You're a business owner or marketing and sales manager and are considering bringing your marketing and sales in-house. Maybe you work with outside agencies or freelancers now, but you're wondering if it wouldn't be better to bring these crucial processes in-house. You hear a lot about the benefits: more control, better integration with your corporate culture, and potentially cost savings in the long run. But somewhere something gnaws at you. What are the risks? Where do things often go wrong? And are you ready for it?

I understand your doubts. At Buzzlytics, we've already guided several companies in getting their marketing and sales in-house. And what I see time and again is that many companies take this step without being well prepared for the challenges that come with in-house marketing and sales. They start enthusiastically, but soon run into problems they hadn't anticipated.

In this article, I'll take you through the most common pitfalls companies face when they bring their marketing and sales in-house. I'll show you where things often go wrong - from not having a clear strategy to hiring the wrong people and setting the wrong KPIs. After reading this article, you'll know exactly what to look out for to avoid these pitfalls so that you do successfully bring your marketing and sales in-house.

The vast majority of companies do not have a concrete marketing and sales strategy.

If you're considering bringing your marketing and sales in-house, the problem often starts with the lack of a clear vision and strategy. The vast majority of companies have not formulated a concrete marketing and sales strategy.

This is extra problematic when you bring marketing and sales in-house. If you work with outside agencies, you can still point to the agency when results are disappointing. But when you bring it in house, only one party is responsible: you.

One consequence of not having a strategy is that many companies see marketing as a collection of separate activities with no consistency. They do some LinkedIn ads here, some SEO optimization there, and maybe some content creation, but without it forming a cohesive whole.

This leads to fragmented efforts that don't reinforce each other. Instead, your marketing activities should interlock and reinforce each other to be effective. A clear strategy ensures that all marketing activities point in the same direction and support each other.

A clear strategy ensures that all marketing activities point in the same direction and support each other.

Another common fallacy is outsourcing your marketing strategy to your first marketer. If you don't have a clear vision and strategy before you hire a marketer, that person will set their own strategy.

He brings his experience from previous employers, but that experience may not match what your company needs.

We see in practice that companies who hire a marketer suddenly commit completely to that marketer's specialty. For example, if your first marketer is good at Google Ads, you often see your entire marketing strategy suddenly revolve around Google Ads. If your marketer specializes in social media, that suddenly becomes the focus of your marketing approach.

You want to avoid letting your marketer's experience and specialties guide your marketing strategy. Therefore, before hiring a marketer, make sure you define your own vision and strategy first.

When hiring a marketer for the first time, it's often difficult to determine exactly what kind of person you're looking for. What should you pay attention to during job interviews? What questions should you ask? What tasks do you have potential candidates complete?

Many entrepreneurs are guided by how well someone can talk in a job interview. But the ability to sell yourself in a job interview says little about a person's actual marketing skills.

It's important to think carefully about who you hire and what you look for in the selection process. Without clear criteria, you run the risk of hiring someone who doesn't fit what your company needs.

When you bring marketing in-house, the first thing you should do is hire a content manager.

Many companies looking to bring their marketing in-house immediately think of hiring a marketing manager or an online marketer. But that's not always the best first step.

When bringing marketing in-house, it makes more sense to hire a content manager first, then a videographer, and only then possibly a general marketer or marketing manager. Marketing managers are often good at organizing, setting things up and collaborating internally, but in the beginning, you need someone who produces content and makes sure things are running.

Another problem we see regularly is that business owners have unrealistic expectations of their new marketing staff. They think one marketer can do everything: manage ads, set strategy, create content, produce videos, manage social media, and so on.

But the problem is often worse: the marketer becomes responsible not only for all marketing activities, but also for all sorts of other tasks that are somewhat related to marketing, such as the "Working at" page, organizing company events, ordering new pens with the logo on them, and more.

This leads to marketers getting so much sand between the wheels that they can't get anything done. So make sure your new marketer can focus on the core activities that actually contribute to traffic, leads and sales, and leave other, less important, tasks to the people they were doing before.

When bringing marketing and sales in-house, it's important to make a realistic comparison between the cost of in-house versus outsourcing. The cost of an employee is not just the salary, but also fringe benefits, employer charges, vacation days, sick leave, and so on.

This doesn't mean in-house is more expensive than outsourcing, but it's important to do a complete comparison and factor all costs into your decision.

In addition to staffing costs, there are other costs to consider. If you're hiring a content manager, you'll probably want to invest in SEO tooling. And you may also want to improve your CRM system or implement HubSpot.

Make sure you make a complete business case that takes into account all the costs involved in bringing marketing and sales in-house.

Also read: Additional costs for marketing and sales program: Here's what to consider

When you bring marketing and sales in-house, it's important to set up clear processes and structures. But this is often a challenge, especially if your first marketer is not very senior.

A novice marketer often does not have the experience and knowledge to set up good processes and ensure cooperation between marketing and sales. For this it can help to participate in our program, which helps you set up clear processes, set the right KPIs and guide the collaboration between marketing and sales.

Make marketing partially responsible for sales results and vice versa. That's how you create shared responsibility.

A common problem is that marketing and sales have different KPIs that don't align. Marketing is often judged on reach (traffic) and leads, while sales is responsible for quotes and revenue.

This leads to a mismatch where marketing and sales can blame each other when results are disappointing.

The solution is to make marketing partially responsible for sales results, and vice versa. That way you create shared responsibility and encourage collaboration rather than competition.

For marketing and sales to work together effectively, it's important to set up a revenue team in which marketing and sales are jointly responsible for results. This team should meet at least monthly to discuss what's going on and how they can achieve better results together.

Also read: Why sales and marketing should form one 'Revenue Team'

One of the biggest technology challenges is that marketing and sales systems often don't communicate with each other. If these systems aren't integrated, you can't link website traffic or a customer's interest to final sales.

This leads to marketing being judged on results such as reach, while sales is only judged on revenue. As a result, you can never calculate the ROI of your marketing efforts, and that's a problem.

Make sure your marketing and sales systems can communicate with each other so you can see which marketing efforts are leading to deals and sales.

If you can't measure which marketing efforts lead to sales, you also don't know if your marketing investments are paying off. You won't know if certain items or campaigns are actually contributing to your sales.

Make sure your marketing and sales systems can communicate with each other so you can see which marketing efforts are leading to deals and sales.

In today's day and age, it can't be missing: AI tools. If you're not using tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity, you may wonder if you're going to get ROI from your in-house marketing.

These tools can help you work more efficiently and get better results, so use them.

Many marketers take on too much in the first 90 days. They want to tackle and improve everything at once, which often leads to suboptimal results.

It's important to prioritize and focus on the activities that will have the most impact. Make sure you have someone you can spar with about priorities and after 90 days, evaluate what's going well and what could be better.

By extension, it's important to set clear priorities and stick to them. Focus on the activities that contribute most to your goals and make sure your marketer is not distracted by less important tasks.

Many marketers take on too much in the first 90 days. They want to tackle and improve everything at once, which often leads to suboptimal results.

An important warning: if you want to bring marketing and sales in-house purely to cut costs, it's probably not a good idea. In-house marketing and sales can be more cost-effective in the long run, but you'll often incur more costs in the first year than if you outsource.

Above all, you need to look at the investments and whether you'll recoup them quickly enough. Can you make a business case where the whole picture checks out?

Getting marketing and sales in-house is a long-term investment. Therefore, don't think too quickly on the cost side, but focus on building something sustainable for your in-house team.

Start by defining your vision, only then think about the people you need, and then fill in the other parts.

Getting your marketing and sales in-house can be a powerful step for your business. It gives you more control, allows for better integration with your company culture and can be more cost-effective in the long run. But as you've read, there are many potential pitfalls to this process that can cost your business time, money and frustration.

The biggest challenges are often not where you expect them to be. It starts with the lack of a clear marketing strategy, which puts you at risk of having your first marketer set his own course. Next, you might hire the wrong people or set unrealistic expectations. Budget and resource problems, unclear processes, non-integrated systems and a lack of proper priorities can further undermine the success of your in-house marketing and sales.

Start by defining your vision, only then think about the people you need, and then fill in the other parts.

We at Buzzlytics have seen that companies that successfully get their marketing and sales in-house start with a clear vision and strategy. They consciously hire people in the right order, starting with a content manager rather than a general marketer. They make sure their marketing and sales systems can communicate with each other, and they build true collaboration between marketing and sales.

At Buzzlytics, we've developed a program that guides you through all aspects of getting your marketing and sales in-house. We help you develop the right strategy, hire the right people, set up the right processes and choose the right technology. Start with your vision, only then think about the people you need, and then fill in the other parts. This is how you build a successful in-house marketing and sales team that really gets results. Wondering if this program is something for you? Schedule a no-obligation consultation.