Marketing teams don't always need more people permanently. Sometimes they just need more of the right skills at the right time.
That's where an extended team can work well.
For us, the model isn't about taking work away from the in-house marketing team. It's about working alongside them, understanding how they operate and adding the specialist support a project needs, whether that's creative, content, design or development.
It should feel like one team
The relationship works best when the extended team is part of the conversation, rather than waiting for finished briefs to arrive.
That means understanding:
the brand
the priorities behind the work
who owns which decisions
The in-house team keeps its knowledge and ownership. We bring extra skills and capacity around it.
The mix doesn't have to stay fixed either. A project might need more strategic and creative input at the start, then designers, writers or developers as it moves into production. That flexibility is an important part of the model.
Adding skills as the work changes
We saw this in our work with Trevonix, a global identity and access management specialist.
Its marketing team was managing a brand refresh alongside a new B2B website. We supported the team with four to six specialists across the project, covering brand, content, design and Webflow development.
Together, we reorganised more than 300 pages and 200 resources, and moved the site from WordPress to Webflow. The project was delivered in six months, and Trevonix's team can now manage routine website updates without waiting on a developer.
The point wasn't simply to add more people. It was to change the mix of support as the work changed, while the in-house team stayed close to the project throughout.
Making the time difference work
India is five and a half hours ahead of the UK in winter, and four and a half hours ahead during British Summer Time. That gives a shared window on most working days: the UK morning overlaps with the Indian afternoon.
Teams that use that window well tend to:
keep reviews, feedback and decisions in the shared hours
leave clear notes at the end of the UK day, so work can move on early the next morning
agree upfront how quickly each side will respond
Check how customer data is handled
Much creative, content and design work doesn't need personal data at all. But if your extended team will see customer data, such as CRM lists, email databases or website user records, check how it will be protected before the work starts.
India isn't currently covered by UK adequacy regulations. Under the ICO's guidance, giving a team outside the UK access to personal data, even remotely, can count as a restricted transfer. In that case, the UK business usually needs a safeguard in place, such as the ICO's International Data Transfer Agreement (IDTA) or the UK Addendum to the EU's standard contractual clauses, along with a transfer risk assessment.
Your data protection lead or legal adviser can confirm what applies to your project.
More than outsourcing
An extended team in India can easily be described as outsourced marketing. In practice, we think the difference is in how the relationship works.
If the external team only receives tasks and sends them back, it can still feel separate.
When there is shared context, regular communication and clear ownership, the distance matters far less. The extended team becomes another source of capability the marketing team can draw on when it needs it.
For businesses, that can mean access to a broader range of specialists without having to build every capability permanently in-house.
Three questions to ask before you start
Which skills do we need, and for how long?
Who owns decisions on our side, and how will the extended team reach them?
Will the team need access to any customer data?
For us, that's what an extended team should do: fit around the marketing team that's already there, bring in the right expertise when the work calls for it, and make it easier to get good work done.
