Is it a good idea to hire a Marketing agency?
If you’re not sure if you should work with a marketing agency for your business or hire in-house we’re here to help you make the right decision.
Hiring in-house vs. Marketing Agency: Which Is Better, And When?
Choosing if you should hire a marketing agency or hire someone in-house is a tough decision. We’re here to make your decision easier.
| Hire in-house when | Work with an agency when | |
|---|---|---|
|
Your time frame is |
Unlimited/Long |
Constrained |
|
Your budget is |
Infinite/high |
Limited (better talent - rent vs. buy) |
|
Your clarity of need is |
High |
Low/Medium |
|
Your target market is |
Local |
Global |
|
Your founder |
Has marketing knowledge. Experienced with business hires. |
Doesn’t have marketing knowledge. Not experienced with business hires. |
| Hire in-house when | |
|---|---|
|
Your time frame is |
Unlimited/Long |
|
Your budget is |
Infinite/high |
|
Your clarity of need is |
High |
|
Your target market is |
Local |
|
Your founder |
Has marketing knowledge. Experienced with business hires. |
| Work with an agency when | |
|---|---|
|
Your time frame is |
Constrained |
|
Your budget is |
Limited (better talent - rent vs. buy) |
|
Your clarity of need is |
Low/Medium |
|
Your target market is |
Global |
|
Your founder |
Doesn’t have marketing knowledge. Not experienced with business hires. |
Execution time
Employee
Longer execution and implementation time.
Limited by the small number of staff members available.
Agency
Shorter execution and implementation time. Ready to adapt and allocate more staff members to fit the client's needs.
Market understanding & research
Employee
Implements a limited marketing or branding strategy based solely on their insight into the field.
Agency
Implements comprehensive and coherent marketing and/or branding strategy, with input from various experts from different departments.
Project externalization
Employee
Scouting for adjacent services providers can prove costly in terms of time & money.
Agency
Already has a database of trustworthy providers and adjacent services such as media production.
Skills & know-how
Employee
An employee is limited to a certain amount of skills and know-how of the industry. It has no way of knowing all the things an agency can offer.
If the company needs more specialists in certain areas, it would have to hire more people.
Agency
An agency can adapt the work, skill, and know-how based on different goals and needs, as the business goes through different phases, allowing for a lot more flexibility and ease of scaling.
An agency offers access to more individuals and skill sets: media buying, graphic design, strategy, digital marketing, web design & development, data analysis, SEO, branding, and many more.
Availability
Employee
When an employee leaves the company, the employer has to restart the entire hiring process, and training regarding the company. Marketing activities might suffer interruptions during this time.
Agency
The agency will always have at least 2 staff members assigned to the client. There will always be someone available to take care of tasks and support all marketing efforts of the company.
Employee management
Employee
The employer needs to allocate money and time for training, courses, workshops, webinars, and events.
Agency
You don’t need to do it. The agency will cover these for its own employees, which will then help your company in the long run.
Employee costs
Employee: starting at $40.000 / year
A full-time employee costs you salary, taxes, benefits, sick leave, vacation, healthcare and the hours they don’t actually have any specific work to do.
Agency: starting at $8.400 / year
By working with a marketing agency you only pay for the services you need, making it easier to get good results, achieve your goals, and even scale up/down from one month to another.
Operational costs
Employee
The employer needs to cover the costs of marketing, design tools, licenses, subscriptions, and office equipment.
Agency
The agency already has access to multiple tools and will acquire more, if necessary for the client.
Hiring costs
Employee
Hiring and training new employees costs time and money. These could be invested in other areas of the business.
Agency
An agency is ready to start a collaboration in less than 10 days at no additional costs.
Which one is better?
There are advantages and disadvantages to both in-house staff and a marketing agency. Which one is the right one for your business?
In-House Staff
Pros
- Sole focus is your brand so they will learn your company faster;
- Inside access to your workplace and can easily create content;
- Better collaboration with other teams;
- Part of your company culture.
Cons
- Increased costs;
- No software or access to the best tools;
- Limited skills in digital marketing;
- Cannot develop a comprehensive & good marketing plan;
- No marketing process in place;
- Slow growth advancement;
- Not always a good fit for your company.
Marketing Agency
Pros
- Access to skilled experts in digital marketing;
- Access to the latest trends and marketing updates;
- No hiring or recruiting fee;
- Process driven;
- Includes an account manager or account coordinator that you don’t pay for;
- Access to people in different industries that can help your growth;
- Constantly learning at their own expense.
Cons
- Shared resources (they are working on other brands as well);
- You cannot make them work on weekends or holidays unless you pay extra;
- You don’t see them or can micro-manage them everyday;
- It may take them longer to learn the ins and out of your company especially if your process/business is more complex.
Successful Stories Of Our Clients
Over the years, we’ve been delivering unmatched results across a variety of industries. See what we’ve done for some of our clients.
Nordes Summer Flavors
Key to a successful brand awareness campaign: gin, competition & cocktails, along with high community engagement and user-generated content from the participants.
Our main focus for this campaign and the general objectives were to build brand recognition for Nordés and effectively increase engagement with the brand at the highest ROI. We also wanted to build a community around the brand and the campaign while also producing a lot of UGC (user-generated content).
Ria Money Transfer
Prizes and brand awareness campaign for a money-transferring platform.
A creative campaign to increase the market share in Romania, for Ria Money Transfer through money transfers and sign-ups on the landing page.
Wanting to be more prominent and better known on the Romanian market, Ria Money Transfer needed a campaign that will put them on the consumer’s minds and also persuade them to interact with their brand.
& strategy
messaging
design
design
Ads
advertising
materials
Flamingo
Startup brand strategy & web design for a restaurant app.
Flamingo App was ready to launch its product but it was missing an essential element in order to enter a highly competitive market: branding. Balloonline was in charge to transform the product into a brand that will create a completely new restaurant-customer experience.
The brand needed to be attractive both to restaurants and their clients, so in order to have a complete customer acquisition funnel we used a website and a landing page for B2B advertisement and inquiries.
design
story
marketing
strategy
Learn what our agency can do for you
We have the resources and expertise to build you campaigns and strategies that will make you stand our from the crowd and get the results you need for your business.
We can help you reach out to millions of people and engage them, delivering quality content in order to create genuine storytelling experiences and make your audience fall in love with your brand.
They are definitely a trustworthy team of professionals. They successfully managed to accommodate all our needs and perpetually proved their creative skills.
Diana Dumitrescu
CEO - InnovX Accelerator
They definitely have been the right guys at the right time for us, offering us the solutions and insights we needed in order to build a coherent brand.
Daniel Duncan
General Manager – RubixLink
We work with happy clients
Over the years we worked with clients and brands from various industries: constructions, healthcare, HoReCa, and many more.
Let’s see if we are a good fit for your business
If you’re still unsure if you should hire an agency or someone in-house, or if you’ve already made up your mind and are ready to hire an agency, we’re ready to help. Schedule a free consultation with our CEO and see what you can do to make your business succeed and thrive.
What You Get By Working With Us:
- Dedicated Team
- Highly Trained Specialists
- Quick execution time
- Guaranteed results
- No Hidden Costs
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