B2B Insights
Professional insights and personal musings
On In-house Marketing and Other Dubious Ideas
By Bob Rose, President
A lot of marketers have moved or are considering moving their advertising, social media
management, marketing
data integration and content creation to in-house services.
The motivation seems to be to gain greater cost-effectiveness. The reasoning is: why pay
all that money
for a full-service marketing agency?
This reminds me of the cost-conscious guy who saves money by not going to the doctor for
regular
check-ups. Think of all the cash he’s saving on co-pays! This isn’t a good plan for long
term cost-effective
healthcare.
And, trying to save money in marketing by ignoring the need for quality is not a good
plan for long term
business health.
For most middle-market businesses, in-house marketing departments cannot attract and
retain strong
talent. Pure and simple.
A middle-market business taking service in-house is a tacit statement that marketing
quality is not that
important. And that’s a bad statement for any company’s future.
To be fair, in-house marketing makes sense for two kinds of clients: really big ones and
really small
ones. If a business is big enough to justify a talented, well-resourced in-house group,
then have at it. Or if a
business is smaller and specialized in the things they do - say, lead gen or direct
marketing – they may be
better served by a specialized unit.
But for most middle-market companies, in-house marketing is like covering a bullet hole
with a band-aid.
The needs are too demanding, and the outcomes are too important, to try to do things in
marketing that are just
not good enough.