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Why Hiring This Marketing Agency Will Save You Money Over Hiring in House

Every business, at some point in time, asks: Is it better to hire an in-house team or to hire a marketing agency? In addition to the substantial financial outlay of building an in-house team, you should base your answer on several factors. Here are the top considerations when comparing outsourcing versus insourcing a marketing team.

Cost

The top consideration is cost. Depending on your marketing needs, it can cost you more to hire an in-house team. Besides salaries, you have overhead costs associated with a full-time team like taxes, benefits, paid time off, unemployment taxes, and more. The median salary for a marketing manager is over $127,000:

Source: https://www.earnmydegree.com/how-to-become/marketing-manager

Then you need to add a web designer, graphic designer, SEO expert, social media manager, copywriter, videographer, and others, depending on your marketing needs.

A key question to ask is do you have enough work to keep each of these experts busy full-time? If not, it may make more sense to only pay for the services you need, and gain more varied expertise, with a marketing agency.

In addition, you can expect turnover if you hire in-house. While some agencies experience turnover, you can find an agency with a solid reputation and little to no turnover.

Industry Changes

The marketing industry changes quite often in response to demand, new trends, and technology advancements. Businesses may or may not find it hard to stay abreast of changes. This should also be a top consideration in deciding whether to hire an in-house marketing team or hire an agency.

Agencies and freelancers continually evolve and adapt to current marketing trends. Consider how not too long ago, marketing agencies focused almost exclusively on lead generation for top-of-the-funnel efforts. Today, the best agencies help you nurture leads and customers where they are at each stage of the buying journey.

Another recent change is top-tier marketers are hard to recruit. There is high demand for top marketing talent, so your salary range may inhibit or help you find the best marketing candidate.

Project Management

If you are a small business or startup, consider how much time and effort you have to invest in your marketing efforts. If you have little time, you will benefit from an agency to shoulder the stress of marketing. Marketing agencies offer start to finish project management, meaning you need not be active in each step of the process.

Also, most agencies offer more involvement if that is important to you. They offer a transparent process that allows for your involvement wherever and whenever you choose.

Skills Sets

Today’s digital marketing agencies employ a wide variety of skills sets, from demand generation, PPC, social media, and more. If your marketing strategies need skills from a wide variety of channels, it may be easier to find everything you need in a single marketing agency. One advantage of hiring a marketing agency is that you need not build a team with the various skills sets. You can expect your marketing agency to come complete with a set of diversified skills that address your needs.

A marketing agency can also help you learn new strategies. As you work with agency members with diverse skills sets, you can pick up new techniques and effective marketing strategies.

Advantages

Consider search engine marketing (SEM). To use an example, say your company has $100,000 to spend on SEM. However, in the wider world of digital advertising, that is a small amount. Marketing agencies may control millions of dollars in ad spend.

Advertising platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google AdWords, and others have a vested interest in making sure marketing agencies are successful with their advertising efforts. They are more likely to work with a marketing agency with a higher ad spend than they will with an individual company and a small budget.

On one hand, an in-house marketing team integrates seamlessly into your company culture. You can make sure they are in line with your long-term vision and collaborate with other teams such as sales. But if you find the right marketing agency, they can adapt to your company culture and work with other teams as needed.

Finally, your answers to the above questions should guide you to make the right decision for your company. Before you decide, research marketing agencies and look for an award-winning, reputable agency with the talent and expertise you need. The best ones will perform a marketing audit to show where and how they can help you.

Sheila Kloefkorn

With more than 25 years of hands on marketing strategy and operations experience, Sheila Kloefkorn is dedicated to developing marketing strategies and plans that help clients succeed. Some of the world's largest brands have depended on Sheila for marketing programs that delivered tangible and substantial results. Specialties: B2B marketing, lead generation, lead nurturing, sales strategy, marketing strategy, competitive marketing strategy, social media, search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), mobile marketing, email marketing, website design, marketing plans.