Whether you are looking to hire a marketing agency in Arlington, VA, or keep it in-house, there are pros and cons to both and many variables to consider.
The benefits of hiring a marketing agency versus an internal marketing team are:
1. An outside agency brings in an entire team of experts with a broader range of expertise and experience than an individual. With Arlington Strategy, you are essentially paying for 50+ years of combined experience to solve your business’s challenges for the price of someone who is possibly just entering the field.
2. You’ll benefit from the agency’s experience on projects with challenges similar to your own. Whatever your branding, marketing, or communications hurdles are, an agency has already climbed them.
3. As your business’s needs change, you can amend your contract and pull from different areas based on your business goals.
4. You’ll gain access to the agency’s established network of businesses and vendors that can help you form connections with potential business partners and/or clients.
5. An outside perspective can help see around internal blind spots. A team of marketing consultants can see the bigger picture in a way that in-house teams can’t.
6. Agencies can help you develop internal capacity. They can help train your team so that you can take on more marketing in a seamless way as your business grows.
On the flip-side, there are also a few potential disadvantages to hiring an outside agency:
1. There will be an initial learning curve as your agency learns your brand’s voice, goals, and internal issues.
2. You won’t have as much control over staffing, so depending on your agency’s staffing model, your account may be shuffled around to different consultants during your contract term. While this is not true for all agencies, it is something to ask when exploring partnerships.
3. Your agency will be working with multiple clients with different priorities simultaneously, so you may experience a slightly longer turnaround time than working with an internal employee.
So, as you can see, there are some significant benefits to finding an agency to work with and to enhance your branding and marketing. Here at Arlington Strategy, you’re hiring a full-service, independent marketing agency on a mission to help small businesses and nonprofit organizations thrive. From social media marketing and paid advertising to website development and graphic design, our team of marketing experts delivers creative solutions to help our clients grow.
As our previous blog post mentioned, before partnering with an agency, make sure you know and like who you’ll be working with. If possible, meet the agency in person or via Zoom. Ask the right questions and get a good sense as to if you can see yourself establishing a long-term relationship with this agency. It is also wise to ask for proof points and references from past and current clients.
Ready to work with a marketing agency in Arlington, VA? Contact us today to learn more about what we can do for you!