Not surprisingly, marketing departments in cutting-edge companies are beginning to build their own online marketing staff rather than partnering with ad agencies for all of their marketing campaign needs. Using a contractor, staff augmentation solution allows companies flexibility to ramp the team up or down as demand warrants. Keeping online marketing in-house lowers labor costs, speeds up campaign execution, and maintains consistency. Yet, why are some corporate marketing departments continuing to rely on outside vendors, like ad agencies, when they’d be better served by an in-house flexible staff?
While using an ad agency is an important and necessary function of your marketing strategy, it should not be the only solution to creating and launching effective campaigns. If an ad agency is hired to execute your online strategy, it is likely causing multiple problems you may not have considered.
Since ad agencies typically work off-site, the speed at which your marketing department can work is hampered. You can’t just walk down the hall and get a few questions answered by a team member. Instead, you type an email to your ad agency contact, click send, and wait. Or you call and leave a message on their voicemail. You may get an answer in 24 minutes or 24 hours. Waiting for feedback and answers from the ad agency team hinders your ability to test and retest online ads, copy, and content; slowing down all the processes of the campaigns in your marketing department. While this may seem like a minor inconvenience, if your competitors are speeding past you, your marketing results are crippled before your campaign even begins.
