….rise in inflation, employee layoffs, dropping conversion rates, and high cost-per-click (CPC) rates- an experienced marketer knows the condition in the market.
That’s why you want to leave your marketing strategy in experienced hands- one who can scale up your marketing success.
But should I hire an in-house marketer or partner with an outside digital marketing agency?
Know that you’re not alone who’s asking this, and the answer is, well, it depends on your position.
Our aim with this article is to help you find out what’s best for you: an in-house marketing team or a digital agency partner.
Put on your reader’s cap.
What are the benefits of hiring a digital marketing agency?
Digital Marketing Agencies help businesses scale their marketing efforts, web development, and everything that comes along with online marketing.
You can partner with a digital agency to perform specific functions like website SEO, social media management, content marketing, email marketing, etc., from a long range of available choices.
Digital marketing agencies often specialize in specific fields; for example, McElligott Digital Marketing has a team of certified PPC experts and content marketers.
Depending upon the size of the team and industry expertise, digital agencies are present for a variety of marketing needs.
You can also think of a digital marketing agency as an outsourced team to take care of the online needs of your business.
Here are the benefits of a digital marketing agency as a partner:
1. Deeper industry expertise
When it comes to expertise in a specific role in the industry, digital marketing agencies are a pro.
The reasons are simple- their team members specialize in certain areas like pay-per-click marketing or SEO, and they have a lot of experience with clients in the same industry as yours.
The majority of digital agencies focus on one or two areas, such as content marketing or design. When paired with the fact that the agencies provide these services to a variety of clients, every given agency is likely to have a high level of skill and knowledge in their field.
Agencies have experience handling dozens of clients at once. They’ve probably worked with a business in a comparable scenario or industry to yours.
2. Cost and time efficient
Having an in-house team and maintaining it can be significantly more expensive. Rent for office buildings, hardware such as laptops and PCs, software licenses, taxes, and other expenses will increase your budget. Employing an in-house staff of digital marketing talents might be costly as well. Not to mention, finding quality talent may be a challenging and time-consuming task.
And sometimes, even after spending a lot into hiring and training your resources, it might not just work, or they have to leave. It simply drains your resources.
If you’re running a small business, having a digital marketing team can cost more than something you can afford.
Design, video editing, programming, web design, SEO, social media marketing, experience in advertising on various online platforms such as Google ads, skill sets to manage email service, experience in hosting management and web service management, and a variety of other skills are required for digital marketing services.
Here is how an expert digital marketing agency looks:
- Content head
- Project manager
- Email marketer
- Graphic Designer
- SEO Specialist
- Content writer
- Video Editor
- Web developer
- Social Media Manager
- Relationship Manager
Is it time and cost-efficient for you to build an in-house team with these talents?
Compared to this, hiring the services of a digital marketing agency as a partner is going to be far less expensive for you.
An external digital partner can provide you with the talents and their management from a single shop at a much cheaper price than you have to pay to run an in-house marketing team.
Furthermore, with an external partner agency, you will not have to waste time looking for and interviewing suitable employees since the agency will do all of the work for you. As a result, you can spend more time concentrating on your core business rather than worrying about things like hiring human resources, and staff calling in sick, work relationships, and the difficulty of offering insurance and other reimbursements because all of these things will be handled by an outside agency.
Also, you can be confident that a committed team of professionals will work tirelessly on your digital marketing tasks to provide results that exceed your expectations.
3. An experienced and committed partner
Working with a partner agency and employing an in-house team have quite different dynamics.
Your staff is aware that they are part of a command structure. This means that unless they are a member of senior management in your company, they are unlikely to think strategically.
But the case with a digital marketing firm is unique in the way that they collaborate with you as a partner. In many respects, you are paying for a digital marketing partner or perhaps a co-founder rather than an additional team of workers.
Success-driven– When you’re partnering with an external agency, they are always aware that if they don’t provide the results, the collaboration might not last much longer. This indicates that the goals are correctly aligned and that there exists a sense of time-bound delivery to keep things moving.
Technical insight – A digital marketing firm will bring a fresh viewpoint to the table. This will enable you to identify issues that you were previously unaware of about your business insights. They will also be thinking about ideas on how to build your firm on a much greater level.
4. Updated with industry trends
One of the issues of successful online marketing is the requirement to remain competitive in the market and connect with your clients. This makes it necessary to stay updated on trends and ideas.
However, there are several options and marketing platforms accessible these days which makes it difficult for you to make the right choice.
It might be tough for you to tell which new and developing technologies will work best for you.
A professional digital marketing firm will be informed about a wide range of software solutions that are the latest in the industry and will employ the techniques and systems that are most suited to your business demands.
5. Single-stop shop for your digital solutions
One of the best benefits of hiring an external digital marketing agency is that you will have all kinds of talents in a single place.
If we compare it to your in-house team, suppose your content writer goes absent due to some reason, and suddenly all of your work is stuck. And the whole project will be hanging in the middle.
While having a digital partner means that you don’t have to face accidents like this and you will get your projects done on time.
When you outsource your work to an agency, you get a team of skilled marketers that specialize in diverse industries and collaborate to fulfill your marketing goals — all without the hassles and expense of hiring, training and keeping staff.
At McElligott Digital Marketing we provide a range of digital marketing services with our domain experts in:
- Content marketing and management
- Pay-per-click advertising
- Web development
- Website content
- Content writing
- Search engine optimization
- Social media management
When you choose us, you get a dedicated point of contact, and account manager to coordinate your complete digital marketing needs.
What are the benefits of hiring an in-house marketing team?
1. Smooth communication
Easy communication leads to effective collaboration- there’s no better way to describe the value of communication in the domain of digital marketing.
And communication becomes more effective when decisions are quick with no bottlenecks.
Working together and communicating is faster and easier when you have an in-house marketing team than when working with outside companies. Let’s see the reasons behind this.
The entire team collaborates and communicates using the same tools for everyone, and there exists no gap.
Each project’s goals and expectations are defined clearly beforehand and worked on collaboratively.
Because every team member is part of the same enterprise and already has an understanding of the products or services, you don’t need to spend time in unnecessary explanations to express expectations and goals.
2. Direct control of your marketing strategy
Hiring an in-house marketing team allows you to have more control over the implementation of your marketing program.
Although micromanaging is typically not a smart idea when you’re already busy with your core projects, having your staff means that you will have a better understanding of what is going on.
Many digital marketing agencies do not have such a tight working connection within the team and instead have their methods and attitudes about how to get things done.
Better accessibility – Your in-house staff is always available throughout business hours, and you may call upon them anytime. As opposed to an external digital agency, working in the same office location allows for considerably closer communication.
Even if you work remotely, you may immediately hop into a meeting with your team as per your time and needs.
More flexibility – When working with external agencies, you often agree on an area of work, and everything is put in a contract. It might sometimes be difficult to break from this scope without paying additional fees and renegotiating with your partner. While, when you have an in-house staff, you have greater flexibility to make new changes and demands, even if you are limited by a lack of human resources.
3. Powerful brand communication
No one understands your brand messaging better than you. And the next line is your close team members.
Digital marketing agencies usually deal with many clients at the same time. As a result, they attempt to convey the brand messaging of different businesses in a variety of methods, which may compromise consistency.
You have to own the brand messaging if you want to have greater influence over how people view your brand, especially if you run a large business. And, to stress more, efficient communication is the core of smart marketing.
You retain complete control over how the idea of your brand is expressed and presented to your potential customers by having an in-house marketing team. You have complete control over the tone and feel of your design, as well as your brand voice, the channel of contact, and many other aspects.
An external digital agency will take more time to absorb your brand voice as compared to your in-house marketing team.
Industry insight – Greater brand understanding translates into greater customer engagement. Your internal staff will have a greater understanding of your customers’ problem issues, what values align with them, and how you may better meet their expectations.
Capabilities – Your in-house team will have a more clear understanding of what your company is capable of in terms of product design and marketing. For example, they will be better equipped to use the many teams in your business to increase marketing operations, such as supplying information to salespeople in the company.
4. Data security
Having an in-house team aids in the security of your data within the firm.
You are under no obligation to disclose customer or corporate information with third-party entities for any purpose. This provides a strong layer of data protection for your firm.
5. Focussed staff
When you work with a partner firm, the individuals allocated to your project might be working with other clients as well.
Juggling numerous tasks means that the firm you partner with may not be able to provide you with their whole human resources, as a person working only for your company would.
Final word
Whether you hire a digital marketing agency or create your team from square one, it boils down to the unique situation your business is in.
To build a team, you have to consider the cost, management, market, time, and your single capability to lead a team.
It does not have to be a one-way decision.
The best strategy you can adopt may be having a few in-house talents who collaborate with a digital marketing agency.
Tell us in the comments about your unique situation; we are dedicated to helping you out.
