Does your association handle its marketing work in-house? If it doesn’t, you aren’t alone.

According to a new study from Aquent, creative and marketing firms are increasingly relying on outside contractors to handle at least some of their work. And many of those companies staff up only as the demand grows.

Among the key data points from the survey of 580 marketing, creative, and digital professionals:

• Why outsource? About 43 percent of outsourced creative or marketing jobs were for reasons of staff capacity, with another 29 percent looking for outside expertise or technical skills.
• Who gets hired? While 72 percent of the company’s employees remain in-house, organizations generally reach out to independent contractors (for 10 percent of their need), ad agencies (8 percent), staffing firms (7 percent), and outsourced teams (2 percent).
• The approach: For more than half of companies, outside staff is added only if the workload gets heavy or additional expertise is needed. Just 19 percent staff up before the project begins.

The key point the white paper makes: Don’t wait for the workload to build up first. Prepare for the growth you know is coming.

“The reactive nature of these situations can lead to additional stress for you and your team. This is where these proactive steps come in: Anticipate, evaluate, and recruit,” the paper says.

With marketing a key part of what associations do, what sort of labor demands come up, and how do you balance your in-house and outsourced marketing work? Let us know in the comments.

(TMG archive photo)