Working with an external marketing or communications support team can require some adapting of workflows, as well as setting up or changing some processes. For inhouse teams used to routines, these changes can impact the success of working with the external specialists.
Many start-ups and smaller SMEs tend to find working with external specialists or contractors challenging. They find it difficult to explain the systems and the workflows that are set up and working. They might also find it hard to fit the specialists into existing processes.
While it is simple to attribute the difficulty to the process in place, and that the problems will disappear with changes to the processes, the truth is, it is often the situation of bringing in external support that triggers the challenges.
In a limited-resource environment, or one where the organisation is expanding, and the need to bring in expert or specialist help has grown, a common issue revolves around how the in-house marketing team continues to grow, and measure their value to the organisation. For many in-house teams that have been focused on ‘growth’ or ‘performance’, such as leads or traffic or events, bringing in external support might give the impression that they are giving up on the value they are bringing internally. Some team members might assume (wrongly) that they are being set up to be retrenched.
This scenario often happens in an environment where information flow is not optimised or where management tends to get employees to compete for favour, credit or incentives. This is not a healthy environment to bring an external support team in, as the external team will be responsible for failures while not being a recognised to contribute to successes.
It will lead to a negative working relationship, eventually costing the organisation budget but not necessarily helping with growth outcomes.
Instead, prior to engaging the external specialist or team, it might be pragmatic for the in-house marketing team to ‘clean’ their house. In this case, cleaning the house means to take stock of their environment, re-evaluate their needs against business goals, and set up a plan that would optimise internal and external resources for success.
Taking stock of the environment
As a first step, is the company culture open to working with external parties? Do other functions engage consultants or contractors?
If they do, what is the working style like – arm’s length, shoulder to shoulder or internal champion facilitated?
If there is previous history with external parties, find out what it is and how previous colleagues managed the relationship. Work with the equivalent of legal and procurement (in smaller companies, operations) to see what’s the contract for services like and how it can be adapted to marketing and communications.
Be clear about issues regarding access. This can be access to hardware, products, cloud services, etc. Think through how external teams can support the marketing function with or without access. How would the current workflow adapt to allow or increase access?
Think about confidentiality. What level of confidential information are current external parties provided with, even with an NDA? Is that level sufficient for an external party to deliver their scope of work? If not, is this a case where hiring in-house might make more sense than changing the system.
The objective of taking stock is to understand the parameters and the range that an external specialist can work within, when engaged to your team. It sets up clear boundaries, and allows the external specialist to think of how to best support without breaking any guidelines or rules.
Re-evaluate needs against business goals
The next step is to look at business goals, and recheck on the marketing plan set to deliver against those goals.
Is there a need for external specialist support because there is a gap in team capability? Or is the external support meant for general work that can be done in-house? Perhaps it is just a temporary contractor that is needed for the latter scenario.
It can be tempting to increase resources when facing an upcoming programme or campaign. As we have shared before, marketing with limited resources can force a team to be more creative, and only handle what they can instead of trying to do everything all at once. Decide on what will serve the organisation best before deciding upon what type of support is required.
Set up a plan that would optimise internal and external resources for success
Different from a marketing plan, the next step requires the team to decide (or re-decide) on what success means to the team and the organisation.
How would a marketing or communications success add value and further drive business goals?
After the definition (and contextualised for the organisation) has been set, it requires a series of steps with owners for actions to be created.
With these actions, a set of measurements has to be drawn up to show that the plan is realistic and can be achieved.
Add in the context and parameters learnt from earlier steps in this process, and the plan for working with external team or specialists is ready. This is a living document, so it should be revisited frequently with best practices added in. Over time, it becomes a reference document for all team members and external parties to reference.
We are Brand Utility is a business consultancy. We work with brands in the corporate, professional services, retail, travel and technology spaces.
Our principal founder is a registered management consultant, certified and recognised by the Institute of Management Consultants Singapore.
We offer strategy and tactics to support growth outcomes - revenue, scale, regional expansion and market entry – for our clients.
Areas of support include:
· Strategic communications: Approach to market, brand concept and map, positioning, messaging, story and narrative, thought leadership
· Marketing: Campaign/programme planning, story-based marketing execution, digital marketing, community amplification, content planning and production, go-to-market execution
· Lead generation: Digital advertising, social media advertising, social commerce, e-commerce
· Integration of marketing with business operations: We plan and execute as a seconded marketing and/or PR lead for your brand
Discover more about our services at our website or book an exploratory consultation through this link.
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