As the economy improves (it is improving, isn’t it?) your company is starting to reinvigorate its efforts. That means more marketing programs and more aggressive ones at that. Among your decisions is whether to add an in-house marketing staff, or hire an outside firm.
No offense to those who toil in internal marketing departments, but marketing is handled best outside your organization. The only reason for handling it internally is that the organization can control the department internally. They can determine the staff, and how that staff goes about its business. For most departments (accounting, production, personnel) the advantage is clear. However for marketing, the disadvantage is even more clear.
Most important is the perspective of an inside marketing staff. Like others in the organization, the culture becomes one of pushing the product on the audience. They are privy to the effort that goes into the product, and they care greatly about the organization. In the marketing world, those are bad traits. Only the customer counts in marketing. Only what the customer selfishly likes matters. They couldn’t care less about what you go through in your organization. The only concern to those who decide to buy is what can it do for them. No one inside your organization can appreciate that, simply from their daily perspective from inside your company.
Second, is that innovation comes slowly. Internal marketing falls in love with minor success and latches on to what works well enough. An outside firm is constantly exposed to new approaches. They will find successes with other clients and bring those ideas to you. When you are your own only client, you will rarely see an innovation, and you will never see one succeed. Likewise, you won’t see one fail either, so even if you do try to innovate, you are likely to miss some of the pitfalls that await you.
Organizations shouldn’t look at marketing as an expense the way they look at an HR or accounting department. It can grow your company in a way few other parts of your business can.