In our day and age, technology can feel like it’s moving a mile a minute, and rightfully so. It is! With daily updates and advancements, it can be hard for small business owners to keep up with marketing trends, technologies, and best practices.
If you’re trying to navigate this ever-changing landscape, you might be deciding between hiring a marketing agency (that’s us! 👋) or an in-house team. While in-house marketing teams have their merits, leveraging the expertise of a marketing agency offers significant advantages in our fast-paced world (and beyond).
From extensive industry knowledge to cost efficiency and fresh perspectives, strategically supplementing your internal staff with a marketing agency will bring you access to a whole array of people who know what you might not, driving your business forward.
Here’s how hiring a marketing agency can help propel your business to new heights:
MONEY MONEY MONEY…
Let’s start with the thing that’s on everyone’s mind: the big bucks! It’s actually a myth that in-house salaries are less expensive than agency rates…maintaining an in-house marketing team involves significant investments.
Beyond their actual salaries, any kind of in-house employee comes with a slew of associated costs. From medical and other benefits-related expenses, to 401(k), personal development offerings and auxiliary company perks, full-time employees come with a hefty price tag. They might also contribute to costs you’d rather allocate elsewhere, such as office space, technology and equipment, supplies, software licenses, and other management costs. All in all, it’s just one more head (or heads!) you have to take care of in the long run.
But wait, there’s more. Let’s not forget the cost of hiring them in the first place — from running job ads and background/reference checks to paying both time and money for recruitment efforts, hiring expenses are not to be forgotten. They add up, too.
On the other hand, with an agency, you never have to worry about footing the bill on any of this. What you pay goes straight to providing you with the services you need. Plus, marketing agencies offer flexible pricing models tailored to your specific needs. This allows you to scale your marketing efforts without breaking the bank, maximizing your return on investment.
ACHIEVING POWER IN NUMBERS
There’s a famous saying, ‘if you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re doing yourself a disservice’. You always want to include a variety of perspectives before making a big decision — so why not apply the same rule to your marketing efforts?
When you’re paying one internal staff member, you get what you pay for: one set of ideas, experiences, and opinions. A narrow range of experience can only give you one perspective, limiting business growth opportunities. On the other hand, giving a variety of people a seat at the table, with different ages and backgrounds, provides the most diverse ideas to challenging problems.
With an in-house marketing team, that can be challenging to achieve. With an agency, you’re buying a team of experts. Combining team members’ varied skillsets and expertise, agencies have endless capabilities. Even junior, less expensive staff have direct access to peers with years of experience.
COVERING YOUR BLIND SPOTS
In a similar vein, in-house teams might inadvertently get caught up in familiar routines, hindering creativity and fresh ideas. Marketing agencies are brimming with professionals who eat, sleep, and breathe marketing. Beyond combined years of industry experience, agencies provide an outside perspective to help see around internal blind spots, bringing a fresh pair of eyes to your business.
With their outsider view, they can assess your brand objectively, identify untapped opportunities, and devise innovative strategies to revitalize your marketing campaigns. This means you’ll have access to a diverse skill set to tackle ALL your marketing needs — including ones you didn’t know you had.
GETTING 2 FOR THE PRICE OF 1
We love a good 2-for-1 deal, and hiring a marketing agency is no different. Agencies — even the specialized ones! — have a wide range of clients, which can ultimately bring a wide range of knowledge. Why pay to learn from one person on your team, when you can learn from and leverage a much larger group of professionals, with much larger networks of their own?
Marketing agencies have extensive connections and partnerships across various industries, allowing them to tap into a vast network of resources. With an agency, you’ll have access to this established network of businesses and vendors: from influencers to media outlets. They can help amplify your brand’s reach through strategic collaborations and partnerships, leading to increased exposure and customer engagement.
BEING RESOURCEFUL
If you’re looking to leverage the best of the best tools — that evolve WITH the times — hiring a marketing agency is your surest bet.
Marketing professionals are only as effective as the technical tools you provide them with — and this too can get costly. In-house marketing teams are limited to the current systems your company has. If they require more, it’s on YOU to pay for it!
On the flipside, marketing agencies invest in the industry’s latest tools and resources to maximize their efficiency and success. They possess extensive knowledge across various marketing disciplines, from strategy formulation to data analysis. Their only job is to be the best of the best — and stay on top of industry trends — so you don’t have to. After all, their reputations depend on it.
KEEPING UP WITH THE TIMES
Even if you have the right tools at your disposal, you still need the right people to leverage them correctly: resources are only as good as knowing how to use them. Amid the rise of AI technologies — such as machine learning and predictive analytics that are revolutionizing the marketing landscape — it’s crucial to leverage these advancements correctly. (No, you can’t just use ChatGPT to manage your content).
Why? Most AI tools can generate coherent copy based on the quality of the prompt it receives. Its strengths lie in generating topic ideas if you’re stumped, or providing you with a loose draft of content. But it’s not a one-stop solution for your content creation needs. AI tools use pre-existing data to answer your prompts, so it will not generate fresh, innovative, never-before-seen ideas. There are also certain actions like SEO, keyword research or trending topics that it simply cannot perform well on.
If your marketing needs rely on compiling new insights, making data-backed decisions, conducting any kind of research or taking current trends into account, you’ll need a human touch. That also goes for injecting empathy and emotion into your content, or anything with a personalized brand voice that stretches beyond the generic outputs of AI tools.
Luckily, agencies have the requisite resources and expertise to navigate the AI space. This ensures your marketing strategies stay ahead of the game. As a result, you reach the right audience at the right time.
BUT MOST OBVIOUS OF ALL…
Let’s face it: you’re not a marketing agency. So why should you be expected to operate like one?
Outsourcing marketing activities to an agency allows you to free up your internal team’s time and energy to focus on your core competencies. Overall, this will ensure your business operates efficiently, maximizing productivity and avoiding distractions. Unsure of how to choose a agency? Read our tips on How to Choose a Digital Marketing Agency.
With an agency at the helm of your marketing needs, you can stick to what you do best: nurture your business’s strengths and excel in your industry. We’ll take care of letting everyone know how well you’re doing it.
