A Harvard Business Review has identified outsourcing as one of the most important management ideas and practices of the past 75 years.  When a company employs an external expert to perform some of its business activities it is outsourcing. The key to outsource to a third party that has the expertise you need as a way to access the expertise you need when you need it. Outsourcing your marketing to third parties with expertise can reduce cost and improve performance. According to McKinsey, strategic outsourcing can help reduce costs by 10% one-time and 3-5% ongoing. 

Purchase Your Assessment

To outsource or not to outsource?  This is an excellent question. When you face these circumstance, outsourcing may be the right answer.  You need to:

• Increase your emphasis on you core competencies or focus on a mission-critical issue. 
• Balance the time, money and human resource crunch
• Access specialized skills that are not in-house that you don’t have time to learn or don’t need frequently enough to have on staff. 
• Move quickly – you need to achieve something in advance of your competition and solve a customer problem quickly. External experts can help you reduce your learning curve and avoid potential pitfalls.
• Find new ideas and/or think outside the box.

Five Criteria to Outsource Your Marketing

If you decide outsourcing is for you and you’re considering outsourcing your Marketing, it’s important to work from a set of criteria.  What criteria should you consider?  We recommend that you take the following five questions into account.

1. How will outsourcing improve your efficiency and what processes will you acquire that you can bring internal to sustain the efficiency? 
2. What specialized skills will you be able to gain and what role can the outsourced team play in training you and your team on these skills?
3. Will you be forming a strategic long term relationship with this outsourced Marketing expert(s) or is this a short-term need.  Regardless, what tactical or strategic advantages will you gain? 
4. How will outsourcing this effort help you spread or mitigate your risk(s)?
5. How will outsourcing this effort or capability help you and your team address a time-critical project?  Will the the experts give you access to best practices and methodologies you can incorporate into your organization?

When seeking an external experts, odds are you will follow a similar buying process as that of your customers:

1. Identify the real problem.  There’s nothing worse than treating a problem with the wrong solution because you’re unsure of, or misunderstand, what the problem is. It won’t work to treat pneumonia as if it were a cold.
2. Identify solutions and investigate the preferred solution options. Determine the best methods for treating the problem.  To identify the best solutions, reach into your network and talk with colleagues. Leverage your membership in associations.  Check out content on or in reputable platforms or publications that vet their contributors.  Remember methods evolve. There may be newer treatments that are more effective that what was used in the past. Ask experts in the field to provide recommendations.
3. Once you select the solution, create and prioritize a list of criteria you want to consider when choosing your external expert or specialist. Criteria might include background, years of experience, industry experience, and so on.  Identify potential experts who meet best match your requirements.
4. Evaluate potential providers and create your shortlist. Vet your top candidates. Visit their website, read their content, talk with customers and other industry leaders.
5. Engage with your shortlist.  Set an initial consultation appointment. Be clear about your problem, what you’ve tried, what’s worked, what hasn’t worked, and your ideal outcome. Just as you would bring your test results and medications to a meeting with a medical specialist, for a performance management meeting, bring a list of your current systems, data, metrics, performance management processes, tracking, and reporting. Make your selection.

From Outsourced Expert to Business Strategy

Few Marketing organizations can do it all themselves today.   Rather than looking at the option of outsourcing as a tactical fix,  consider how you can make outsourcing part of our busi

ness strategy. This approach will enable you to make outsourcing part of the way you do business rather than a disruption to your business. 

When you’ve attempted to solve a problem and it still persists, it may be time to call in an expert with a specific focus. Yes, there are general practitioners who are trained to diagnose and treat problems with performance in any part of your body, but for the really tricky conditions, there are those who specialize in one area, such as the stomach. These specialists have additional training and experience that make them experts in their particular field. They are working on solving your type of problem every day: It’s what they do. Therefore, they have developed more depth of knowledge in the area than their generalist colleagues. The Kantar study claims, “Marketers Struggle to Assess Their Marketing Performance.” If that’s your situation, now might be a good time to contact us. 

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