Every business is different, which means the choice between hiring an in-house marketing team or contracting with a marketing agency will look different to everyone making the decision.
If you’re facing this dilemma, you may have already started a list of pros and cons for each. We may have a few key points you haven’t yet considered. Let’s take a look.
Hiring your own team
THE PROS
Undivided attention
First, you get the team’s full, undivided attention on your business and your brand at all times. These professionals will know your brand, voice, and messaging inside and out.
Specialized availability
You’ll also have access to your marketing team during business hours. Just step into their office or send them a Slack message, and you know that your request becomes their priority. With no other companies or brands to plan or execute for during the day, your marketing strategy will always come first.
Full control
Then, of course, there’s the full control that an in-house marketing team offers. If you don’t want to share the responsibilities of your marketing strategy with an outside marketing agency, then hiring an in-house team is the way to go.
THE CONS
Time and cost intensive
If you have hired anyone at all for your company, you know that attracting talent is an expensive and time-consuming ordeal. Building an entire team of marketing professionals multiplies the expense and time exponentially. That’s a drawback to consider, especially if your marketing needs are pressing.
Once those employees are hired, you must consider the cost of keeping them employed. That involves a salary, paid time off, insurance, taxes, retirement plans and other benefits. The average marketing employee — just one — is more than $70,000 per year.
On top of employment costs, you must also invest in software and equipment, which can run into the thousands each month. The larger your marketing efforts, the more these tools will cost.
Hiring a Marketing Agency
THE PROS
Quick startup at low cost
You don’t need to hire anyone beyond your agency, so you waste no time building a team to get started. You get a full team at your disposal, at a fraction of the cost of hiring your own in-house marketing. Agencies also have the software needed for SEO research, marketing automation and social post scheduling.
Diverse talent
With one decision to hire an agency, you gain access to diverse specialties. Instead of hiring a social media specialist, an email marketer, a paid advertising expert, an SEO specialist, a web designer, a web developer, a copywriter … Well, you get the idea. Could you afford to hire all of those to get the marketing you need?
Expert skills
You can also trust that each person working your account is an expert in what they do. Not only do they have extensive marketing experience, they also work with various industries that may inform their strategy in ways that specialists within your industry never consider.
THE CONS
Patience, responsiveness required
You may need to develop some patience with strategy and execution as your agency digests and assigns your requests. You can’t just step into their office to see where things are with your latest campaigns. You’ll have to schedule meetings for updates and cede some creative control to the experts to keep things moving.
With the right marketing agency, however, these cons shouldn’t be blockers to your success. If you do discover that you’re encountering more roadblocks than victories, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s time to start hiring in-house. You may just need to interview new marketing agencies.
Only you know which is right for your business.
