Marketing Automation – Insource Vs Outsource

According to the Marketing Automation: Strategies for Sustaining Success study conducted by Marketo & Ascend2 in 2015, 75% of successful marketing automation software users outsource their marketing automation strategy, either fully or partially. Also, 63% of all companies outsource the same, as per the 2016 Marketing Automation Trends Survey conducted by Ascend2.

While most of the sales-driven organizations are clear about their goals, the only thing that baffles them is if they should manage everything in-house or outsource their marketing automation. Here’s the answer. A sales strategy can always be devised by your sales team, without a doubt. However, a successful sales strategy can only be created by leveraging the expertise of an outsourced partner i.e. a lead generation agency. An outsourced partner will cost you higher than if you manage it all in-house is a myth.

Whether you choose to manage it all internally, or outsource it, each comes with its own set of benefits and challenges.When to go for an external partner for your marketing automation strategy:

• In case the process is not core to your business, it is recommended to outsource the same.
• When you don’t end up finding a right person to manage it internally.
• When budget is not a major concern for your business.
• When you hold the expertise to manage the vendor and make them responsible for results.
• If deployment speed is an issue.

How to land the right marketing automation partner?

When you decide to hire an outside professional to handle your marketing automation, the first challenge is to reach the right partner. The vendors you hire to help you usually are innovative, knowledgeable about business process transformation and IT integration. Before hiring a partner, you must ask yourself some questions such as “Do we need a local partner?” or “Are we in search of training services?” or “Do we need someone to plan our requirements?” Thereafter, selecting a right fit for your organization becomes easy.
When to rely on in-house skills?

The factors that may encourage you to keep it all in-house comprise:

• When you are running out of budget and need to cut on costs
• When your business banks majorly on marketing automation and pays marketing professionals, based on revenue production
• When you have the expertise, time and resources to easily handle an in-house team
• When you have the skills needed to ensure success of your marketing automation strategy
• When you are offering marketing services to an outside client
• When you are that an outside agency could not support your specialized needs

Key advantages of outsourcing marketing automation over managing it in-house:

1. Cost-efficient knowledge bank
An outsourced agency is a knowledge bank for you that costs a small part of what a full-time marketing employee costs. An added advantage is that there is always someone to look after your campaigns when you or a primary executive is on leave.

2. Get expertise that you lack
Hiring a marketing automation agency ensures that you have the expertise to carry out your marketing automation strategy. Creating and running an automated marketing campaign on your own is a daunting task. Perhaps, you lack the resources or time or bandwidth necessary to run your campaign. An outsourced agency makes up for the same by finding the loopholes and addressing the issues leveraging their resources, skills, and expertise.

3. Lead nurturing no more a challenge
Once you outsource your marketing automation, lead nurturing becomes child’s play, which is otherwise a really arduous task, particularly for B2B organizations. Partnering with a marketing automation agency, you allow your marketing and sales team to focus solely on content development, which is the core of any lead nurturing plan, and on converting leads into customers.

4. Forget the process, focus on results
The process of marketing automation is, of course, multifaceted and requires you to invest a good amount of time. Nevertheless, you need to care more about the results and this is what a marketing automation agency lets you do, while extending actionable insights your way to make your marketing campaigns a success.

Unable to decide if outsourcing or insourcing is better? Contact us now.