Every company has a desire to provide quality products and/or services to their clients. To be successful in communicating this message to the public, marketing is key. However, the decision to insource or outsource your marketing objectives depends on a variety of factors, including budget, personnel and areas of expertise, among many others.
Overall, your marketing should reflect your company’s vision and goals while effectively delivering the key messages that clearly showcase your products and/or services. Generic marketing agencies are likely not well versed in the life sciences, which can lead to difficulties in producing relevant content for your target demographic. However, it is important to note that, while hiring someone internally can provide inside knowledge and expertise, outsourcing to an external provider may provide skills and resources that otherwise would not be available.
Determining whether your marketing department should build out their in-house capabilities or outsource the work can be tricky and really depends on your organization’s size and goals. This blog will provide some key insights on insourcing versus outsourcing to aid you in deciding which would best suit your organization’s marketing needs.
What is Insourcing versus Outsourcing?
Insourcing involves utilizing existing employees or hiring someone internally to perform marketing activities, while outsourcing involves hiring external assistance through an agency or individual.
When deciding which is the best option for your company, one of the first things to consider is your cost-benefit ratio. This analysis is key to making a decision to either allocate funds to hiring in-source staff versus hiring an agency already equipped with the tools.
In life science companies specifically, employees are likely well versed in particular fields of science or the technical aspects of the company’s products and/or services that made them the right fit for their role in the first place. If you do not already have an in-house Director of Marketing, Marketing Manager or Head of Marketing, it’s likely your existing employees do not have the wide skill set required to run a successful marketing department. On the flip side, marketing professionals may have the relevant expertise but may not have the scientific education required to understand what you’re marketing and how to best communicate that to your audience.
Pros and Cons
Insourcing your marketing campaigns has one major pro: your business should have unmatched knowledge of your customer base. As such, the amount of time it may take to build the team you would need to achieve your marketing goals, particularly in the case of smaller organizations, would not be efficient.
Outsourcing your marketing needs expands the opportunity to receive advanced and quality marketing skills, which in turn allows management to focus on core business requirements. Expanding on this, outsourcing to a marketing agency specifically specialized in the life sciences will more than likely produce overall exceptional results.
Top 3 Reasons to Outsource
- Expertise: You gain access to a handful of professionals with diversified backgrounds and up-to-date knowledge of industry trends. A company focused on marketing means the employees are continuously learning and improving their skills in that particular field.
- Cost: Hiring a single individual versus hiring an agency can end up costing more, particularly for smaller sized companies. In-house marketing may not be manageable by a single employee and therefore requires permanent salaries, rather than paying experts on an “as-needed” basis.
- Expansion: Marketing agencies tend to have employees who are informed in various fields, from social media to video creation and editing to project management. Additionally, these employees are continuously expanding their capabilities at no additional cost to you.
Competitive Advantage
It’s very common to think that insourcing your marketing to an individual person, either already on the team or hiring someone new, would be the easier and the more cost-effective choice. As the comparison drawn in this blog revealed, this is not necessarily true. Before making a decision, each company should assess their own finances, current personnel and their overall marketing goals.
Focus on your company’s strengths and the value that you provide, then assess what will help distribute that message to your potential customers. Concentrate on how to grow your business and determine what marketing route will help your company continue to grow and strengthen that competitive advantage.
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