Managing marketing and creative communications ‘In-house’ can be an attractive solution for many brands because of the potential for cost savings. A few years ago, consumer goods giant, Unilever, made cost savings of over £400 million by creating an in-house agency.
The advantages aren’t just financial. Speed and agility can be improved when in-house creatives work closely with marketing teams. This is especially true when a brand has strong creative ideas it wants to roll out in new markets or across new channels.
However, it’s still the case that big, breakthrough ideas are more likely to come from strong relationships between clients and creative agencies.
And for companies with smaller budgets, building an in-house agency may not be financially feasible in the first place. It requires a range of skills and a sizable investment in headcount, facilities and equipment.
Here at Hub, we’ve achieved great success with a blended approach, working in close partnership with in-house marketing teams to align ourselves with their strategic direction, and delivering successful campaigns of both scale and quality.
How Marketing Agencies Can Support an ‘Always-On’ Strategy?
Working with a marketing agency gives in-house teams the benefit of experience and expertise in developing and implementing Always-on marketing strategies, as well as the ability to provide data-driven insights, innovation, and execution capabilities.
These are the ways an agency can help:
1. Strategy development: agencies will work with you to develop a comprehensive ‘Always-on’ strategy that aligns with your overall business goals and objectives. This includes identifying target audiences, creating buyer personas, and developing a content and engagement plan
2. Data management: agencies can help you manage and analyse large amounts of data, providing real-time insights that can inform the strategy
3. Channel integration: agencies can help you integrate different marketing channels, such as social media, email, and mobile, into a cohesive strategy, using marketing automation software to manage and track all the channels from one central platform
4. Personalisation: agencies can help you personalise your marketing efforts by using customer data platforms that can provide a single view of the customer and help them to understand their needs, preferences and behaviour
5. Measuring ROI: agencies can help you measure the ROI of your strategy by using models that can attribute specific results to specific tactics
6. Speed and Scalability: agencies can help you respond quickly and at scale to customer needs and market changes by investing in technologies that allow for automation, such as AI and machine learning
7. Innovation: agencies can help you stay ahead of the latest trends and technologies by keeping an eye on the latest innovations in the marketing industry, and providing guidance on how to incorporate them into your strategy
8. Legal and compliance: agencies can support you in adhering to legal and compliance requirements by working with legal and compliance experts to ensure that the strategy is in line with all the relevant laws and regulations
9. Execution: agencies can execute the strategy on your behalf, managing the day-to-day activities required to keep the strategy running
If you’d like to find out more about how we’ve worked with in-house teams and helped our clients achieve ‘Always-on’ marketing success, or simply want to discuss how we can help your business, please leave us a message to arrange a call back.
