DIY – Does Not Stand For “Do Interactive Yourself”

It’s tempting to try to do things for yourself. But some tasks are better left up to professionals.

In my line of work as Vice President of Business Development, I do a lot of research in order to uncover opportunities for Sitewire. One of the beautiful things about being in a sales role in the interactive agency business is that it is fairly easy to determine whether a prospective company is in need of improvement in the services we offer in local, mobile, social, search, web design and development or online content. Whether or not they share the same opinion, unfortunately, is an entirely different matter.

When I realize there is a potential opportunity, I reach out to the best contact I can find at said target company. Luckily for me and for Sitewire, our research effort and delivery is typically compelling enough to garner a response. This is the point when I typically hear one of these responses:

1. We know we need help but we don’t have it in the budget right now
2. We are happy with our current agency (to which I typically think, “even though I can tell your results are not good?”)
3. Or my favorite, “We do everything in-house.”

As the conversation continues, I often learn that their in-house interactive marketing team consists of a handful of people who are expected to somehow have the time and knowledge to keep up with the industry today AND stay on top of what is constantly changing in the future. And did I mention that I can tell their results are not good?

We have more than a handful of people. At Sitewire, we have nearly 50 full-time online marketing specialists (search, social, local, mobile, creative, developers, client strategists, etc.) all very focused on their area of expertise. We require all employees to be certified by whatever the industry standard is in their area of focus. They work on an average of 5-7 clients of varying size at any given time. This is labor intensive work. It is not magic. It is not cheap. It is likely the greatest opportunity of growth for most companies I can think of, yet so many continue to limp along with overwhelmed resources that can rarely do a comparable job of a full-service interactive agency. While they have a dedicated team, solely focused on their business, it is expensive compared to the opportunity you have with shared resources at an agency.

For example, a company could hire roughly 3 full time resources for the annual fee they pay for our services and the 50 fully-trained, experienced resources we bring to the table. While I disclose that I am completely bias, that math just never seems to pencil.

What do you think? Why do companies feel they are getting a better value and better results with an in-house team?

*Photo Credit: chefranden (Flickr)

Tagged as: Advertising agency, Advertising and Marketing, Business, business development, Digital Agency, Internet marketing, marketing, Web design