Evaluating The Costs Of In-House Marketing to Ensure Efficient Budget Allocation
Every business must adhere to a marketing budget. This budget can be a challenge to work with, especially for smaller and medium-sized companies, which tend to have fewer funds allocated to their marketing budgets.
That challenge can become much greater should there be cutbacks to your budget for whatever reason. Whether your budget is limited or shrinking, allocating your marketing budget will be key.
Effective budget allocation will ensure that you’re getting the most out of your B2B marketing dollars. How you spend your money on in-house marketing will be critical. Begin by evaluating your internal marketing team’s costs to determine how cost-effective your marketing staff is and your hiring strategies are.
The Costs Of Hiring FTEs
The costs of adding permanent employees to your in-house marketing team can be prohibitive. It would help if you considered the hiring process’s actual costs when you take inventory of your marketing team and any FTEs (full-time equivalents) you plan on hiring in the future as your B2B marketing needs increase.
Keep these costs in mind before adding FTEs to your in-house marketing department:
Advertising Job Position
To attract candidates, you will need to advertise the position. Ad costs vary greatly depending on where you’re posting the ad and how long you’re running your ads.
If you’re seeking a highly specialized candidate, you may need to spend extra money to ensure that such candidates find your ad. And the longer it takes to find a qualified candidate, the more money it will cost since you’ll have to continue running ads.
Recruitment Costs
The person (or persons) in your HR department responsible for hires will need to dedicate a significant portion of their time to reviewing resumes, setting up phone interviews, and holding in-person interviews.
They may also be responsible for performing background checks, pre-employment assessment tests, and drug screens. If they are busy performing these tasks, they won’t be able to focus on much else.
If you have a small HR team (or outsource your HR), you may even have to outsource your hiring efforts to a recruiter, which can be quite expensive. Even an employee on minimum wage can cost thousands of dollars to place.
Onboarding And Training
New employees need to be trained, even if they’re incredibly qualified for the job. Even if they’re familiar with all of the tools you use, they still need to learn what all of your workflows and processes are.
Existing employees may require additional training as well. For example, if you implement a new software solution or process that your team is unfamiliar with, they will need to learn what it is and how to follow it.
According to a Training Mag training report, small companies spent around $1,096 on training per employee in 2018, while mid-sized companies spent around $858 per employee on training. The more FTEs you take on, the more money you’ll have to pay for training.
Mis-Hires
One of the most significant risks associated with hiring FTEs is hiring the wrong employees. A mis-hire can end up costing your company a lot more than just time and money. If the employee lied on their resume and didn’t know how to do their job or aren’t good at their job, it can hurt your ability to complete projects. It can also negatively affect the productivity and performance of the rest of your team. You must hire employees who will fit with your company culture as well. Sometimes, an employee will be highly qualified and excellent at their job, but they might be a poor fit with your existing team. A poor fit can hurt everyone’s morale, which can affect performance and productivity.
In the end, a mis-hire can be expensive because of the mistakes or low productivity that resulted from it. At some point, you’ll likely have to cut the employee loose and potentially have to pay them severance. You’ll also have to go through the hiring process all over again in a second attempt to find the right candidate.
The Costs Of Maintaining FTEs
The hiring process results in expenses that are often overlooked. What’s rarely ignored in terms of hiring FTEs is the cost of keeping them at your company. Yet those costs aren’t always fully taken into account.
The following are some of the typical costs of maintaining an FTE. Just keep in mind that these costs vary based on numerous factors, including position, skill level, experience, education, and demand.
Salaries
Salary-wise, putting together a marketing team will not be cheap. Most B2B marketing-oriented FTEs will cost a minimum of $40,000 to $50,000 a year, depending on their experience and skill set.
The more specialized they are and the more experience they have (and how advanced the position they’re filling is), the more they will cost. On top of that, you can expect your full-time employees to demand a raise the longer that they remain with your company or when their responsibilities are given.
Benefits
To even attract highly qualified candidates in the first place, plan on providing an attractive benefits package. Such a package should include health insurance benefits, vacation days, bonuses, and retirement benefits.
Benefits are incredibly important to employees, which is why they will often choose the job offer with the best benefits — and will even leave their current job if they can find a company that can improve their compensation.
Taxes
In addition to paying salary and benefits to all your employees, you will also have to pay various taxes. Such taxes include social security taxes, unemployment insurance, medicare, and workers’ compensation.
Comparing the Pros and Cons of Rented Marketers vs. Maintaining an In-House Marketing Team
The Costs Of Putting Together An Effective In-House Marketing Team
Knowing the general costs of hiring and maintaining an FTE will undoubtedly give you an idea of how much FTEs cost in general. If anything, this information may cause you to carefully consider whether or not you need an FTE on your B2B marketing team should any talent gaps develop.
For a more accurate understanding of how much it costs to put together an effective in-house marketing department, consider the following salary figures associated with a marketing team’s various roles:
Web Developer
The average salary of a web developer is $68,524/year. The median hourly pay for a web developer is $35.46. Hiring a web developer can get quite expensive if you’re building or redesigning a website.
Less work is required to monitor the website’s performance once it’s launched. However, you’ll need someone with the skills of a developer to address any technical issues that might come up.
Graphic Designer
A graphic designer earns an average of $45,677/year. Alternatively, a graphic designer earns, on average, $25.05/hour. The challenge in hiring a graphic designer is that there are so many of them, which means finding a skilled one can be difficult. When you consider that much of their work is aesthetic, judging their results is somewhat subjective. They may claim to be proficient in photoshop, but determining if they know how to use the program vs. whether they can use it well is tricky.
Content Writer
The average salary for content writer salaries is $49,114/year. Again, the challenge with content writers is the ability to identify a high-quality writer. Essentially, anyone can be a writer as long as they have a computer — and many people try.
You may be able to find writers who charge by the word and who don’t charge very much, but it will undoubtedly affect the work’s quality and consistency. Bringing on a writer who does a poor job or plagiarizes their work will hurt your reputation.
It’s also important to note that a single content writer is rarely enough for a full-fledged content marketing strategy.
SEO Manager
SEO managers make an average salary of $62,621/year. SEO not only requires a specialized skill set, but it also requires a strong familiarity with every other aspect of inbound marketing, including content marketing, social media, website design, email marketing, and more.
SEO is also a long-term strategy that requires constant work and research. An SEO manager’s job is never finished.
Paid Search Manager
The average salary for a paid search manager is $50,060/year. More traditional forms of advertising exist online, and you will need a paid search manager to oversee your strategy.
They need to be familiar with advertising strategy and SEO and have a strong understanding of your brand and audience, making a paid search manager’s position an important one and not easy to fill.
Brand Specialist
Brand specialists earn an average salary of $46,116/year. Not only must they have a complete understanding of branding strategy (as well as of your brand), they must have a general knowledge of all facets of B2B marketing since they will need to work closely with everyone on your team.
Because collaboration will be crucial, whoever you hire as a brand specialist will also need to be an excellent cultural fit.
Research Assistant
Research assistants make an average salary of $35,230/year. Compared to other positions filled on your marketing team, research assistants may cost less. However, depending on the extent of your current (and future) marketing strategy, you may need more of them.
Solutions Engineer
The position of solutions engineer makes an average salary of $87,469/year. Because of their technical background and the importance of their job (not to mention their importance to every customer-facing department in your organization), solutions engineers will be some of your team’s more expensive members.
VP Of Sales And Marketing
The average salary for a VP of sales and marketing is $313,743/year*. Arguably the most crucial member of your marketing team is the VP. They oversee your entire marketing department and help ensure that marketing and sales are aligned, which more than justifies their high salary.
*salary information from Salary.com
The Overhead Costs Of Maintaining An In-house Marketing Department
The costs of hiring and maintaining your FTEs add up. However, those aren’t the only costs associated with an in-house marketing team.
The following are some of the other expenses that you’ll have to pay for if you’re maintaining an internal marketing team and have plans for expanding your marketing department in the future:
Office Space
The bigger your team is, the more space they need. If you’re in a small office space, you may need to upgrade to a bigger office if you plan on taking on more employees. The need for more office space will result in higher rent, higher utility costs, and moving costs.
Equipment
Your marketing staff will all need access to computers as well as phones. The more employees you take on, the more general office equipment you’ll need as well, which can begin to add up. Add to that the costs of repairs or replacement for broken or outdated equipment you’ll have to pay for over the years.
Software
Your marketing staff will need all kinds of software solutions based on their position and responsibilities. The bigger your team is, the more expensive the plans for various tools you subscribe to become (many software plans limit the number of users per tier).
The Costs Of Losing Employees
Finally, there are the costs of losing an FTE to consider. Whether you’re replacing an employee who left or scaling down and need to let an employee go, there will be expenses associated with the change.
The following are some of the costs that may be related to the loss of an employee:
Hiring Replacement Costs
Every time you have to replace a full-time employee, you will have to go through the entire hiring process. As previously mentioned, this process can get quite expensive, especially if you’re searching for a highly qualified candidate with a very specialized set of skills.
Severance Costs
Depending on the circumstances of the employee leaving, you need to pay severance costs. Although severance is not a legal obligation, it does help your reputation among potential candidates. Severance is the compensation provided after employment is over and typically includes outplacement assistance and extended benefits.
Marketing Team Disruption
The loss of an employee can create a significant disruption in your organization’s operations. If an employee left (whether on their own accord or not), it could leave a massive hole in your marketing team’s ability to complete a project. It can also cause severe delays in your schedule and leave existing team members overworked.
Considering how long it can take to find a replacement, it can have a significant impact on your team’s stress levels, leading to mistakes. If you were forced to let an employee go due to budget cuts, it can harm team morale and derail productivity.
Why Outsourcing Can Be A Cost-Effective Solution
Building and maintaining an in-house marketing team is an expensive proposition. Once you consider all of the costs associated with hiring and maintaining an FTE (not to mention all of the potential overhead costs), you may come to realize that it’s not the most efficient use of your B2B marketing budget.
Continuing to build your in-house marketing team may not be realistically possible either if you’re facing budget cuts due to uncertain times. A more cost-effective solution to maintaining an internal marketing team is outsourcing some of your marketing initiatives and resources.
Consider the following reasons why outsourcing might be an effective way to ensure a more efficient and safer marketing budget allocation for your business:
Fill In Talent Gaps
Even if your team doesn’t have any existing talent gaps at the moment, they are bound to develop as your B2B marketing needs grow, and you begin planning larger projects.
Instead of hiring more FTEs, which can take up a substantial amount of your budget, or hiring freelancers, who may not be a great fit for your team (even if they’re temporary), you may want to consider outsourcing.
Marketing agencies have access to vast pools of talent, including various marketing specialists. They can use these specialists to augment your current marketing team and handle any tasks or responsibilities that your in-house staff lacks the skill or experience to do.
Even if your staff is more than capable skill-wise, using rented marketers outsourced from an agency can help reduce your team’s workload, allowing them to focus on their core responsibilities, making them more effective and productive.
Avoid Being Shorthanded
If you rely on a small marketing team, any absence can disrupt your marketing efforts. For instance, should one of your marketing staff call in sick for a few days, it can cause the rest of your team to fall behind schedule. The rest of your team may not be able to pick up the slack, especially if they already have a lot on their plates.
Then there’s the possibility of a team member quitting or being fired. It will take a lot of time to find a replacement. On top of a lengthy hiring process, it can take some time to train new employees and integrate them into your team.
If you outsource to a reputable marketing agency, they will provide labor resources at any point. If someone on their side calls in sick or quits, they can easily find someone to take their place. You may never even notice a disruption. An agency can also augment your team if you lose employees, whether they leave temporarily or permanently.
Reduce Overall Marketing Costs
Working with an agency can be less expensive than hiring just one or two FTEs (depending on the cost of the plan and the salary of the FTEs). However, you’re also saving money on the associated costs of an FTE.
For instance, when you work with an agency, you’ll have access to all of their rented marketers without any expenses associated with maintaining just a single employee. These costs include recruitment costs, training costs, benefit costs, employment taxes, equipment and tool costs, office space costs, and more.
Such savings can add up and will allow you to maximize your marketing budget much more effectively.
Learn how to make room in your budget for outsourced marketing.
Assess The Cost Of Your Marketing Department Today And Supplement Your Team With Rented Team Members
Knowing the general costs of Effective marketing budget allocation is critical to your company’s survival and success, whether your B2B marketing needs are growing or your budget is shrinking. Outsourced marketing is a more cost-effective solution for meeting your marketing needs.
Outsourcing will also provide your business with more financial flexibility, whether you’re scaling back or looking to expand your marketing efforts in a more cost-effective and financially responsible way.
