Is it better to do your marketing in-house or hire a marketing agency? Typically, two factors come into play when making that decision: time and money.
In this article, we’ll cover the pros and cons of hiring an agency versus doing marketing yourself, and give you an idea of the cost differences as you consider both options.
Let’s talk about the benefits and drawbacks of both doing it yourself and hiring an agency.
Doing Marketing Yourself: Pros
- You have complete control over every aspect of the process. You control the voice, the tone, and the style of your campaigns. You have oversight of all steps in the process, as they happen (not when they are complete). This means you can always change the strategies or direction of the campaign anytime you want to. You can make decisions more agilely because the communication chain is shorter.
- You have access to every piece of your marketing process. While using an agency, you won’t have access to every tactic or process, because some partners choose to hide some of their marketing techniques. Otherwise, what would you pay them for? The point is that they save you the headache of thinking about marketing processes.
Doing Marketing Yourself: Cons
- It takes time to understand and master the moving parts of a marketing campaign. There is a learning curve that requires a time investment, as well as a period of trial and error.
- You are limited by your knowledge and experience of marketing. You may neglect other areas of your business because of the significant time and energy required in marketing.
- It may take longer to get results compared to when you’re using a marketing agency. Agencies are more knowledgeable, and they’ll have at least two to three people working on your campaigns. For that reason, you’ll see results more quickly.
Now let’s take a look at some pros and cons of hiring an agency.
Hiring an Agency: Pros
- You get a team of specialized experts working on your behalf. You don’t have to go through the headache of hiring an all-star marketing team; the agency will provide that for you. Plus, your in-house marketing team may learn a thing or two from the marketing agency.
- You’ll see results quickly. Hiring an agency saves you time because it already has a system in place that they’ve used to get results for other clients.
- You get more time to do actual revenue-generating activities. Marketing is a long game. By delegating marketing, you get to focus on the more crucial and immediately beneficial parts of your business.
- You’ll see better results. Marketing agencies have access to valuable tools and resources, which increases your chances of getting better results. Additionally, it may cost you thousands of dollars if you decide to purchase these tools.
Hiring an Agency: Cons
- Digital marketing agencies aren’t as agile. It may take longer to make decisions because of the long chain of communication.
- Agencies are costly. Hiring an agency can be a significant monthly expense.
- You don’t have much control in the marketing process. For example, you just can’t decide to change or terminate the process overnight.
- You run the risk of the relationship not working out. This can cost you significant amounts of time and money.
What does it cost to hire an agency for marketing?
Every marketing campaign is different depending on the service or product being promoted.
Putting together a one-month marketing campaign will require that you put in over 40 hours of work in-house, or spend close to $6000 to hire an agency to do it. Remember that in-house marketing teams may not have the necessary expertise to undertake some of these tasks. You should take into account hours of research and training for your team members, which will elongate the process.
You now have a good sense of what you can and cannot sustain and what you need to meet your performance goals. Trust your intuition and know that any decision you make can be changed to reach and exceed your marketing objectives.
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