The Collaboration Model of the most successful CMOs
CMOs are bringing their marketing and creative budgets in house to spend less money and gain greater creative control. This trend is picking up steam with 80% of agencies fearing their clients will bring at least some of their marketing services in house by the end of 2017.
These internal departments can staff hundreds of people and create anything digital from social media posts to brochure websites. This growing trend has dev shops and creative agencies worried about the future.
But should they be?
In-house agencies are not immune to the same issues that put pressure on out-side agencies. Most of these issues center around finding and keeping talent. If you hire talented people that can work well together you will get positive results. If you hire people who are cheap and lack developed skills, you will get crap.
Why CMOs hire in-house teams.
On the surface there are some implied benefits of hiring an in-house team.
- Time savings
- Cost savings
- Industry specific skills
- Brand control
- Dedicated team that can move fast
In-house teams also have a great capacity to learn the internal processes of the agency. They are there everyday to learn how the sausage is made. To many, this is an advantage when it comes to congruency between departments. The idea is that it allows more progress on a faster timeline.
These all seem like fantastic reasons to shell out the resources to start and manage an in-house agency. Unfortunately like all things in life, it’s not always that simple.
It’s easy to scratch some numbers on a whiteboard during meetings and say to yourself, “We could do this so much cheaper if we handled it in-house.”
After years of working in the digital space I know one simple truth; There are ebbs, and there are flows. It can be difficult for any agency to find the work and resources to justify a full-time in-house team.
But on the other hand, you can’t just let go of talented people when the times are lean because you might not get them back when the projects start rolling back in. It’s a difficult balance to maintain as these downtimes can suck away profits at an alarming rate.
What do out-side agencies have to offer?
Designers, developers, and skilled marketers are creative people. They like new challenges and the ability to stretch and refine their skills. This can be challenging at an internal agency where highly skilled talent may be working on the same things over and over again.
At in-house agencies it’s easy to fall into patterns and processes. These processes start out looking like efficiency. But we are creatures of habit. If we are not challenged by new projects and points of view our ideas become stale.
It’s human nature to settle into habits and become complacent. Over time, CMOs may realize their in-house teams lack the creativity and cost as much as an out-side agency.
Other CMOs like to outsource specific skills that are no longer necessary on a daily basis. This strategy reduces overhead and injects new life into creative teams.
The new agency model.
There are as many challenges to having an in-house agency as there are to hiring an external partner. The key is to know the abilities and skills of your in-house team as well as the creative requirements of the client. This is why many CMOs are gravitating towards a collaborative agency model.
A collaborative agency model gives you the stability and control of in-house with the flexibility, talent and creativity of an external partner. This model creates unlimited opportunity for in-house and external agencies that can adapt and learn to work well together.
Smart CMOs know that giving the client the best product possible is the key to success. They know that there are no perfect agencies, in-house or external. Many times it takes a balance of talent and resources to get the job done. These CMOs do what it takes to be successful.
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