Do you have a company and you are thinking of giving a boost to your online marketing but you do not know if it is better to create a department or hire a digital marketing agency?
Do not worry, it is a most normal question at any stage of having a business and it is not one that has an easy solution at all. You have to consider factors related to time, money, experience, existing short-term and long-term strategies as well as long etcetera.
We want to make sure you don’t lose sight of the advantages of hiring a full service marketing agency versus creating an internal department.
1. Costs of hiring qualified personnel
The simplest factor is the cost of hiring and/or training personnel who can develop a plan and carry out the different marketing actions that you propose.
In the long term, the option of going this way could be justified. Even so, when starting and, above all, if your company is small or medium, what will be easier and cheaper for you without losing quality in your digital marketing strategy is to hire an agency.
You will have a comprehensive and tailor-made service at a more or less fixed price. This price will almost always be lower than if you hired the necessary people to carry it out internally. Although it is not so clear to you, to have good online marketing you need a minimum of experts in the different areas. You can try to hire the minimum of them and give them the minimum possible remuneration, but even so, the payroll will surely be more expensive than the agency’s services.
2. Elaboration of a complete digital marketing plan
A marketing agency is specialized in working for different companies and adapting the contents of their work to each one of them. They have experience in various sectors and at various scales.
Therefore, when hiring an agency, you make sure to hire a complete strategy tailored to your business. A digital marketing agency will recommend you follow a path that (according to them) is the best for you. Obviously, it can vary from one agency to another, but you will always take into account every aspect of online marketing.
You will decide whether to include content marketing, email marketing, data analysis, social media management, implementation of more technical things like Google Analytics or other tools, or if you only want to keep one or two of those things. Regardless of your choice, the plan will adapt to all the channels and services that you decide to hire and will be (or should be) effective in achieving your marketing objectives.
3. Specialized tools and services
You may not take it into account, but marketing agencies have very specific tools that help them do their job. We are not talking about platforms like Google Ads or advertiser accounts on Instagram, but about much more powerful and focused tools and accounts. Some examples of this are Adobe Stock accounts, tools such as SemRush or Ahrefs to work on SEO positioning, and access to resources only available to agencies such as dedicated agents for Google and Facebook Ads.
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All these services and tools have a cost that you may not be interested in assuming at this time. By hiring an agency you free yourself from having to pay for all these services.
4. A fresh air to your marketing campaigns
It is true that no one knows the company like the person who has worked for it for a long time. But what if we tell you that sometimes it is good to have an external and neutral point of view?
It is true that when you hire an agency like ours, there is an adaptation process in which we learn how your business works, how you communicate, and who your client is. But once this is done, we create content and campaigns that go according to your style but without falling into things that you have already done and without getting stuck in the same old practices.
An agency will always try to be creative and work so that your situation improves without compromising your image. They will try to follow your practices as much as possible, but it will be very clear if they see that something is a cliché or can be optimized even though it is “how you have done it all your life”.
5. You will always be up to date with news
It is another point of great importance when making a decision. An agency is used to following the news of the sector to be aware of the best practices, changes, and updates.
We talk about things like changes in search engine algorithms, changes in ad platforms, technical updates that may suffer, and other issues that can affect your efficiency and the results of your inbound marketing.
If you have an internal department, you will need to constantly train your staff and know that they will spend many hours following all these developments, being a little slower than an agency that has a very specific plan to deal with these situations.
