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Managed Services vs. In-House for Marketing Automation?
Having the right people is one of the key factors to get the full value from your marketing automation investment. With this in mind should companies look to outsource the management of their marketing automation platform or look to hire/train in-house resources?
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2 Answers
This is very much a question of whether or not the right resources and skills exist inside a company to take full advantage of the marketing automation technology being purchased. In order to maximize the return on the investment, the marketing (and to some degree sales) organizations need to be fully aligned around executing programs that will acquire, develop and convert leads utilizing the new technology. This includes consistent content development, nurture program development, on-going funnel/pipeline analysis, data analysis, etc…. Done correctly, the results will be terrific, with increased lead conversions, reduces sales cycles, and reduced selling costs.
If an organization is not ready to make this commitment, the results can be disappointing and a managed service provider (MSP) is a logical alternative. There are MSPs that will provide soup-to-nuts management of marketing automation programs from list development to content development to nurture design to implementation to measurement. This is an excellent way for companies that believe in the benefits of marketing automation to get started quickly without needing to hire and train internal talent. And since many of the things the provided by the MSP are already being outsourced in a piece-meal fashion, getting them from a single provider can reduce costs and management time.
If hiring, training, and directing marketing automation experts is not core to your value proposition, then outsourcing the function can free you to focus on what you do best. It can also give your marketing campaigns a jump start because you get trained, skilled, experienced people right from the start vs trying to find, hire, and then train them. Lastly, drawing on staff from an agency that specializes in marketing automation services, enables you to tap into the experience of 50+ people since there will be cross training and knowledge sharing.
-Kevin
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