Michele Eccher
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An in-house marketing team consists of people you hire and manage. When you outsource, a provider takes on some or all of the work. You can also combine the two: keep someone close to your products and customers inside the business, and bring in specialists for work your team cannot cover.
Consider an in-house role when there is ongoing work that needs daily input from the business. Outsourcing can help when you need skills at particular stages, or too infrequently to justify a separate hire for each one. If you already have a marketing lead but lack specialist skills or time, an external team can provide support. In each case, establish who will manage the work and approve it.
Start with the work you need done
List your current and planned marketing activities, including how often each is needed, the time involved, deadlines and skills required. Separate recurring weekly work from tasks tied to a launch or a website change. This helps you establish whether you have enough continuing work for a role, or need different specialists at different times.
Consider how much each activity depends on internal conversations and decisions. Someone who needs daily input from product, sales and customer service has different requirements from a specialist who can work from an agreed brief and existing materials.
An in-house role
Decide who will assign work to the new employee and support their professional development.
A hire or ongoing external support
Compare the time you need with an employee’s availability and the capacity the provider can commit to.
An internal lead and an outside specialist
The lead gathers business information and asks the relevant colleagues to check the specialist’s work.
A project with an outside specialist
Agree on the deliverable, inputs and deadline, with a commitment limited to the period you need.
If you have not yet identified missing activities or why work keeps getting stuck, start with the guide to when to outsource your marketing.
How soon can the work start?
Hiring takes time to define the role, recruit, accommodate any notice period and bring the person up to speed. Before recruiting, check that the role covers the work you identified: hiring a content marketer will not fill a gap in website development skills.
You can avoid recruiting each specialist by working with an external team, but you still need to check its availability. Ask when the first task can start, who will handle it and what you need to provide beforehand. Account access, data, materials and approvals can affect delivery just as much as the availability of the people doing the work.
If a deadline falls before a new employee could start, consider an outside specialist for the urgent work and agree on the subsequent handover from the outset.
Who makes the decisions in a hybrid team?
An internal lead can stay close to sales and product teams while outsourcing the skills you lack. If you also need marketing direction, you can seek strategic support. The agreement should make clear who proposes the plan and who approves it. Your business remains responsible for commercial objectives, product information and authorizing budgets.
Appoint one person to bring internal feedback together and give the provider an agreed response. If two departments request conflicting changes, that person needs to resolve them before returning the work to the team. The provider organizes its specialists; your business manages its employees, including assigning work, reviewing it and developing their skills.
At Qreativa, a project manager coordinates the specialists, and communication takes place within tasks in Qreativa’s Basecamp. The Marketing as a Service guide explains how an external team is organized; the marketing subscription guide explains how to submit and track requests.
How to compare costs and capacity
Compare the same activities over the same period, with the same deadlines. For an in-house team, include salaries, employer contributions, recruitment, tools and management time, plus any outside specialists you would still need. For a provider, include the fee, excluded work and the time your internal contact will spend on the collaboration. The guide to marketing team costs examines these items in more detail.
Then check how much work the fee covers. A list of available services does not tell you how many tasks can run at once. Assess a cheaper option by including the necessary extras and checking that it allows you to meet your deadlines.
Once you choose to outsource, you still need to decide how to buy the service: a defined project or an ongoing arrangement. The comparison of a marketing subscription and a traditional agency looks at these commercial options.
What happens during busy periods and absences?
When work increases, establish whether you are short of time or missing a specific skill. The first problem may call for more capacity for the same work; the second needs a specialist, even if other team members have spare hours. Compare your usual workload with the peaks before deciding how large the permanent team should be.
Identify activities that depend on one person. Internally, decide who can cover for them and what information that person needs. Ask an external provider how it handles absences and who takes over work in progress. Having several specialists on its team does not, by itself, mean they are available for your project.
Qreativa plans specify how many tasks can run at the same time. If several pieces of work need to start together, discuss the deadlines with the project manager before choosing or changing your plan.
How to move between the two models
You can hire for work that has become regular while keeping less frequently needed skills outside the business. You can also outsource an area your internal team can no longer cover. Use these checks before the handover:
- For each task in progress, name the person who will finish it and the date the new owner takes over.
- Gather the agreed files and materials, and arrange access to the relevant accounts. Check which licenses and working files can be transferred.
- Document decisions already made, unresolved issues and the data needed to assess the next stage of work.
- Have the incoming person confirm that they can use the accounts and materials before the previous support ends.
Sources: KVK on choosing work to outsource (in Dutch) and 4A’s/ANA on agency compensation models (PDF).
Questions about choosing a marketing team
How can I assess a candidate’s or provider’s skills?
Ask them to walk you through a previous project relevant to the work you need done: what problem they faced, what they personally contributed and how they assessed the result. A portfolio shows the finished product. Discussing how it was made helps you understand their skills and the contribution of other people involved.
How should I assess a new team in the first few weeks?
Compare the first piece of work with the agreed brief and deadlines. Check whether you can use the deliverables, whether errors are corrected and whether problems are flagged early enough for you to act. For commercial results, agree on the starting figures and how long you will measure them before work begins: sales and inquiries depend on more than marketing execution alone.
