Well, kind of yes…

But also, kind of no.

Communicating an understanding to sales and commercial managers of the way in-house marketing professionals and agencies work together is a real gap in our world.

And it’s up to us (together) to educate sales/commercial colleagues.

They have no idea.

Why should they? They don’t do this stuff.

In most cases, in-house marketing works with the business to establish strategic goals…

…then engages external agencies to deliver against those goals.

So does that mean all the strategy comes from internal resources, and all the execution from external?

Not exactly.

For a start, in-house marketing has to have a strong understanding of (a) what resources/budgets are needed to deliver external execution and (b) what good delivery looks like.

That presupposes some execution skills and experience from the in-house commissioning party, doesn’t it?

Equally, a really good agency partner will participate and support in strategy formulation – particularly guiding internal managers through the ‘art of the possible’, as well as bringing the benchmark of best practice from their work with other clients.

So – it’s not cut and dried.

It’s true that agencies tend to attract the best practitioner talent. But it’s not universally the case. And many agencies betray a severe lack of strategic thinking (whatever they say on their website).

The most talented in-house marketing managers and directors I know are those who embrace their agencies into their whole team, and are not afraid to show their sales and commercial colleagues exactly who’s doing what – internal and external resources working in beautiful, complementary harmony.

Yet only the most competent and capable are confident enough to do this.