
3 Reasons to Hire a Marketing Agency
Marketing is the backbone of any business. You can’t grow your brand or stay ahead of the competition without some form of it.
The benefits of utilizing marketing strategies for your business model include a strong and authentic brand presence, improved visibility, increased engagement with prospective customers, and of course, a higher revenue flow.
Many businesses struggle with making sense of the complexities of modern marketing methods or lack the know-how and resources required to create and implement successful campaigns. Others are simply content to keep throwing random strategies at the wall and hoping one of them sticks. All of which affect a business’ bottom line negatively.
Here is where a marketing agency comes in. They stand in the gap for businesses that do not have the time, resources, or experience to tackle different marketing angles and challenges. From web design to search engine optimization, branding, content creation, graphic design, social media, email, communications, pay-per-click, research, and more—at once and effectively.
However, companies are skeptical about handing over their marketing concerns to an external agency due to several reasons, including the absence of trust and the belief that agencies are a costly option. Regardless of the side, you belong to, the benefits of hiring a marketing agency cannot be overstated.
The three main reasons to collaborate with an agency to unlock the growth potential of your business are:
- Access to a team of experts instead of one in-house marketing manager: You get to work with an array of experts, who will leverage their collective skills, experiences, insights, and knowledge of the latest trends, technology, and tools to accomplish your marketing objectives.
- Considerable savings in overhead costs: Agencies work as independent contractors, which means that instead of hemorrhaging cash on full salaries and benefits to build a decent marketing team, you only pay a fee monthly to retain their services.
- They make it easier to scale and grow your company: Whether your business needs to ramp up its traditional offline marketing or digital marketing efforts, agencies are there to make the growth process as frictionless and timely as possible.
Before you decide as to whether you want to commit your marketing needs to an agency, here’s a deep dive into the reasons why you should consider this option.
1. Access to a team of experts instead of one in-house marketing manager
The marketing landscape is continuously evolving, with new technologies and disciplines popping up every day. For a marketing strategy to be effective, businesses need to combine various creative elements, which are more than one marketing manager can ever hope to master.
Depending on your marketing needs, you might require an assortment of skills like data analysis, content development, graphic design, web development, SEO research and optimization, mobile marketing, social media management, copywriting, communications management, and so on. The chances of finding an in-house manager who is proficient in all these disciplines are slim to none.
Gaining adequate knowledge about each of these aspects of marketing takes a staggering amount of time and effort. It will leave you with an overworked marketing manager or a strategy that falls short in several key areas. Both of which will lead to less-than-desirable consequences for your business.
However, marketing agencies employ a wide range of people, who are experts in their respective fields and can offer a tremendous amount of experience across several industries. They know what trends are tested and trusted and can quickly adapt your campaigns to satisfy changing market tastes without putting your timelines or goals in peril.
An in-house manager will only be working with a limited amount of data, resources, and experience, so the strategies they develop are contained within the scope of their knowledge. They’ll be less incentivized to explore new directions for your marketing efforts either due to the risk involved or lack of know-how.
As a result, your business could end up sinking money into strategies that are ineffective or not yielding good enough results.\
With a marketing agency, innovative solutions are the watchword. They’re not going to waste time and money on a campaign that’s not working when there are so many options that they can explore. Since they work with multiple businesses, industries, and professionals, they’re continually unlocking fresh perspectives and insights that can apply to your situation.
While the learning curve might prove to be too great a burden for an in-house manager, agencies pride themselves on staying on top of the latest trends and can afford to devote time and resources to learn them to serve their clients better.
Their professionals do the time-consuming work of acquiring new skills, experimenting with current developments and tactics in advertising, technology, customer acquisition, and retention, while your business reaps the benefits.
You can access more value for your money thanks to the diverse skillset and experiences that agencies provide. The chances of getting trapped in bias and tunnel vision are significantly reduced with marketing agencies because you have specialists with wildly different backgrounds and unique experiences tackling a challenge.
Your in-house manager might be afraid to voice their concerns or explore a different creative direction for fear of coming off as incompetent or losing their jobs, so they adopt a cookie-cutter or “this how we’ve always done it” approach to your business.
An agency’s job is to look at your business from an outsider perspective and offer detailed, purposeful, outside-the-box solutions to improve your visibility and generate revenue.
The strategies that agencies employ are backed by data, research, and standard processes, which typically result in an 18% growth in revenue compared to companies that take a cavalier approach to their marketing efforts.
Agencies also provide access to the latest tools to aid in analytics, automation, research, search management, competitor analysis, and community management. All of which can be overwhelming for the budgets of small and medium-sized businesses.
2. Huge savings on overhead costs
Without looking at the numbers, DIY marketing seems like the more affordable option compared to hiring an agency, which is why many business owners are opposed to the latter. When hiring a new employee, such as a marketing manager, you need to consider their base salary.
Additionally, you need to account for other added expenses such as payroll taxes, recruitment costs, vacation pay, health insurance, pension, training, orientation, and other benefits, which in total would amount to 1.25 to 1.4 times their base salary.
The demand and salaries for competent mid-level marketing professionals are on the rise. For example, between 2016 and 2019, the average salary of a Social Media Manager increased by 24%, Content Strategist by 13%, Marketing Manager by 4%, and that of a Director of Marketing went up by 24%.
According to Salary.com, the average annual salary plus benefits cost of hiring a marketing manager in the United States is $154,698 as of December 26, 2019. The total compensation breakdown is as follows:
- Base Salary: $104,174
- Healthcare: $8,352
- Social Security: $8,510
- Pension: $6,007
- Disability: $2,225
- 401K/403B: $4,672
- Time Off: $13,691
On average, hiring a marketing agency costs between $3,000 to $6,000 monthly, depending on the range of services they undertake. For instance, outsourcing your inbound marketing process would only take $36,000 to $72,000 out of your annual budget.
- Monthly retainer: $3,000
- Monthly Software Subscriptions: $1,000
- Average Annual Total Compensation: $48,000
Keep in mind that when you hire a marketing manager, it will take 6.2 months before you start seeing a return on your investment. Going by this and the figures above, your business would save about $106,698 annually by hiring an agency to oversee your marketing operations while enjoying immediate and measurable returns on investment.
It would be near impossible to find one employee who possesses all the different skills needed to execute an effective marketing strategy. Therefore, you will need to assemble a team of professionals to take care of other tasks that they can’t handle, which means spending more money.
Here’s a look at six essential and necessary positions you would have to fill to make up a marketing team and their average annual salary plus benefits:
- Marketing Manager: $104,174 + $50,524
- Content Strategist: $46,267 + $24,337
- Graphic Designer: $54,900 + $27,388
- Social Media Professional: $52,000 + $25,288
- Copywriter: $64,669 + $31,232
- Web Developer: $50,511 + $25,804
In total, this would work out to $557,094 annually, while the average cost of hiring a marketing agency stays relatively cheap at around $48,000. When you factor in other cost requirements like larger office space, purchasing computers, desks, software, subscription packages, and other resources your in-house team will require to perform efficiently, hiring an agency is the most cost-effective solution.
Outsourcing your marketing needs to an agency will not only save you a lot of money in the long run, but you would also be getting more value for your budget.
3. Make it easier to scale and grow your company
What happens when you need to increase marketing output or take your business to the next step on the growth ladder? With an in-house team, this typically means hiring more workers to scale your efforts. If you’re a small or mid-sized business, you probably won’t have the budget for new employees right away, so your business will have to keep punching below its weight until you do.
Agencies come equipped with a large number of highly skilled professionals that can be called upon to work on your campaign and business as they get bigger. They can accommodate growth and smoothly transition from one strategy to the other in real-time.
For example, if you want to target new markets by incorporating Facebook and Google Ad campaigns into your strategy, you don’t need to hire a new expert or pay for an online course for one of your team members. Then wait for them to get certified before you can start exploring this direction.
With a marketing agency, all you have to do is say the word, and they’ll assign the right specialists to cater to your needs and fuel your growth immediately. You cannot afford not to take advantage of new opportunities or lose your competitive edge when it comes to marketing your brand.
When you consider the level of expertise, experience, efficiency, and money savings that they bring to the table, hiring a marketing agency is an absolute steal and one of the most profitable decisions you can make for your business.