize your advertising budget. Outsourcing this type of infrastructure can save you on every click, social media post, Youtube video, programmatic ad, and SMS campaign. The benefits of outsourcing digital advertising can be seen in the improved creativity and expanded reach.
Content Marketing
Content creation is a massive, time-consuming load of work. Hiring in-house professionals to create weekly blogs, presentations, monthly gated content, and quarterly whitepapers doesn’t always bring value to your marketing department. Plus, hiring the ‘write’ agency can do content planning services and add social media content and email marketing to the list.
Other services like front-end development can be in-house or outsourced. These developers can work remotely to make the necessary changes, so they don’t have to be physically there—the same with any graphic designer, content planner and marketing strategist. Your budget and marketing needs will decide what you can and cannot outsource.
Advantages of Outsourcing Infrastructure Work to FrescoData
Starting with an outsourced marketing team has many advantages. For starters, you’ll be able to get a realistic view of the cost of each type of marketing service. That information can be invaluable for a new business in developing future marketing budgets. Plus, you save money on hiring an entire in-house marketing team by paying only for what you need.
With our data-driven marketing agency as your outsourced marketing company, marketing research, analytics and data management is already part of our mandate. As a new business owner, you can buy opt-in emails for your first email marketing campaign and use local SEO to assess your community and find your target audience. That can save you months on organic list building and developing your ideal target audience.
Programmatic marketing, customer journey mapping, CRM integration, geofencing mobile marketing, and more can be part of a comprehensive omnichannel marketing strategy for more established companies. Backed by data, we can create an effective omnichannel marketing strategy that uses all key inbound and outbound marketing channels to maintain a personalized customer experience. And we can customize your campaigns for both consumer and business audiences.
With the power of micro proximity and device ID targeting API, geofencing mobile marketing can take your mobile-first campaigns to the next level. Engagement and ROI guarantee your email campaigns have mobile-optimized emails. And when B2B clients purchase a corporate email list or mailing list, they can get direct access to key decision-makers to improve business connections better.
And let’s not forget that all this happens through various APIs that assist in identity verification for safer customer onboarding, pinpoint targeting, faster data analysis, customized programmatic ads, and more. You cannot get a better offer for outsourcing infrastructure work than right here at FrescoData. Almost every aspect of digital marketing, advertising, and GDPR approved data handling can be done here.
Save money on your infrastructure marketing by talking to us today.
