Finding the right marketing solutions and strategies for your e-commerce business can be difficult. In this article, we will specifically talk about whether you should outsource your email marketing to an agency, or bring it in-house.
There is an endless debate over whether to outsource email marketing. It’s a notable decision for e-commerce brand-owners to make as this can have a large impact on both your company’s image and sales.
While in-house email marketing has a wide array of advantages (and disadvantages), so does outsourcing it. Only by relying on thorough research, facts, understanding of your business and audience can you make the best decision. With this article, we aim to provide ecommerce brand owners with a great starting point. So, if you want to know once and for all whether you should outsource your email marketing or bring it in-house, I have all the answers ready for you.
What is in-house email marketing?
In-house simply means you train and employ your own team to get the job done. In-House email marketing requires that someone within the business develops your email marketing strategy instead of relying on an agency/freelancer. This includes teaching your team everything about email marketing from setting up your basic and advanced flows/automations, creating campaigns, performing split tests, segmenting email lists, and most importantly helping them learn what type of content best converts into sales and educates your customers.
By creating strategies and campaigns that fit within your e-commerce brand’s goals, in-house marketing can be a great success. However, be sure to carefully analyze the costs and possible risks before deciding on hiring your own team.
Pros of in-house email marketing
- Rather than explaining your brand’s values, employees within a company are already well versed with the business. Previous training, events, and meetings result in a thorough understanding of your niche, market, and products.
- This encourages in-house employees to develop innovative marketing ideas because they’re in the office and part of the bigger picture. In addition, since they are close to their customers, employees find their work easier as they can relate with each other in a better style.
- Furthermore, the employees work solely for you, readily available and fully dedicated to your brands email marketing activities. You can rely on an in-house team throughout the day. Executives can communicate with them quicker. And the process of approving various email marketing activities and brainstorming speeds up too.
- Lastly, an in-house team, or doing it yourself, helps foster a better connection with customers directly as no one knows your customers better than you and your brands employees.
Cons of in-house email marketing
Although there are some advantages to bringing email marketing in-house, there are certain drawbacks to this as well.
- Trying to set up your own campaigns/flows or hiring an internal team is much more expensive than outsourcing. The demand for talented marketers is high and can often lead to competitive salaries.
- In-house marketing requires special software programs and equipment that can be very expensive. Not to forget the training needed to make use of these resources, which would further rack up expenses.
- Managing a new internal email marketing team can turn out to be a time-consuming process – especially if you have an inexperienced team. You might require several specialists across different skills such as an email strategist, a graphic designer, a copywriter, and so on for just email marketing. Then you also have all your other marketing costs associated with your business.
- In some situations, being in the office every day may be beneficial. However, outsourced teams can see things from a different perspective, thinking of new ideas that may have escaped your attention.
So now that we’ve covered the pros and cons of In-House email marketing, let’s move on to outsourcing your email marketing.
What is Outsourced Email Marketing?
Outsourcing in a business setting is the practice of handing over tasks to an agency. Hiring an email marketing agency would allow a specialized company to design and implement marketing strategies. Agencies have skill-trained employees and their own resources to get the job done on your behalf.
Most agencies take on tasks like copywriting, email designing, and developing a marketing strategy. These are aligned with the information provided by your ecommerce brand to ensure business goals are met. Outsourcing is also frequently used by businesses looking to cut costs and free up additional time to pursue other activities.
Pros of working with an email marketing agency
- A good marketing agency not only has access to all the latest digital equipment and software needed for email marketing but also has vast experience working with dozens of ecommerce brands like yours. Allowing them to be easily integrated in to your business.
- Hiring an email marketing agency reduces expenses. For a fraction of the cost of in-house employees, you can outsource your marketing to a professional team that knows what they’re doing. Think about the costs of having to hire a full-time email marketing strategist, full-time graphic designer, a full-time copywriter, and a full-time project manager. This will skyrocket your expenses. However with an agency, it will be much more cost-effective as they provide you with all the resources you need.
- This also boosts your confidence as a business owner since the task is left to an expert.
- Outsourcing email marketing also provides a fresh perspective on your current strategy that may have been previously ignored. It saves you as a business owner an insane amount of time which would be allocated to training up your in-house team members. An email marketing agency can be literally plugged and played into your brand and start generating you results almost instantly.
Cons of working with an email marketing agency
Outsourced email marketing also has several disadvantages.
- An outsourced agency may be incapable of managing email marketing effectively, as they serve a variety of clients simultaneously.
- If you haven’t communicated your company goals properly, this could get lost in translation and result in a poor email strategy.
- Lastly, there are some genuinely great agencies out there that provide the best email marketing services you can ask for. But, sadly, there are some truly awful ones too. Make sure you perform your due-diligence before signing on with an email marketing agency.
Bottom Line
Every business is unique and there is no one-size-fits-all approach. There are several elements to consider when deciding how to proceed with email marketing. Therefore, as an ecommerce business owner, make sure you carefully weigh the advantages and disadvantages of in-house and outsourced email marketing. This may be a time-consuming process but can make the decision easier and ensure long-term email marketing success.
