How do you decide which marketing tasks you should outsource and which tasks you should keep in-house?

That's what we're discussing today with a lady who takes a strategic and data-driven approach to identifying a business's primary goals and translating them into actionable KPIs that move the needle.

She's had her clients featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, and Huffington Post, and her agency is a Facebook-verified marketing partner.

A warm welcome to the Strategic Marketing Show, Ashley Monk.

Topics discussed on this episode include:

• If a business can afford it, and they can have as big a marketing team as they want, shouldn’t they just do everything in-house?
• How do you go about selecting which tasks to outsource?
• How do you ensure that communication is as clear and effective as possible, to ensure that the negative aspects of silos don’t occur?
• As an agency, how do you cope with being the silo?
• How has what is outsourced changed over the past few years, and how do you see this changing over the next few years?

As a general rule, I usually, depending on the size of the organization, think strategy is a more effective area to be able to outsource. Because, typically, your team and, depending on your bench – usually this is true with smaller teams, David, and smaller benches – but usually, those teams are comprised of mostly people that are very, very skilled in execution. That's why they were hired to come in and perform a certain role. And, oftentimes, their supervisors are the ones that are maybe more skilled at a strategy or a management level.

So I think those employees that are really in-house have the capacity to be able to manage well but, oftentimes, I see (when we are partnering with other organizations) gaps and holes in the overall strategy just because they're not trained or they're not thinking that way.

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Hey, it’s David. How do you decide which marketing tasks you should outsource and which tasks you should keep in-house? That's what we're discussing today with a lady who takes a strategic and data-driven approach to identifying a business's primary goals and translating them into actionable KPIs that move the needle.

She's had her clients featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, and Huffington Post, and her agency is a Facebook-verified marketing partner. A warm welcome to the Strategic Marketing Show, Ashley Monk.

Thank you for having me, David. Excited to be here.

Yeah, thanks so much for coming on the show again, Ashley. You can find Ashley over at OnyaMark.com. I alluded to the fact that you've been on the show already, Ashley. Congratulations: the first-ever return guest on the Strategic Marketing Show.

Thank you. It's great to be back again. It's always a pleasure.

Super. Well, Ashley was on episode number one talking about shifting expectations in the paid traffic space – so go and check out that episode, if you haven't done so already.

Ashley, if a business can afford it, and they have as big a marketing team as they want, shouldn't they just do everything in-house?

It's such a great question, David, and I think the answer is no. I think it can be very challenging when you've got a team. It's almost like – the analogy I like to use is: if you've ever been taking trying to take a group photo, and you've got twenty people that are all aligned. You're trying to get the camera timer on and all squeeze in the photo. It can be really hard to make sure everybody's in the right spot, and everyone is seen. I think sometimes it takes a photographer, or someone outside of that shot, to bring in needed perspective.

I think that the same is true of your marketing. I think it can become very easy, even with very great and strong teams, that you can get used to, and accustomed to, doing things a certain way. That you can get into a rut. And, quite frankly, there are changes and things that might be happening in your industry, that can be really hard to see from within, happening outside. So, regardless of team size, I think there's definitely a time and a place to bring in one if not several, partner/s to help you evaluate what those gaps and holes might be. Because, sometimes, it's hard to be aware of those blind spots ourselves. That's why they're called blind spots.

I love the analogy. Yeah, like taking a group photo. And, for some organizations, it's probably like taking a group photo with little children.

Yes. Oh, yes. For sure. Depending on the caliber and the capacity of the team, you're exactly right. And going and feeding on that analogy, little children like to please their parents; they like to do well. I think that's another factor when you're looking at your marketing team. Sometimes, there's going to be a little bit of biased feedback to try to appease a direct report or supervisor. That's another area where it can be nice to get an outside opinion, to potentially push back on, or just evaluate, things that might be seen differently.

So, every marketing team within an organization, no matter how big, should be outsourcing some tasks. How do you go about selecting which tasks to outsource?

It's a multifaceted question. I think, a lot of the time, it can be determined by capacity. Who is on your bench? How much capacity, time, and resources do they have for a particular project? Then the other component to consider is skill and talent. You might have someone on your team that is great at SEO and backlinking and creating inbound strategies, but maybe there's a gap in something like media buying or digital analysis. I think looking at capacity and talent are two important factors to consider.

As a general rule, I usually, depending on the size of the organization, think strategy is a more effective area to be able to outsource. Because, typically, your team and, depending on your bench – usually this is true with smaller teams, David, and smaller benches – but usually, those teams are comprised of mostly people that are very, very skilled in execution. That's why they were hired to come in and perform a certain role. And, oftentimes, their supervisors are the ones that are maybe more skilled at a strategy or a management level.

So I think those employees that are really in-house have the capacity to be able to manage well but, oftentimes, I see (when we are partnering with other organizations) gaps and holes in the overall strategy just because they're not trained or they're not thinking that way.

So, as a general rule (and there are, of course, always exceptions, and every organization is different), strategy is very effective to be able to outsource. And then management, at some point. Usually, the goal is to be able to bring that in-house when it makes sense.

Okay, so my follow-up question was going to be: what tasks shouldn't you outsource? You just touched upon management as perhaps one of them there.

I think so. Now, there are times and places where management can be outsourced. For one, if the team does not exist or have the capacity, or maybe there's a hole, I think management can be effective to outsource. We do a lot of management ourselves, so this is common. Also, when there are strong outcomes and KPIs (which I'm sure we'll talk about later) in place, I think management can be outsourced. But, a lot of times, I think that companies – depending on size and scale and what their goals are – can do management in-house, with the right team, more effectively – unless the scope provides it and there are very, very consistent meetings with the outside team and frequent follow-up and communication.

I think little tasks, as well, it just might be more cost-effective to do in-house. I know sometimes, on the content creation side, when we partner with other organizations, there are times when we'll own the management, but other times we'll own the content piece. It can be more affordable for the organization to have someone else internally scheduling, reporting, and doing some of that work. It really just depends on the team, the structure, and the priorities.

But I think, ultimately, it boils down to: What are the core outcomes that we want to accomplish when we are working on a particular project or trying to work toward common goals? Looking at the bench, and who is sitting on the bench, and then making decisions to be able to outsource and then be able to keep internally. That rule of thumb is mostly given due to cost – knowing that, usually, a strategist or a higher-level technical hire for someone outside of an organization is going to be a larger investment than an employee to execute. That's where outsourcing to an agency may be a better way to steward resources: where you can have an employee that's a little bit closer to your organization doing some of those tasks for cheaper than it would be to outsource to an outside partner.

Now, you mentioned that you'd probably want to cover KPIs later. Not particularly wanting to lead you into an answer, but you may want to include that here.

How do you ensure that communication is as clear and as effective as possible, to ensure that the negative aspects of silos don't occur?

This is such a good question. Sometimes we'll work with organizations to evaluate their agency of record, we'll be partnering and collaborating with other agencies, and sometimes clients will simply leave one agency and come partner with us. Usually, David, the number one thing that I see for why they're doing this isn't necessarily because the agency or the work was bad work, it was just a lack of clarity around outcomes and poor communication. So many mistakes and so many challenges with silos really just stem from communication.

There are several things and factors that I believe can be put in place to be able to structure better communication. Number one is not only setting clear expectations, regarding outcomes up front with milestones and deadlines, and then which stakeholder is going to be responsible. I think, also, frequent meetings with all teams early on are very important to create trust and rapport. But, also, to align when there's a lack of clarity on an outcome or scope. Sometimes, depending on who's hiring and working with a partner in a silo, there might be a technical expert that is used to certain terminology. And maybe the person hiring misuses that terminology. So, while they think that they're on the same page, they're getting so far into the technical weeds that having frequent meetings about those outcomes is a really effective way to recalibrate on what the purpose is.

Another one that's very simple (that comes back to ‘communication’ as the fix) is more frequent reporting. For a lot of agencies and a lot of partners, and in organizations as well, it's easier to evaluate on a 30 or a 60-day cycle – or even at the end of a campaign. While this is a really effective way to look at outcomes and overall goals, I think it's too infrequent to be able to make quick and rapid changes. I recommend for certain projects, especially early on, to actually engage in weekly reporting and weekly updates. It doesn't have to be on the scale that you would do an entire very comprehensive report, but this type of data and findings – and also translating how those findings are rooted in outcomes – can really shorten some of those mistakes so that you're not in a relationship or a silo where, two months down the road, we find out that both parties were not aligned on outcomes.

To sum it up, I would say: frequent meetings, meetings with all vendors as well, communicating outcomes over and over again, and then early on frequent reporting, can really help eliminate silos and make everyone on the same page regarding what the outcome is.

What are the most important reasons why certain market marketing activities should be outsourced? I would think that top-of-mind for most marketing leaders would be saving costs, but perhaps things can be done more efficiently, and more predictably as well. Or are there other better reasons why things should be outsourced?

That's such a good question. I would say it comes down to, not only cost but also talent and capacity. You look at – let’s take a 10-person marketing team, for instance, (or maybe an 8-person team). Usually, you'll have a director of marketing, maybe a VP of marketing as well, that's going to be the senior leader. You'll have a marketing manager that's going to own KPIs, reporting, etc., for a lot of the outcomes. Typically, you'll have maybe a developer or somebody that's owning the website. Maybe brand. You'll have someone for social media. You'll have someone for content. But typically, you're not hearing in that list – you’re hearing a lot of generalists, but not necessarily specialists.

So, for an organization with a marketing team of 10 people, they may not have a developer on their team with 10 to 20 years of experience, or a UX/UI designer, or a senior paid media specialist that's an expert on a specific channel like LinkedIn ads, or Google ads. When it comes to outsourcing, if you have a very specific outcome and your bench doesn't have a niche or a category expert, that is when it can make sense to outsource. Not only from a talent perspective but because the person you outsource is probably going to have a more efficient and better process with proven frameworks and will have repeated a lot of strategies and tactics across different industries.

David Bain 13:17

I would think that a perceived negative consideration about outsourcing could be the loss of specialist knowledge. If you're outsourcing, that specialist function – digital marketing, new media marketing, etc. – can change very quickly. The thing that works particularly well now may not be the thing that you should be focusing on in a year’s time or so.

How, as a management team, do you retain that knowledge, that cutting-edge knowledge, of what areas you should be focusing on and, at the same time, outsource the function of doing it?

Oh, that's such a good question. I think one common thing that I see marketing teams get into a rut of is just not prioritizing time for extended and continued education. I know that it sounds simple, but I think it's so important to make that mandatory; for your teams to stay up to date, to have an hour of time blocked on the calendar, and to make it just as important. Or, if you're using a management system like EOS, the Employee Operating System, or some other framework to track employee or team KPIs. It's really important that your team is prioritizing their overall extended education, to make sure that they're up-to-date with these things.

Using tools like Google Alerts to get things sent to your email and signing up for relevant email lists – those are great. They sound simple, but so few people take the time to really prioritize that learning. I also think that's an area that you could consider outsourcing to a consultant or someone else to help you be aware of, maybe on a project basis, what those trends are, and things to look for over maybe the next 6 months to 12 months. And even bringing in a specialist to help you identify those things before your organization is undergoing strategic planning. I think it can be very helpful to get second opinions on those areas.

Now you run your own agency, Onya Mark, so marketing departments outsource work to you, so you end up being the silo.

How can you better educate people who are actually outsourcing the work to you about how to communicate more effectively or how they can deliver and choose certain tasks that they're asking for you to do?

This is such a great question. I think the first big mistake, and the paradigm shift that needs to come before an organization considers outsourcing, is oftentimes they consider outsourcing and want to throw money at a problem and hope an outside partner can fix it. While you are hiring a partner to do a job, if there's not that investment there from the organization outsourcing – to where there's going to be, early on in the relationship, congruency and alignment of outcomes – it’s going to be very hard for any partner that you bring in to be able to serve you effectively. Because they don't know what they don't know. If the person outsourcing is uninvolved or uninvested in that process, it really can set up the agency for failure.

I would say, and just make the recommendation, that you don't want to just throw money at a problem. You want to make sure there's an equal investment, especially early on in that relationship, to make that outsource partner able to come in successfully.

The next one, if you're outsourcing, is being very clear on what the overall outcome is, but being open-minded and open-handed on the best tactic or solution to be able to solve that. Oftentimes, Marketing Directors, VPs of Marketing, or whomever that decision maker is, can become very accustomed to tactics that (to what we just spoke about) are maybe outdated and maybe irrelevant, and they want to move forward with a certain solution, but that solution may not be the right solution. So, I would say open-mindedness.

And, finally, very frequent communication early on. On our side, things that we do – and other agencies listening, or if someone's outsourcing recommendations and requests that you can make to the agency that you choose to connect with or the consultant that you're working with – would be looping them in and asking them to connect with all vendors or team members early on. I think it's important, for us, when we work with clients, to know if they're working with a videography team, or if they have other outside partners. Maybe it's a web development company that we can be connected with, or even meet with those professionals so that we're all aligned on outcomes. That can be very helpful. Oftentimes, too, we’ll communicate with those teams. We’ll loop in the marketing director, but if we're working on a certain project, we'll go back and forth and correspond with those teams too, and it can make it more efficient.

And then, finally, one very simple solution that decision-makers can use is to create an agency brief. When we've worked on larger projects and there have been multiple vendors and multiple teams in place, having a very long brief for everyone to look at regarding who is owning what, who the stakeholders are, and what the overall deadlines are – and meeting on that and going through that in detail – can really, really effectively help those teams work together.

I love how I can through Ashley off-the-cuff questions that I hadn't prepped her with beforehand and not only can she answer them succinctly, but she can also actually provide three or four-step sequences of solutions to each answer. Very impressive indeed.

Just briefly for this one, Ashley, how has outsourcing changed over the last few years? And what do you see specifically changing about outsourcing over the next few years?

Thank you for your kind words, first of all, David. I appreciate it. As far as outsourcing changing, I think it's going to become more and more common, especially with how rapidly, we can all agree, the digital landscape is changing constantly. I think there are two really important considerations to keep in mind with outsourcing changing.

Number one is going to be the economy and the economy retracting a bit, different industries being affected like tech and different layoffs that are happening. I think outsourcing is going to become more common to consider, and to keep costs down. That'll be a really good way that organizations can save. When you think about it, when you're hiring an outsource partner, you are getting a team of experts for a fraction of what a one-specialist hire could be. I would say one trend will be that core roles will potentially stay in-house, but other agencies will be outsourced for specific projects and also for that niche talent.

I think the other major change, David – and this one will be very interesting to see how it will play out over the next three years because it might be too early – but ChatGPT and AI: that is a whole other conversation. I think that is really, over the next few years, going to drastically change the landscape of agencies and what a partnership could look like. I know there was – I want to say that it was BuzzFeed – but an organization that laid off and let go of probably 10% of their workforce to eliminate the need for content writers because ChatGPT and AI could produce a lot of that.

It's been interesting. I've heard it said that, up until this point, a lot of the jobs that have been replaced in the market have been blue-collar jobs. When you think about technology advancements, you think about trucks, and you'll see self-driving trucks so the need for labor is eliminated. What's going to be very interesting over the next three to five years, and for outsourcing and for marketing teams in general, is this is the first advancement that is really coming for white-collar professional roles.

I think what is going to shift when it comes to outsourcing is there's going to be less need for a lot of the redundant capacity work with creating – I don't want to say filler content, but just the content creation side – and a far larger emphasis on strategy, on overall frameworks, and more of the utilization of AI in the overall process with the advancements that have been happening.

Superb stuff. Yeah, Buzzfeed made an announcement back in December that it was culling about 12% of its workforce, and then announced in January that it was going to use AI to enhance its content and quizzes.

Ashley Monk 22:18

Yeah, I would agree wholeheartedly. The organizations (whether it's an agency or whether it's a marketing team) that can leverage AI are going to be far, far ahead. Because it can really do – I use ChatGPT, I don't know about you. I use it almost daily for quick research and for pulling trends. While that data can be found, it still takes a human strategist.

The analogy that I've heard used, and I can't take credit for it, is that it’s like using a calculator. When you use a calculator, you obviously need to know what formulas to input, what equations, and what you're solving for. But the calculator expedites the actual work itself much faster. I think the need for overall knowledge in a certain vertical is going to stay. It's really an exciting time for us to advance in our overall knowledge, knowing that less time can be used for some of the more menial tasks and entry-level work.

Yeah, that's a great analogy, again. Another way of putting it, I guess, is that the quality of what you get out is only going to be equivalent to the quality of questions and information that you put in.

That’s such a great point.

I’ve been your host, David Bain. You can find Ashley Monk over at OnyaMark.com. Ashley, thanks so much for being on the Strategic Marketing Show.

Thank you again for having me.

And thank you for listening. Here at IFP, our goal is simple: to connect you with the most relevant information, to help solve your business problems, all in one place. InsightsForProfessionals.com.