Big Decision: Bringing creative tasks in house
Small businesses obviously have many challenges, with many considerable decisions coming across business owners’ desks everyday. Budgetary concerns are constantly a big one, but the one that owners must inevitably face is addressing those tasks that they outsource. Outsourcing to vendors that specialize in certain fields are vital in creating and maintaining great work, which is absolutely true in Encite’s field of marketing and advertising.
Being a Denver based marketing agency, we are in a unique and fortunate position to see a variety of different small, medium and large businesses. Denver has Fortune 500 companies and a sizeable number of small businesses with everything in between. Each type of company has different strategies, policies and tactics regarding working with outside vendors and agencies. We know budgets are tight. The economy seems to be recovering, but it still isn’t where we need it to be. One approach businesses employ to combat small or dwindling budgets is to bring certain tasks in house. However, this is one strategy that we want to caution businesses about.
We see our clients bring certain tasks in house all the time. We can’t fault clients for doing this, because Encite does it as well! Both small and large advertising agencies have staff in every conceivable discipline that include copyrighting, graphic design and web development. Obviously, the majority of small businesses can’t afford to bring in a staff of a marketing agency’s caliber, so they attempt to use what resources they have on site. This means certain specialized tasks are delegated to current staff that usually does not have the training or desire to take on those tasks. So what happens to that task with an employee who doesn’t want to do it?
The work suffers, which damages the businesses’ brand, product and reputation. This can be irreversible. As we have said before in other blog posts, a companies’ brand is it’s biggest asset and should be treated as such while being factored into every business decision. In addition to brand destruction, the individual assigned to an in house task can be seen as a failure while also feeling like one when things go wrong, which will inevitably happen if they have no desire to take on that task. That person was hired for a certain job for which they (hopefully) have the qualifications. They have certain strengths and weaknesses of which a business owner needs to be aware of. Let them work on tasks where they are competent. Lumping a task on them where their skills are lacking is just setting them up and your brand for failure.
So we advise clients to think long and hard when bringing tasks in house. It may seem like a great idea with notable financial benefits, but it could and frequently does turn into a disaster.
Adam OLeary, President
adam-oleary
Adam is a graduate of Colorado State University (bachelor’s degree in marketing), and he has experience on both the client and agency side of the marketing world. These experiences led him to come up with a unique, more efficient business model, which he’s incorporated into Encite Marketing. Adam sets the strategic direction for all Encite projects, developing integrated marketing campaigns that bring results. He takes a consultative approach with clients, educating them about how the process works, and keeping them in the loop about end goals, steps, and tasks.