Resist the urge to DIY your next digital marketing initiative: save time and money by hiring the experts instead.

There’s a struggle happening across marketing departments: a desire to do more in the digital space, but an unwillingness to spend money on it. In the Canadian Marketing Association’s 12th-annual Digital Pulse Report, 80 per cent of marketers and agencies agreed that a company cannot afford to have a weak presence online. While marketing spending is increasingly going to move away from legacy media like television, radio and print, and towards search marketing, social media and video, intended spending is countered by the expressed desire to save money.

In fact, the biggest reason across the board to bring digital marketing initiatives in house is to save money. In those top three categories – search, social and video – saving money trumps the other reasons by a high degree.

In a year where seasoned marketers are reporting it harder than ever to be an expert in digital – for the first time, one per cent even said they “knew nothing” about it – why not shore up what you’re good at in house, and hire the pros for the rest?

The best part is, a by-product of that outsourcing could very well be saving money. Think about tallying up buying all the equipment, software and training – not to mention taking your marketing employees away from where they excel to execute your plan. Doing the math, you’d likely end up much more in the black by hiring outside experts who’ve baked in those costs years ago.

And, of course, the results – be they an impactful video, thoroughly-researched search strategy, or engaging social media campaign – will speak for themselves.

DIY Photo by Jo Szczepanska on Unsplash.