With more and more startups looking to elevate, B2B Marketing has become extremely crucial. Unfortunately, many companies fail to survive because of wrong decisions made around branding, messaging, and content delivery. Is it the right move to hire in-house staff just to “fill in the positions”? B2B Marketing Agencies are possible a better option to increase your ROI.
Most IT/SaaS companies are already aware of the importance of B2B Marketing. The CMO or VP Marketing is one of the first positions to be filled in small and budding companies. But when it comes to Marketing Teams, the decisions start becoming complicated due to a wide range of reasons – financial, organisational, and also the zero margin for error when the company is experiencing hyper-growth.
The Modern In-House B2B Marketing Team
First and foremost, you must understand the investment you need to make to create a fully functional in-house B2B Marketing team. Here are the components:
Marketing Manager – This stakeholder will be handling key responsibilities such as managing the Editorial Calendar, planning high-level documents, launching webinars, connecting with third-party publications, and performing market research – the CMO’s right-hand and arguably the hardest position to outsource.
Content Manager – As a B2B Marketing executive, you simply can’t afford to write your web content and blog posts all by yourself. You will need an experienced writer who can manage all Content Marketing verticals. This includes blog posts, whitepapers, eBooks, press releases, and email sequences for the Sales teams.
Head of Design – Your team should ideally have an experienced designer to create compelling creatives and designs to compliment your content and online campaigns. This is a key position especially when you are prioritizing Social Marketing, where you will need lots of banners, ads, and landing pages.
Social Media Manager – Yes, this can be a part-time position, but you still need someone to proactively monitor and manage your Social Media platforms. This includes tasks such as publishing bi-weekly updates, participating in group discussions, and responding to comments and messages.
Automation Manager – Your Email Marketing and Lead Management will probably be done with a tool like HubSpot, Pardot, or Marketo. A skilled Automation manager is needed to take over all related responsibilities (i.e, – setting up email sequences) and work closely with the Content Manager, amongst other stakeholders.
SEO Manager – Inbound Marketing is becoming extremely crucial with expos and conferences coming to a halt (you will need a Marcom Manager when things get back on track). Your team will need an SEO Manager to give you a keyword list to target with your content (blog posts, whitepapers, web content, etc.).
Depending on where you are located, the added cost of hiring these professionals can easily cross $50,000 a month, even if you hire a few of them as part-time workers. Are you sure this is a correct move to make when your company still has no leads or inbound traffic? Are you ready to make such a risky investment when your company needs instant results?
5 Problems with In-House Marketing Teams
Employing an in-house team can sound good on paper, you are probably going to run into multiple roadblocks and unexpected issues with your team. Here are just a few..
1 – HR Limitations – Hiring the right people is not easy, assuming your young company has a HR team. Today’s market is full of self-proclaimed B2B Marketing experts. Understand that it may take you a couple of months just to fill in the aforementioned B2B Marketing positions, let alone find talented people.
2 – Training and Onboarding – The dynamics of hiring in-house workers require you to properly train and onboard your workers, while giving them a “grace period” to settle in. Setting up your B2B Marketing team is going to be a long and tiring process, which is even more complicated when they are working remotely.
3 – Cost of Hiring and Employment – As explained previously, proven experts are expensive hires. There’s no two ways about it. You have to part with fixed and predetermined chunks of your budget on a monthly basis, even if the output you are getting from your workers is not optimal. Hint – It won’t be optimal for a while.
4 – No Margin for Error – You’ve set up your B2B Marketing team. Great. But what if your Content Writer is not getting along with your Marketing Manager because he’s too over-qualified? Replacing workers can take weeks, if not months. In today’s fast-paced market, this can spell disaster for your organization.
5 – Less Money for Campaigns – You need good content and creatives to reach and engage your target audience. You need to distribute it with well-planned campaigns. But with so much of your budget already going towards your in-house employees, how much do you really have left to invest in PPC and Social Media?
If you are a CMO in a small or medium sized company, chances are your CEO is expecting a proactive approach with blog posts flying out on a weekly basis, with elevated levels of Social and Email Marketing. But getting stuck with hiring and managing in-house professionals can ruin your short-term plans and drive your company into mediocrity.
Related: Top 7 Content Marketing Errors
B2B Marketing Agencies for Added Flexibility
Besides the aforementioned financial and operational problems created by working with in-house B2B Marketing teams, you simply will find yourself wasting valuable time on solving collaborational and inter-personal issues in your team, which is extremely common, especially in the first few months. A B2B Marketing Agency can help you bypass these issues and focus on what’s important – getting results.
A good and proven B2B Marketing agency will have the best available professionals who can be onboarded quickly with proper corporate and technical presentations. The costs are significantly lower and you should be getting high quality material literally from Day-1. However, you will need to take a close look at the Marketing Agency CEO and steer clear of the “middle men” who don’t have real B2B Marketing experience.
It must be mentioned that in-house workers, when hired correctly, can provide added value to your organization. Working with B2B Marketing Agencies can allow you to take your time with your hires, while hitting the ground running with your ongoing tasks. After a year or two when you have strategically expanded your in-house team, your preferred Marketing Agency can be used on a supplementary basis.
Are you still sure you want to hire an in-house Marketing Team? You can (and should) reduce the risks of making bad hires and wasting valuable time (and effort) by collaborating with a proven B2B Marketing Agency. Are you currently working with one? Feel free to share your thoughts and feedback in the comments section below.