In-House or Outsourced Digital Marketing Team?

Businesses have come to the realization that digital marketing is one of the biggest elements needed for their progress. To be able to market your brand to people in every location, you need to be found on the internet.

Now, some business owners find themselves in the dilemma of either creating or employing a team in-house or outsourcing their digital marketing.

To begin with, let’s establish the fact that all businesses are not the same. What may work for your business or industry may not work for the other industry. Therefore, a decision based on this topic depends on your needs and capabilities. Before you make a final decision, ponder over these questions.

How well do you understand Digital Marketing?

Digital Marketing is not only about having social media handles where you post your goods and services. Digital Marketing has a lot of branches where each branch requires special attention. It involves social media management, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Web Development, Graphic Design, Photography, Content Writing, Copy Writing and Pay per Click Advertisement.

You would want your products to be seen on social media pages, you would want to be found on the first page of such search engines as Google or your potential clients would want to know more about you from your website. All these should be done by experts or else you will end up being online without seeing any result on your investment.

So first, whichever team you choose should be able to provide you with periodic reports which will include strategies to help you carry out your digital marketing effectively.

Are your clients online?

To answer this question, you need to have time to describe your ideal customer, sometimes referred to as the customer avatar. You should know the age range, gender, location and behavior of your customer avatar. You need to know what they are doing at a particular time of the day.

If your customers are online, what is the best time to engage with them? What exactly do they search for? When do they need a particular good or service which you offer?

You need to answer these questions and more in order to make an improved decision about how your digital marketing should be.

How much will you earn from your online clients?

A very good company should have all financial statements in place knowing where more cash flow-ins are from and where cash outflows go to. After creating your customer avatar, you should have projections of the amount of profit you can make from them.

Your online clients may have different preferences as compared to your offline clients. Therefore, which new or specialized products will entice them to buy?

The viability of your digital marketing will depend on your profits after deducting the cost involved. It will be advisable to separate money coming from online clients to know which one works better for you.

Can you meet the needs of all members of your in-house team?

Digital Marketing as already said, is not a job for one person, you need a team. The team may consist of web developers, graphic designers, content writers, SEO experts, copywriters, and photographers. This team will provide an effective digital marketing campaign for you. A web developer can have extra skills in graphic designing but he will not be good in content writing. So it may not be advisable to employ one person expecting him to put all these on your table.

Now, every member of the team will need tools to work with which are mostly expensive coupled with an uninterrupted internet supply. Aside from this, you may have to pay salaries and other allowances and obligations as you do for any other employee. This is equal to creating another business within your business.

Some companies can afford an in-house team by providing all tools and offering decent salaries because they may need the team to take up more roles for many more profitable projects which are related to their field.

However, some businesses may not afford this budget. Some digital marketing companies are ready to work with your budget no matter how meager it is and the good thing is they are able to carry out their work effectively and provide you with reports and analysis.

Will your in-house marketing team build up their knowledge periodically?

Most companies conduct on-the-job training for workers occasionally. Digital marketing goes through evolutions day in and day out. What worked last year may not work this year. With regard to this, the digital marketing team should be abreast of what goes on in their niche every single day. They need to attend seminars and events to meet new people in the digital field to learn new stuff to make them more innovative.

Having an in-house team means you would have to bear all or part of the cost of your team’s training.

I’m sure your answers to the above questions have helped you make a definite decision for your business with regards to digital marketing.