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More Marketing Will Be Outsourced in 2013

by Jennifer Beever

Outsource MarketingMore businesses are considering outsourcing staff in the future, according to a study by Randstad. What does this mean for business owners and marketers?

The study included a survey by Harris Interactive involving 225 HR managers and 2,035 employed adults. 67% of the companies surveyed use temps and contractors,  71% use a mix of outsource and full-time staff, and 21% plan to increase outsourcing.

The main benefit cited by the study is increased flexibility while reducing costs. Hiring temp workers as middle or top level marketing functions reduces overhead and allows a business to be more fluid. For example, in marketing, a business can hire strategic marketing planners to help identify and set strategies, and then hire specialists to execute or implement PR, inbound marketing, social media, direct mail, or whatever tactical programs are in the plan.

A secondary benefit of outsourcing, according to the Randstad study, is that contingent or temporary workers are happier than full-time workers – primarily due to increased compensation, career ownership and schedule flexibility.

What does outsourcing mean for businesses, when it comes to marketing?

A plan is more important than ever.

If you are going to outsource marketing staff, you need a plan or roadmap, to keep everyone on the same page. The plan includes the what, when and how that will make it easier for a variety of professionals to quickly get on board and be productive.

The other thing the plan should do is keep everyone on the same page with a good understanding of the organization’s industry, competition, positioning strategy and marketing “persona” (see my previous blog post on this, Why Marketing Personas Rule).

Now more than ever, you need to measure results of outsourcing.

Measuring marketing results is just as (if not more) important when you outsource talent. Sure you are saving money, but are you getting good or better results than you did before? Measuring results should probably be done by a neutral 3rd party or by internal staff, to make sure that no vendor skews results to elevate their performance.

Do you plan to outsource marketing in 2013? Or, will you be hiring full-time marketing staff? Please comment below.

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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

Chris Markham - Data Driven Marketing Strategist @ Bizfix October 24, 2012 at 5:46 am

Jennifer, really well made points here. The other benefit of outsourcing a modern tool like data-driven marketing is that few individual can be expected to have both the creative skillset required of content marketing, combined with the analytical and data skills or data-driven marketing.

Jennifer Beever October 24, 2012 at 4:58 pm

Right, with more outsourcing there is a requirement for working to a plan, monitoring marketing analytics and tracking return on investment.

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