Product Companies Prefer In-house Digital Marketing Team. Question Mark.

SEOMoz dropped SEO to be Moz! Does it indicate that time has come for all to drop SEO? A big question mark indeed!

According to me, SEO has evolved and become something more than link building. SEO was never about link building; and this time, Google has made sure that the fact goes deeper into people’s mind – that’s it.

So Digital Marketing is the right word to use. Now, the question is: Whether product companies (including startups) prefer in-house digital marketing team or not? Some may; some may not – let me share my experience of interacting with some CEOs who head tech startups.

Darker Side of Outsourcing the Digital Marketing Department

1. How can the agency understand my product? Someone who does not know about my product, can never market it. 
2. Even if someone at the agency spends some time to learn about my product, what is the guarantee that person will not leave? (When asked that the same thing might happen for in-house team also, they said they would develop parallel knowledge leaders). 
3. Most of the agencies are not honest and do tricks to boost rank (to fool clients) which might have adverse effect on the website in the longer run. 
4. After 6 months if the agency does not deliver – who will lose money? We. 
5. We just don’t want to outsource – we hate the word ‘outsource’! We would rather build a team! 

Brighter Side of Outsourcing the Digital Marketing Department
(mostly my inputs)

1. You get started immediately – no need to build a team to get leads online. 
2. Select an ethical agency and you are done – there are plenty of ways of finding competent digital marketing agencies. 
3. Have someone in your team who understand digital marketing and can coordinate with the agency. Let this person become the knowledge leader from your side (domain knowledge and marketing knowledge). Outsource the execution part – lesser pressure on you. 
4. Team building is expensive and time consuming. It is very difficult to get talented resources in this field who will work for a product startup (in case). 
5. If the in-house team does not perform you will be in a greater mess; so let the activities be handled by those who know it (make sure they know it). 

So equal votes on both the sides. Actually, if you go out and check, you will find both types of product companies – those who outsource and those who do not outsource. However, there is a gap; and agencies can take the call and bridge the gap.

What do you think?