What is an outsourced marketing department?
An outsourced marketing department is a full marketing function delivered by an external team: strategy, planning, content, campaigns, search, design and reporting, run to an agreed rhythm for a fixed monthly fee. You get the roles a proper in-house team would have, without hiring or managing them.
It is different from hiring an agency for a single project. An outsourced department owns the plan and the delivery calendar, sits in your meetings, reports on pipeline rather than impressions, and stays accountable for the numbers quarter after quarter.
Who it suits
Most Microsoft partners we work with have one stretched marketing person, or nobody at all and a director doing it between customer calls. There is usually a plan in a document, a half-built campaign, and a webinar nobody followed up on.
An outsourced department fits when you need consistent output across several disciplines but cannot justify four or five salaries, or when your one marketer needs a team around them rather than another tool.
The roles you get
A blended team, scaled to the days you actually need each month.
Marketing lead
Owns the plan, the budget and the numbers. Sits in your leadership meetings and makes the calls on where effort goes.
Campaign manager
Runs campaigns end to end, keeps the calendar honest and chases the follow-up that usually gets dropped.
Content writer
Writes in your voice about Microsoft solutions - blogs, guides, case studies, sales assets and email sequences.
Search and AI visibility
Makes sure you appear in Google and in the AI assistants buyers now ask first.
Designer
Brand-consistent assets for web, campaigns, events and sales enablement.
Analyst and reporting
Tracks leading and lagging measures so you know whether pipeline moved, not just whether posts went out.
How it works
- 1
Discovery and positioning
We start with who you serve, what you do better than the partner down the road, and what a buyer should think when they leave your website. Fuzzy positioning produces fuzzy marketing faster, so this comes first.
- 2
A quarterly plan with named owners
Campaigns, content, events and search work mapped to your Microsoft solution areas, with the funding routes - co-op, MDF and MCI - identified up front.
- 3
Delivery in a weekly rhythm
A weekly call, a live calendar, and work shipping every week rather than in a quarterly burst.
- 4
Reporting that answers the pipeline question
Meetings booked, qualified conversations and pipeline influenced, alongside the enabling measures that matter in the first 90 days.
- 5
Quarterly review and re-plan
What worked, what did not, what changes. The plan flexes with launches, events and delivery peaks.
What it costs compared with hiring
A blended team on a monthly fee, against the cost of building the same capability in-house.
One marketing manager
A single hire covers one skill set. You still buy in design, search, paid and content, and it all stops when they are on holiday or leave.
A full in-house team
Marketing lead, campaign manager, writer, designer and analyst is a significant salary bill before tools, recruitment or ramp-up time.
An outsourced department
The same roles as a monthly fee you can scale up around a launch and dial back during delivery, with cover built in and no recruitment lag.
What stays with you
Outsourcing everything rarely works. These bits need your voice in the room.
- Customer conversations and the sales relationship.
- The final say on what you stand for and how you are positioned.
- Sales follow-up on the leads marketing creates.
- Approvals for customer stories and anything carrying the Microsoft relationship.