Marketing In-sourcing Vs Outsourcing

Strategic In-sourcing Vs Outsourcing of the Sales and Marketing activities

Generally, marketers are proficient in managing the in – house marketing systems on a regular basis. The skills that are required to prepare daily reports and analysis are unique and demanding than the ones that simply require the assessment of the database information and take decisions based on that. Although the marketing departments of the companies have a huge resource bank of creatively talented people, but they might lack the analytics required to understand the needs of the customers in a better manner in the information- rich, marketing activity environment. Further, the key IT resources are supplemented with the operational and financial systems of the company, resulting in cold marketing and sales activities. This is the main reason why outsourcing of the sales and marketing activities is catching on! Which marketing and sales activities must be outsourced by the company? Most of the advertising and marketing functions have been and can be outsourced successfully. From the highly strategic units such as program planning and marketing strategy to the more tactical and operational elements like customer analytic’s and database, all the areas can be outsourced easily by the marketing department.

Marketers are becoming big outsourcer’s. Design, public relations, analytic’s, data management, advertising, event planning, direct marketing, and various other activities are often sourced externally. Determining what to in source and what to outsource is not a very easy financial exercise for the marketing department of a company. Return on investment needs to be calculated to ensure financial benefits from outsourcing or in sourcing. An organization should outsource its sales and marketing activities only when it lacks expertise in marketing functions or specific technology and needs specialized marketing services. Outsourcing of marketing and sales activities is opted for, only when the company wants to focus on insights and not on the operations. Relying on an expert for the marketing functions helps in obtaining specialization and immediate institutional knowledge. Effective marketing can be carried out by the experts in this field. Professionals will offer detailed marketing reports and analysis and customized marketing operations as well. The major disadvantage associated with outsourcing is that in case a company opts to outsource any of its sales and marketing affairs, it will lose control over those activities. Data security, lack of external party liability or accountability, lack of responsiveness and other integrity issues discourage companies to outsource their marketing functions. The businesses still like to retain their marketing and sales affairs in house to maintain the brand control and if the experts are available within the firm, then it saves the huge costs which the company will otherwise have to incur on the external professionals for outsourcing. When a business house has taken the decision to keep its sales and marketing operations in house then it will resort to provide efficient training to its staff for carrying out specialized marketing services. It will turn out to be much more cost efficient and effective than a complete outsourcing activity.

To conclude, businesses find a marketing company with unique set of skills that results in a better ROI and implements an integrated marketing and sales strategy.

About Us: ClientCurve is a Web Application & Marketing Company with over 7 years of industry presence and having served more than 100+ clients. We work with companies like Intel, Lenova, Aditya Birla Group and more than 100+ clients to deliver marketing support services. We have done over 400+ campaigns till date and have managed a pipeline of over $80+ Million for our clients.

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