In-House vs. Outsourcing Digital Marketing to an Agency

There's a common misconception that hiring a marketing agency is much more expensive than handling the efforts internally.

The tricky part about digital marketing is that it's not one single job that you're paying someone to do. There are many tasks and responsibilities that require a variety of skill sets. The salary of an individual who can do all of those things effectively is much higher than a monthly agency retainer fee. Hands-down. (Plus, employees like these are a rare find.)

"Marketing" is a word that encompasses a lot of components and gears and creative production. You may prefer to control all of them in-house. You may decide to outsource some of those pieces, while taking care of others internally. You may even opt for marketing coaching to level up your inside team. Or, you can solve your headaches with one pill by hiring a full-service B2B marketing agency.

The real question to ask yourself is: "What parts of my inbound marketing strategy do I need to outsource, and which can I do internally?"

This article will serve two purposes. First, we'll help you understand just how much goes into running an inbound or content marketing campaign for a B2B. You'll also learn about each key activity and component of digital marketing. At the end, you'll be able to sense whether in-house vs. outsourcing digital marketing is best for your team.

(Related Post: How Much Does It Cost to Outsource B2B Marketing?)

Marketing Responsibilities

So, what are the different pieces that most likely need professional work? How do you know whether you can handle them yourself or should hire an expert? Let's take a look.

Strategy

Modern marketing, or inbound marketing, requires some R&D before you can jump into action. You need to:

• Build buyer personas of your target audience

• Map out their buyer's journey

• Develop a consistent voice for your marketing content

• Research and plan for:

  • Creating strategic campaigns & calendars for content generation
  • Auditing your website & researching keywords for SEO (explained below)
  • Developing email newsletters, lead-nurturing workflows, & follow-up campaigns
  • Creating/refining profiles & outlining a strategy for social media
  • How you'll gather and consistently report on your most important performance metrics.

If you think that sounds like a lot, you're not wrong. Initial website strategy planning and research is a ton of work, especially if you're unfamiliar with the process.

Blog & Premium Content Generation

Ideally, you'll be blogging about once a week, at least to start. Don't fret if the posts' traffic is low in months 0-3 – this is a marathon, not a sprint. Research shows businesses that prioritize blogging are 13x more likely to enjoy positive ROI over time. Consistent blogging creates a stream of original, shareable content – great for SEO, social media, and lead generation! Blog posts should be optimized for SEO and include a call-to-action to one of your premium offers.

Speaking of premium offers, you should consistently write and publish premium content (eBooks, white papers, videos, infographics) to assist lead generation. Premium content is placed behind a form, so visitors have to provide their contact info to get it. Offering multiple premium offers will appeal to a broader audience and create more opportunities for conversion.

Even with the rise of generative AI tools, creating website copy requires a modicum of writing savvy and industry knowledge. Not just anybody can do it, despite what the cost-cutting CEOs of the world might tell you. The purpose of content generation is to show your visitors that you're a trustworthy, valuable source of information. You don't need to be the next Hemingway, but your copy should be grammatically correct and factually sound.

SEO

SEO (search engine optimization) is the one thing we would not suggest DIY-ing. SEO mistakes can be costly, and people who haven't been trained in best practices should do a lot of research before fiddling around with SEO. 

Ideally, your SEO marketing agency will have years of experience in proper techniques, and will be up to date on Google's most recent search algorithm changes. Here are some things your SEO agency should not do.

SEO requires keyword research, site auditing, implementation, daily monitoring, and an understanding of realistic SEO goals.

Social Media Marketing Strategies

Social media is a lot more work than most businesses realize, and for B2Bs it's easy to get sucked into high-effort, low-impact activities.

At the bare minimum, you should be actively involved with LinkedIn. Maybe Facebook from a "community visibility" standpoint. Only invest marketing dollars in Instagram, X, or TikTok if it's a genuine place where you can influence your buyer persona.

If you're posting frequently and networking properly on LinkedIn, you'll get engagement from users. You need to monitor your profiles and respond to engagements quickly and appropriately. 

You should know where to find social media analytics, what they mean, and how to act on them to get results.

CMS & CRM

You'll need an inbound marketing-friendly platform of software to keep your campaigns running smoothly. We say "needs" because without these platforms, you'll have a heck of a time keeping track of all your contacts, content, and analytics.

At the very least, you need a CMS and CRM or other marketing automation software.

CMS stands for content management system, which allows you to create, edit, and publish content to your website. If you use a fancy CMS like HubSpot, you can also publish social posts, track leads, and build out entire campaigns.

CRM stands for customer relationship management system, which allows you to manage and analyze prospect, lead, and customer information and interactions. As you may know, one area that businesses and sales staff struggle with is follow up and closing after marketing generates a lead.

We recommend the HubSpot CRM because it's incredibly intuitive and has a great customer support and community ecosystem. Of course, there are other popular or common CRMs:

• SalesForce
• Insightly
• SAP
• Zoho

You'll need to learn how to use these systems and integrate them with the systems you already have in place. If you decide to switch platforms at any time, you'll need to understand how to migrate data without losing any valuable information. 

Lead Generation & Nurturing

Lead generation is a process of trial and error. An effective lead gen campaign requires optimized landing pages, CTAs, and thank-you pages. You should consistently A/B test each one of these, as even seemingly innocuous changes (like changing button colors) can lead to higher conversion rates.

Lead nurturing includes workflows and follow-up campaigns. Once visitors convert through your CTAs and landing pages, you should continue to bump them via email. Studies have shown that nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads.

Lead nurturing is easiest when you use a marketing automation platform like HubSpot or Mailchimp.

Analytics & Reporting

How do you know you're getting results? How are your marketing strategies impacting your business? To start, you need to know where to find your metrics and how to access them. From there, you need to interpret the results and form a plan of action. 

If you're not the business owner, or you're delegating this task to another person, you'll need comprehensive reports. You'll need to demonstrate that the business's marketing investment is being returned, and highlight successes and failures for further discussion. A responsible agency will typically provide reports every 1-2 weeks.

When to Outsource Digital Marketing Instead of Suffering In-House

Again, outsourcing doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing commitment. However, there are some signs that you could benefit from a helping hand.

Consider these factors when potentially choosing a digital marketing agency:

1.  The salary of an internal marketing employee/team would cost more than hiring an agency.

Obviously, if it's going to cost you more to do marketing internally, you'll want to consider outsourcing the job. Depending on where you live, the size of the agency, and your needs, inbound service packages can be significantly more affordable than a full-time worker's salary.

2.  You don't have the resources to implement a full marketing strategy.

Whether you're lacking in time or manpower, hiring an agency can take the weight off your shoulders. That's what they're there for. They'll be able to invest the time and energy to make your campaigns as effective as possible.

3.  You want every aspect optimized with best practices.

Inbound marketing agencies know all about dos and don'ts, best practices, modern techniques, and disaster avoidance. They consider all aspects of marketing and how to optimize them, because that's their job.

Want to Grow Those Best Practices in Your Own Garden? No two inbound marketing partnerships are alike. In fact, some are about putting you in power to strategize, create, and sell like an agency veteran. Coaching and hybrid engagements allow you to invest all or some of your agency dollars on growing your own team from green to generating green (aka money). This quiz is a quick, fun way to see if your best move is training, hybrid, or fully outsourced work:

4.  You want new, complex, or experimental marketing technologies.

Some marketing platforms and software are still in development, like the up-and-coming account-based marketing. Unfamiliar technology should be handled by an expert until you've been trained to use it - especially if you're working with sensitive client information.

5.  You need resources – not just an order-taker.

Inbound marketing agencies can be helpful in unexpected ways. Many are Google Partners, which means they have training, certifications and demonstrated best practices for platforms like Google Ads and Google Analytics. To maintain their partnership they must always be learning and implementing best practices on an ongoing basis.

Some are HubSpot partners, which means they have extensive training on inbound marketing best practices and as well as a demonstrated working knowledge of the HubSpot marketing platform. Many offer their own seminars through universities and other community outlets to help businesses get up to date on modern techniques.

In-House or Outsource? Decisions, Decisions ...

There are many benefits to B2B sales and marketing outsourcing – insourcing isn't as simple as handing the work off internally and seeing results. Oftentimes, it's easier on our clients' minds and wallets to hand the reins over to a trusted professional. 

However, each business is unique, and how much work you hand off to an industrial marketing agency will depend on your specific needs.

To learn more about how outsourced industrial marketing should work for your business, check out this case study of a small manufacturer outpunching big-time rivals:

(Editor's Note: This article was originally published in February 2016, but was recently updated.)