As I wrote about last month, it’s perfectly plausible for certain companies to build an in-house team to execute their Digital Marketing initiatives, but it’s vital to maintain an accurate understanding of what you can handle (today) and what you cannot. There’s a big difference between relying on team members who think they can manage tactics (e.g. Paid Search, SEO, etc.) and those who have documented successes over a multi-year period.
The only constant in Digital Marketing over the past twenty years has been the brisk pace of change. Understanding the latest opportunities available in search, Google Ads and Analytics, etc. is incredibly important. A competitive advantage is gained by understanding the newest offerings that these channels roll out and being able to compare those to more established tactics.
From a prioritization perspective, it’s vital that team members have the knowledge to deploy resources in the most beneficial manner. For instance, charging down the path of a website redesign or replatform (regardless if the website is being built within your organization or not), without thoughtful and scientific analysis of your current site’s performance, along with an understanding of the technical Best Practices for migrating content to new URLs, can lead to significant drops in rankings and traffic. A new site may look pretty, but if Organic rankings or conversion rates drop, then nothing about it will be pretty and you’ll be scrambling to play catch up.
It’s important to objectively assess the knowledge level of your internal team members and be sure to temper expectations with relative experience. What may appear to be a cost savings may in turn become a much higher opportunity lost if there isn’t an ability to strategize and implement effectively.
