Marketing is one of your business’s most vital functions. It helps establish your brand, attract new clients, and drives profits.

Because marketing is intensely personal, though, many companies feel strongly that it’s a process that should be handled in-house. Their philosophy: no one knows your company like you, so who better to sell your services? Before moving your marketing in-house, however, there are a number of concerns you need to address.

The Strategies

Business marketing is constantly evolving, and if you don’t have an in-house marketing department devoted to this work, you may quickly discover that practices you thought were tried and true are now obsolete. Before you op to manage your own marketing, then, research what marketing practices are still relevant and which have gone out the window with changing norms. For example, the basics like promotional items and flyers are reliable tools, while digital marketing practices change much more rapidly.

The Labor Load

Marketing is a lot of work. That may not be the most nuanced observation, but it is the truth. That’s why, if you’re considering shifting your marketing in-house, you need to consider whether you have the capacity to manage the work.

Depending on your determination, you might consider outsourcing some portion of your marketing, rather than all of it. For example, you might feel capable of doing the content writing, but not SEO optimization and graphic design. The less technical the marketing task, the more likely it is that you can handle it – but that’s the minority of today’s marketing work.

The Financial Factor

Your business’s financial success is contingent on the success of your marketing strategy. Like much else about your professional operations, this is fairly self-evident, but the consequences of a subpar marketing strategy may not be obvious for weeks or months, at which point you may have dug yourself into a hole.

If you’re debating shifting your marketing in-house, then, consider how substantial an impact that could have on your revenue. Sure, you might get lucky and turn a profit, but you might also make the kind of mistake that loses clients. You need to consider that before you decide to do your own marketing.

Control Is Not The Greatest Good

Recent studies revealed that as many as 91% of companies have shifted some part of their marketing in-house. But why? There are several core reasons, but at the heart of the matter is a desire for greater control and transparency in the marketing process.

Many are also concerned about the cost of outsourcing their marketing. The real question is, are they happy with the results? Part of what businesses need to reckon with is the fact that control is not the greatest good in this area – effectiveness is – and experts tend to be more effective at any given task than those who try to do it all.

Maybe you really are a jack of all trades, someone who can do it all without falling behind or doing a mediocre job, but most businesses need time to build up their capacity if they want to do their own marketing. Unless and until you do that work, it’s best to let the experts craft your public face.