Competition, regulatory requirements, an intangible product, and a distributed field organization of agency partners – these are among the top challenges insurance brand marketers face.

Technology can help tackle some of these challenges, however insurers have historically resisted innovation. A report by McKinsey on digital disruption in insurance stated bluntly, “Insurance has been relatively slow to feel the digital effect… But the industry is not impregnable. Companies that fail to adapt will weaken under the pressure exerted by those that use digital technology to slash costs and get better returns on their investments.”

Marketing collateral materials are an important prospect touchpoint: In a matter of seconds, they create a brand impression, convey your product or service’s unique value proposition, and ideally capture the prospect’s interest. Marketers invest a significant amount of resources in developing marketing materials. However, all too often these materials go under-utilized or unused by Sales, and tons of outdated printed pieces end up being thrown out.

It’s a question every company faces with any new initiative or strategy shift that may require new or different skills and resources: Should we keep it in-house or are we better off paying someone else to do it? Sometimes arriving at an answer doesn’t take more than two seconds of thought. Other times, more due diligence is called for, and that’s what we’re going to examine in today’s post. I think there are four areas of analysis businesses need to consider when deciding whether or not to keep work in-house or look outside the company: core competencies, personnel, other resources (equipment, machinery, software, etc…) and financial impact/cost.

Core competencies
The first question you need to answer (aside from the main question of this post) ties directly back to the core competencies of your company. Is the new work or initiative you are considering in line with your core business competencies? To put it another way, will it divert the focus of your business and your people away from what they do best? To use an example on an individual scale, it doesn’t make sense for a sales person to spend time designing and building his or her own email marketing tool. That’s time spent not working leads, and no matter how great it would be to have an email marketing program built to 100% custom-fit specifications, it’s just not worth the effort with so many other viable options on the market. That example segues nicely into our second area of analysis…