If you’re planning to pad your marketing budget in 2023, you’re in good company. 54% of marketers expect their spending to increase in 2023. 83% of companies plan to boost their content production budgets.
But is your talent and resources budget as targeted as the communications you intend to send?
Research indicates that companies waste nearly 25 cents of each marketing dollar. This suggests that, indeed, a significant portion of marketing dollars enter a vacuum. As organizations scrutinize their budgets, we expect some will seek more effective resources in which to redirect these dollars.
Imagine, for example, a “multi-skilled marketer-for-hire” – more specifically a team of experts with the talent, processes, and platforms to execute marketing strategies to scale. This option exists. It’s called Marketing-as-a-Service (MaaS).
How Much Do You Really Know About Marketing as a Service?
A good MaaS plan can cover the three essentials of engagement: technology, data/analytics, and content. With these resources, it can manage a range of disciplines while resolving talent gaps, short-term capacity issues, scaling challenges, and other ongoing requirements.
Apply MaaS in three different ways:
Off-site
For organizations seeking cost reductions and efficiency, this option places MaaS resources in external locations.
On-site
MaaS resources are “insourced,” extending the client’s on-site operations. This creates a good fit for organizations with high data and security needs. Also, this includes marketing teams requiring side-by-side skills assistance.
Hybrid model
This approach blends in-sourced and off-site resourcing based on the client’s needs.
How A Global Distributor Stretched Their Marketing Budget by Embracing (MaaS)
Here’s how a leading global distributor of electronics components used MaaS to efficiently support their design engineers with digital solutions. To facilitate seamless marketing flexibility and scaling with evolving market demands, they partnered with Harte Hanks to access additional knowledge and skills from experienced marketing professionals.
In 2020, this global distributor needed support to launch their multi-country, European marketing campaigns. They partnered with Harte Hanks to access strategy, creative talent, campaign planning, and execution – both online and offline, as well as trade show support. The dedicated Harte Hanks team worked alongside the client’s in-house team, as an extension that could adjust its size based on campaign seasonality and demand.
The distributor employed a flexible MaaS model in which Harte Hanks provided direct access to a pool of talented resources for their specific needs based on the type of campaign, event, or omnichannel experience they were launching. Janel Harris, managing director of marketing services at Harte Hanks, explained, “We provide strategic and execution services across various disciplines with agility and flexibility, delivering end-to-end, ongoing or one-time campaigns across Europe.”
For this client, Harte Hanks’ MaaS solutions today include regional and campaign-based strategy, creative services, campaign execution via marketing automation platforms, data acquisition, and optimization support, digital ads, direct mail, event support, localization, and project management.
So, by utilizing a MaaS model, the global distributor accessed several benefits that helped them accelerate their marketing performance:
Scalability
They could adjust the size of their MaaS deliverables and budget quarterly based on projected needs. This allows for a workload that flexes with anticipated requirements.
Localization
Their content was able to be contextualized to reflect specifics of the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Israel, and Eastern Europe.
Flexibility
They weren’t locked into a long-term retainer contract, but were provided with the opportunity to shift resource types based on their changing requirements.
Is MaaS Right for Your Company? Check This List
The following guide can help enterprise leaders and marketers determine if it’s time to talk to an expert about MaaS.
- You foresee marketing needs that exceed the budget. MaaS eliminates the need to hire a full-scale marketing team and with it the related expenses of recruitment, training, and space. Because the service is flexible – it can be tailored to address right-now needs yet is not tethered to a fixed budget – it assures in-house results.
- You’ve got a lot of balls in the air. The MaaS structure enables nimble product execution across channels and geographies. The best models include a deep bench of talent that ensures the right expert is at the ready when needed.
- You need to captain the ship. By assigning their marketing needs to a trusted resource via MaaS, company leaders are free to focus on their bottom-line goals, compete better and grow the enterprise.
MaaS: Accurate Targeting, Flexible Costs
Marketers expect to spend nearly $279 billion on ads in 2023. Each of those investment dollars need earmarked for a result, or they risk entering that vacuum of silence.
MaaS is one option for better ensuring the investment reaches the right ears if the need supports it. Those in charge of such decisions should assess their marketing budgets with an honest eye. They also need to consult with peers and experts to ensure the smart money is on MaaS.
