The moment you realize that your internal marketing team needs support from an outsourced agency, you have to make important decisions about which agency or agencies to use, which project or campaign you can entrust them with and how heavily you want to rely on them. Here are some tips to help you make those decisions:
Know Your Internal Team’s Strengths
Outsourcing creative and production functions to a marketing support team gives your team time to focus on more important strategic and product development goals. If possible, avoid asking internal team members to take on projects that do not fall into their area of expertise. This will prevent poorly executed work and the stress of not reaching goals. Outsourcing to an agency with the right expertise will also save you money in the long run because they will know how to execute from the word “go.”
Find the Right Agency for the Job
Some agencies have strong digital capabilities, while others are more creative. Make a short list (see below) of agencies at your disposal and catalogue the skills, resources and expertise they offer your team. This will help you remember their strengths when it’s crunch time and you have to make a decision.
Streamline the Agencies You Use
There are always additional costs and learning curves when you add a new agency to your team. Keeping a short list of reliable integrated marketing agencies will help you avoid those costs by working with teams that already “get it.” It will also give you instant access to almost any marketing function you need, including creative support, presentation creation, photography, voiceovers and more.
Use the Same Agency for Similar Projects
If you are lucky enough o find one integrated marketing agency that can do it all, excellent. Otherwise, you will need to divvy up projects and campaigns between those you have. Using the same agencies for the same type of project every time makes the choice easy. That said, it’s a good practice to occasionally extend unique projects to your agencies to make sure you are using their full capabilities.
Should you use an outsourced marketing agency for Content Creation? You can read our next blog to find out.