Infographic: Hiring A Marketing Agency VS Hiring In-House

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In-House

Some business owners like having in-house employees that they can manage very closely. These marketers are fully immersed in the company’s corporate culture and focus all their time and energy on the specific company goals.

However, there are a few downsides to hiring in-house:

1. Price

Salaries for mid-career marketing professionals do not come cheap:

• Digital Marketing Manager: $72k
• Web Designer: $59k
• Social Media Manager: $56k
• Content Writer: $48k
• Graphic Designer: $46k

Don’t forget to tack on the cost of employee benefits, as well as new marketing tools and technologies!

Hiring a team of in-house marketers could cost you $337,000 a year!

Learn How to Build the Perfect Marketing Team Without Breaking Your Budget

2. Performance

Business owners sometimes try to get around the issue of paying dedicated salaries by dumping their marketing tasks onto an existing employee. In some cases, the tedious and repetitive activities combined with the added pressure leads to poor employee satisfaction and diminished performance. The burnout then leads to turnover, which is not only inefficient but expensive too! At best, the company’s marketing work is just not as efficient as it could be when run by untrained, overburdened individuals.

Complexity:
To hire a team of professionals, a business owner must invest time, money, and effort in developing a training program. Whether you have employees read blogs and watch training videos, attend a conference or seminar, or pay a senior marketer to advise the new hires, setting up an efficient internal marketing engine can be a difficult task that sucks up a vast amount of resources. Furthermore, the only way to scale up is to hire more employees.

Learning Curve:
To remain competitive, a company must stay abreast of the latest trends in digital marketing, invest in new technologies, have a clear strategy, and have the experience to know what tasks will accomplish larger company objectives in the quickest, most cost-effective manner possible.

Stagnation:
It can be easy for internal members of a company to develop tunnel vision and lose sight of what matters most to prospective customers or clients. An outside eye can bring a fresh injection of creativity that helps your content and social media presence proliferate in new and exciting ways.

Big Marketing Agencies

Large marketing firms are readily available for hire these days and it may seem like a good solution for business owners who are looking to access a wealth of knowledge and experience, without having to worry about being slowed down by the learning curve, investing in ongoing training, difficulty upscaling, or paying out costly salaries.

However, there are a few downsides to hiring a big firm:

– Poor Service: Sometimes a firm takes on too many clients at once, which could lead to poor communication and customer service. You may start to feel like you’re being asked to “take a number and wait in line” when you need answers to important questions about your company’s marketing agenda. Poor service from a marketing partner leads business owners to feel like they are “getting the run-around” and have lost control over how their company is run, which can be incredibly stressful.

– Accessibility: Agencies typically operate from 8 am to 5 pm, Monday through Friday. If a website error, security breach, or urgent content update pops up over the weekend, TOO BAD! This lack of flexibility can be frustrating and leads to many missed opportunities. You may find yourself sending countless emails and leaving many phone messages that go unanswered. The stream of excuses as to why you couldn’t talk to someone right away seems endless.

– Misleading: In an effort to get the most clients, large firms claim to be “Jacks of All Trades.” They take the reigns of promoting your business, without understanding the most important aspects of your unique enterprise or what it takes to compete with similar companies. This approach does not build a brand! You may find you’re asked to fill out a detailed questionnaire about your business, but never get to actually sit down and talk with someone about your objectives. On the other hand, you may also see agencies that are hyper-focused in one particular niche – for instance, a firm that claims to be a “cosmetic dentist marketing firm” or a “bank marketing firm.” Yet, these agencies may still operate on a “one-size-fits-all” template that gets applied to your business, without creating an approach that truly works to meet your needs. You really have to do your homework with such a fine niche to see if they actually deliver the individualized approach they promise!

What Makes a Boutique Agency Like Mod Girl Marketing Better?

Our Core Philosophy

We are selective in who we work with. Our clients run fantastic offline businesses that are easy to promote online with the right knowledge and expertise. We truly believe in our partners, so the marketing aspect doesn’t feel forced or contrived. Whether a client is looking for a couple hours of strategy session or long-term muscle to bolster their existing team, we work hard for every business as if it were our own.

We don’t believe in soliciting cheap leads that are tricked into filling out a form or burdening subscriber lists with constant email offers until they buy or unsubscribe. Our holistic marketing approach builds brand awareness and evokes emotion through powerful storytelling. We combine market research and industry best practices with a genuinely helpful attitude and knack for whipping up creative, visual content to nurture client leads.

Here are some of the many reasons to hire Mod Girl Marketing:

• Collaboration with your internal marketing department
• Industry specialization & firm understanding of competition
• Access to the latest trends, technology & tools
• Flexible, fully customized packages
• Detailed ROI analytics reports