In-House Or Agency Digital Marketers: Which Is Worth Your Businesses Investment?
With so much reliance now on digital operations, many businesses are now investing their efforts into their digital marketing strategies to gain more traffic and visibility to their websites and other social platforms. Whilst digital marketing seems simple at first glance, there are so many intricate elements to it that mean boosting your website will take more than investing in great site development.
With so much reliance now on digital operations, many businesses are now investing their efforts into their digital marketing strategies to gain more traffic and visibility to their websites and other social platforms.
Whilst digital marketing seems simple at first glance, there are so many intricate elements to it that mean boosting your website will take more than investing in great site development.
Digital marketing strategies that build traffic to websites such as search engine optimization, and pay-per-click advertising (PPC) are the bare minimum strategies that most businesses would benefit from.
When deciding how to start implementing these techniques, the question of “should we create an in-house team or outsource to a digital marketing agency” tends to arise. Everyone has their own opinions on this, and it all comes down to what monetary and time investment your business is willing to make.
The Difference Between In-House & Agency
Essentially, if you decide to internally build a digital marketing team they will be a stakeholder without a company and will be employed to build a strategy for the benefit of your business only. They will operate for the sole purpose of digital marketing success within your business.
On the other hand, an agency is an outsourced or online organisation that deals with multiple client accounts, and they will offer their digital marketing expertise and services in exchange for your investment. They both might offer the same services such as PPC marketing, but their skills and expertise might differ.
If you are in the process of considering both, take a look at the positives and negatives we have compiled for each:
In-House Digital Marketing Pros
There are of course equal pros to cons for in-house digital marketing teams. First, let’s start with the pros.
Exclusively Focused
By creating your own in-house digital marketing team, you can expect your team to have a common goal of achieving success on only your business’s digital platforms. As the team is employed to only work for your account, you should not have concerns that their time will be taken away from other clients, which might be a focus for agencies dealing with multiple clients.
Also, your in-house team will have better familiarity with your brand leading to fast content creation for example, and tunnel vision whilst implementing digital strategies for website traffic.
Quicker Communication
When operating with an in-house team, you can expect to have better communication avenues between your employees. As they are all working within your business, they can easily get in touch with any other teams that are also a part of your company to avoid wasting time.
Assuming that your team will be site based, they can get in touch with all of the relevant people, such as in-house website developers, to quickly fix any problems they might find.
Control Over The Strategy
Understandably as a business owner or as a highly authoritative figure within a company, you will benefit from having greater control over the operations happening. Having an internal team means that you will be able to stay constantly informed as to what is going on, and get reports instantly on where the campaigns are up to.
In-House Digital Marketing Cons
Software Costs
Not many businesses have an understanding of how expensive digital marketing tools are until their staff members inform them of the multiple expensive applications that are required to carry out efficient work.
Applications such as Google Analytics, Ahrefs, and SERP Robot require monthly subscriptions that accumulate over time. You will be responsible as the business to pay for these services for your in-house team.
Expensive To Build A Team
An internal marketing team requires different people who have various skill sets that fall under the digital marketing umbrella. This might include an SEO-specific specialist, a social media ads manager specialist, a content creator, and many more people to ensure that all the tasks are done.
Whilst it might seem cost-efficient to ask one person to manage all of the Digital marketing, it is not a reliable, long-term solution and will likely lead to poor work being produced.
Turnover Risks
Having an in-house team is risky if you are looking to avoid the lengthy hiring process when staff decides to leave. Aside from paying your staff thousands a year, you will have to pay an additional lump sum of money to find someone to replace them if they decide to leave.
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Digital Marketing Agency Benefits
Now onto working with an agency. Many different benefits come with working with a digital marketing agency.
Industry Experts
Digital marketing agencies operate on the premise that they can produce successful results for your digital marketing needs, hence why they pride themselves on staying up-to-date with the latest trends and offering the best strategies possible.
Assuming that you find an experienced agency, they have often made all of the mistakes that businesses need to avoid before, so you should expect a seamless experience.
Less Responsibility
Outsourcing to a digital marketing agency takes the weight off the shoulders of the business. Whilst it would be the responsibility of the company and integral team to train new members of staff on how they operate, a digital marketing agency’s in-house team has a diverse group of members with their own skill sets which your business is not responsible for training.
Diverse Skill Sets
As mentioned above, digital marketing agencies have a team of members who are either multi-skilled or employees for specific tasks.
Because their sole purpose is to keep their clients happy and their staff highly skilled you can have the peace of mind that if you are looking for an SEO manchester based, their team has the latest knowledge and skills to utilise new digital strategies.
Less Costly
Often, people jump to hire internal teams as they think it will save them money in the long term. The truth is hiring a digital marketing agency can be much more inexpensive as you can avoid the costly hiring process, paying individual wages, paying for essential software, and also bonuses in the long term.
The wage of one digital marketing manager can cost the same price as a year’s worth of work from an agency. If you are looking to fix your finances, going to an agency would be best.
Digital Marketing Agency Cons
Other Client Relationships
One of the aspects of agencies that larger organisations have a problem with is the fact that their digital marketing agency is not dedicated to only one business, therefore they are missing out on time that could be solely focused on their digital marketing.
Poorly managed digital marketing agencies often under-deliver work that they over-promise, due to the high number of clients they take on for profits.
Multiple Points Of Contact
As mentioned, digital marketing agencies often have a team of people with specialised skill sets that are dedicated to certain tasks. This can get complicated when it comes to communicating your expectations and their results as multiple people are working on different things.
Less Control
Whilst digital marketing agencies often are reputable to take advice from, you often are left with not as much control. Strategies that other businesses implement might be advised as not effective for you by your marketing agency, and with reduced budgets, they will often only work within the borders of what you are paying them.
Whilst doing what they are paid to do makes sense, the personable and exceeding expectations approach that you may find with an internal team can be lost.
Bottom Line
Both in-house digital markers and agencies have their strengths and weaknesses. Deciding which is best for you might come down to the investment you have readily available, the time you have, and also what you see your business doing in the long term. All businesses if they wish to grow and find success should be zooming in on digital marketing, but there is no definitive answer as to which team would be best. Take action, and learn from your wins and losses.