In-house or Marketing Agency?
Is it better to do your digital marketing in-house or to work with a digital marketing agency?
Every business owner needs to think about this question. We've made a list of some of the benefits of hiring an agency, especially for small to medium-sized businesses that are wondering whether or not to make marketing an in-house role
1. Expertise
In an agency, not only are there more people with different kinds of skills, but those people also tend to have more experience. For example, at the Pebble Agency, we have a combined 54 years of experience within the Nursery Industry. Most people who work for an agency are experts in a certain area, and your company can benefit from the competitive environment in which agencies hire talent. So that they can meet all of the company's needs, in-house marketers often become more like "jacks of all trades." Agencies spend money on their employees' education and keeping them on the cutting edge of their fields. A team environment in an agency also helps people learn and grow all the time.
2. Cost
In general, it's much cheaper to work with an agency than to hire a full team of people to work in-house. Still, the total cost can be very different depending on the size of your business and what you want to do. Internal and external marketing can cost a lot of money. A full in-house team has a lot of costs, like salaries, benefits, office space, equipment, training, hiring, and more.
An outside agency can be one of the biggest expenses in a marketing budget, which makes it an easy place to make cuts and renegotiate terms. Overall, a digital marketing agency is often the most cost-effective way to get high-quality marketing work done. For the same price as one or two full-time salaries, you can hire a whole team of marketing experts who are experts in different areas.
3. Less commitment
Partnering with a digital marketing agency is a lot less of a commitment than hiring a whole team of people to work in-house. Your company is not responsible for hiring, interviewing, onboarding, or any of the other time-consuming and often expensive tasks that come with a new employee. Marketing agencies should be easier to hire and fire than in-house employees, so it will be easier to find a good fit between an agency and an in-house team. A successful agency partnership is built on trust and communication, so it's very important to find an agency with which you can build that kind of relationship.
4. Access to a bigger network and wider range of resources
When you work with many clients, you build a large network of vendors and channels, which can lead to more partnerships for your business. Agencies also have access to a wide range of tools and resources that are either too expensive for a single company to buy or are only available to people who work in the field. Agencies often show their work and are featured in publications, which can give your company even more exposure.
5. Creativity & Objectivity
One of the best things about working with an agency is that they can be creative and objective. When all marketing is done in-house, it can lead to groupthink and a limited view of the market. A digital marketing agency doesn't have any internal biases or assumed knowledge, so it's easier to get a clear message to the target audience. Internal teams often know so much that they try to say too much, and the audience misses the main point. A balanced view can help you sort through all the useless information and keep you grounded enough to communicate clearly with the rest of the world.
No matter where your company falls on the scale, it's clear that having a digital marketing agency work with your in-house marketing team has many benefits. From our experience, these partnerships work best when the final product shows both your team's knowledge of the business and our knowledge of how to plan and carry out a great digital marketing strategy.
Want to find out more about how The Pebble Agency can help your business grow? Fill out our contact form here and we will be in touch.