I’ve worked with several companies over the years, and most can use in-house marketing support if not an entire marketing team. The obvious drawback, of course, is the weighty budget commitment that would require. It’s easy to say “automate” your marketing, but it’s not something that happens overnight.

I’ve experimented with a scalable marketing agreement with one of my clients. With a few more tweaks, I think the in-house, off-site marketing model could be a welcomed phenomenon. As it stands, several vendors offer web maintenance, and as many more high-end advertising agencies will develop marketing strategies for a price. What’s not so common are vendors that help small businesses develop and build a strategy and a system for in-house marketing—efficiently on modest budgets. This is something I’m looking at with great interest.