As our marketplaces continue to evolve and marketing gets more fragmented (and complicated), the debates over whether clients should “in-house or outsource” their marketing efforts are heating up. In recent conversations with various mid-size service-sector clients, we have encountered a common theme: managing marketing in-house is becoming ever more challenging, and there are two primary reasons. First, advances in marketing technology in recent years have been exponential and often overwhelming for an in-house marketing manager or even a small in-house marketing team to master. The second most common challenge we hear is related to the difficulty of recruiting, training, and retaining in-house staff who have the required experience and the commitment to stay with an employer long enough to build an effective marketing program. 

When it comes to the challenge of keeping up with something that is complicated, it has been said that two heads are better than one. But when it comes to keeping up with today’s myriad of rapidly evolving marketing strategies and media options, 5 to 7 heads on a team that is thinking about and working on your account (and on accounts with similar challenges) on an ongoing basis is even better. It allows for more specialization within marketing disciplines and results in a more well-rounded marketing team. And, since we all know that consistency is critical to the long-term success of all marketing programs, the depth of 5- to 7-person teams provides built-in marketing service provider continuity for clients that is virtually impossible to create in-house. 

Now, for the challenges of in-house staff. Here are 3 reasons why recruiting (and retaining) staff for in-house marketing roles is particularly challenging: 

1. Your (single) business will likely not offer enough variety of day-to-day challenges to keep energetic marketing staff engaged.  
2. Once the person with the right experience is in place, they will likely not find much in common with their peers within your business and will become frustrated by the lack of marketing mentorship opportunities. 
3. As in-house staff begin to establish themselves in your organization, they will soon understand that their opportunities for upward mobility within your organization are extremely limited. 

So, why do agencies succeed at recruiting and retaining energetic marketing professionals when in-house marketing departments often struggle? Young professionals in the marketing and creative space crave the variety that comes when working in a setting that offers the stimulation that is inherently varied at agencies as they work on several different clients each day. They are also typically working in proximity to and with a number of like-minded peers and multiple mentors every day. And there are almost always numerous opportunities for upward mobility within the same organization.

These challenges are leading many mid-size service-sector clients to partner with agencies and other specialized marketing services providers. And increasingly with our client relationships, we are merging the traditional agency of record relationship providing more typical agency services with what would have been considered the duties of an in-house marketing department in what we are calling Outsourced Marketing Programs (OMPs). 

But, no matter how we work with clients, in every case we provide a consistent team of marketing specialists at our client’s disposal with the potential to work (and in some cases even train and retrain our client's in-house staff) in virtually every marketing capacity as needed. 

As always, thank you for reading and we would love your thoughts on this topic! Please send feedback to Susan.