The digital marketing debate, in-house vs agency, is one that at some point every company weighs in on. Digital marketing is key to the success of a business. However, it is complicated by a changing online landscape and fickle user preferences. This situation is made even trickier by rising uncertainty within business environments; like artificial intelligence and technological advancements, market disruptions and economic downturns.
The answer to the question of going in-house or using an agency depends on your creative and marketing requirements. Accordingly, to make the right choice for your company, you need to understand the pros and cons.
Understanding In-House Teams
Any marketing-related work that is carried out by employees of a business or organization is considered in-house. Usually, it also means that few, if any, external marketing people are involved in a company’s marketing strategies and processes. Increased digitization, improved technology, and the decreased cost of accessing technology have greatly improved the caliber of work and capabilities of in-house digital marketing teams.
5 Advantages of In-House Marketing
- An in-depth understanding of the company, brand, product, services, and industry.
- Strong alignment between marketing strategies and company ethos.
- Faster workflow and better communication between departments and on-site marketing team.
- A dedicated marketing team that works solely for the company.
- Complete ownership and control of brand, product, and service communications.
Nevertheless, there are challenges with only using an in-house marketing team. When hiring, there is often a tradeoff between the level of experience and skill sets of potential team members versus cost. Another disadvantage is that HR is less flexible. Non-performing agencies are easier and quicker to replace than restructuring in-house teams. Another challenge inherent within long-standing teams is the risk of having repetitive, overused, or uncontested ideas for campaigns. Furthermore, resource limitations can impact the quality of in-house advertising and marketing campaigns as software and tools require constant upgrades.
Benefits of Hiring an Agency
A marketing agency specializes in assisting clients to advertise their products and services with the goal of increasing revenue. They do this by helping companies strategize, design, execute and monitor marketing-related activities. A digital marketing agency focuses on online marketing and will seek out appropriate channels to reach target audiences.
5 Advantages of Hiring a Marketing Agency
- Access to professionals with diverse specialties.
- Digital marketing that is based on a wide range of up-to-date software and tools.
- Fresh ideas with innovative and new marketing campaign approaches.
- Established connections with other companies and advertising platforms.
- Quicker and increased ability to scale up marketing campaigns.
Working alongside industry experts can also have its drawbacks. Agencies have multiple clients. The continuous shifting of focus between clients can result in slow turnaround times, de-prioritization, or feelings of neglect. Furthermore, most agencies work best when they have a degree of freedom over strategic decisions. However, this can result in a company losing control of its marketing campaign and misalignment with a company’s brand voice. It also requires a high level of trust as content production can necessitate the disclosure of sensitive company information.
What Are the Cost Comparisons?
When evaluating the cost benefits of hiring an agency vs. building an in-house team it’s important to look at access to expertise versus employment of expertise. For example, paying for SEO services versus an SEO specialist’s full-time salary. Additionally, to be effective a digital marketing team needs to stay current with their skills, software, and tools. Over time this can escalate overhead costs as well as decrease the work time of team members.
Agency prices depend on what you need. This enables you to pick specific packages or services rather than employ a full marketing team. However, the pay-per-service model some agencies offer can result in hidden and unexpected costs. Thus, for smaller companies, with fewer clients, starting with in-house management of marketing campaigns is often more cost-effective. Especially if existing employees can efficiently and effectively fulfill multiple roles.
While the black-boxing consumer approach some agencies use can significantly slash client costs, it might lead to blanket conclusions and assumptions. This could result in a generalized, nonspecific target audience. And consequently, a digital campaign with minimal impact because it fails to resonate. In contrast, having an in-house team that understands the company’s target audience and industry dynamics means campaigns are well-focused. This leads to increased effectiveness and good ROI.
Expert marketers tend to be in the know when it comes to the latest trends and fickleness of consumers. Advertising can therefore be strategic rather than trial-running marketing approaches and online platforms to see what works best. Over time the expense of failures or diminished effectiveness of marketing strategies is likely to prove costly.
How To Choose Between an In-House or Agency Partnership
Choosing between an in-house or agency approach to digital marketing can be overwhelming. It needs to be a decision that considers the uniqueness of a business. Factors such as its size, budget, target audience, industry and existing employee skills and capacity.
When deliberating it is worth looking at a hybrid approach which enables companies to have the best of both worlds. A hybrid approach provides the benefits of in-house marketing operations, such as an in-house team providing a swift response to marketing activities. And the benefits of accessing the advantages of agencies by outsourcing tasks that require specialized skills, tools, and/or expertise analysis.
SocialQ takes the hybrid approach one step further than other agencies. Our objective is to provide clients with the highest level of service, more flexibility and digital marketing campaigns with augmented resonance. We achieve this by offering clients an in-house partnership with outside expertise at a competitive blended rate model that minimizes cost and maximizes output.
SocialQ as Your In-House Agency
SocialQ is unique in its hybrid digital marketing approach; our team becomes your team. This is because SocialQ acts as an in-house marketing partner while simultaneously providing outside agency expertise.
At SocialQ, we have media, strategy, and creative under the same roof. We leverage each other’s expertise, constantly share, and benefit from ongoing performance learning. For us, real collaboration means a person-centric approach by people who care and think about the “who” and where” to inspire the “what.” The result is that we deliver upon an ongoing, omnichannel, integrated, and purposeful ‘Direct 2 Client’ approachthat is cohesive and delivers a maximized ROI. Contact Us to find out how we can work together and implement digital marketing campaigns that deliver.
