Is There Really a Benefit to Hiring a Marketing Agency?

In order to keep your business afloat, you need customers. And in order to get customers, you need leads. Sadly, leads don’t grow on trees. The chances of someone stumbling upon your website and becoming a loyal customer are slim. This is even more true today as marketers are creating digital noise. With all the competition, it’s important to ensure a closed loop lead generation process. From researching and understanding your market to following up with leads, your marketing strategy needs to operate like a well-oiled machine. This doesn’t happen by just hiring a new marketing team member or salesperson.

Below is a list of elements that make up a marketing strategy:

• Market research
• Content development
• Email nurture campaigns
• E-newsletters
• Website development
• Copywriting
• Graphic design
• Campaign management
• SEO optimization
• PPC optimization
• Social media management
• Marketing automation
• CRM

This list doesn’t cover all elements for every marketing strategy, but you get the idea. What if you don’t have the manpower to support marketing efforts like this? It may be time to hire a marketing agency!

The Myths

A lot of myths surround hiring a digital marketing agency. Some think hiring a team of marketing specialists is more affordable. Others think quality of work won’t meet standards. It’s impossible to speak for all marketing agencies, but we at DemandZEN can tell you that these myths aren’t true.

Many business owners compare an agency hourly rate to the base salary of a marketing specialist. However, other factors are not taken into consideration, such as insurances, vacation and sick days, onboarding, equipment, taxes, etc. Not to mention, there’s a 50 percent failure rate among new hires. Then it’s back to the drawing board. Let’s dive into the benefits of hiring and agency.

The Benefits of Hiring an Agency

Work With Experts

Some big companies are paying top dollar to hire and retain marketing experts. This means that a lot of the marketing budget is spent on just trying to keep marketing in-house. You may hire an internal expert in PPC, but who’s going to create landing pages for campaigns? What about other areas of the marketing strategy like SEO, email, social media ads, etc.? Marketing agencies give you access to a wide range of specialists with niche expertise. When companies hire agencies, they are hiring a whole team of experts with diverse specialties.

Time Efficiency

Agencies also have the ability to quickly and efficiently launch short-term and urgent projects. An internal team may take more time to ramp up for a campaign, while agencies can prioritize client needs and get the job done quickly. This is especially important in terms of scaling efforts as client company’s grow. Typically, when a company grows, the marketing department follows suit. Which means more time spent on hiring, training, and ramping up employees. Agencies eliminate this hassle while facilitating a growth mentality.

Diverse Industry Experience

Agencies work with multiple clients and have experienced various different scenarios. They can draw on those experiences to make the most well-informed decisions. Internal team members might have experience with different landing pages or experience with different types of Facebook campaigns, but they likely worked with other team members who carried out other aspects of campaign. With an agency, you can pay a steady rate and have what’s more akin to an assembly line of digital marketing experts with multifaceted experiences.

Agencies Don’t Have Distractions

Agencies are removed from the client office environment. When things are happening like events or changes in team/management, their programs and reporting don’t stop. Clients never have to worry about bottlenecks, delays, new hires, and other things that are common issues.

Why Not Hire a Marketing Manager

Most marketing specialists are experts in one particular type of digital marketing effort, such as social media or email. Although a skilled marketing manager may not be able to execute campaigns on his/her own, they will have experience in all efforts. So, when hiring in-house, a marketing manager would be the wise choice. Consider this: The average salary for a marketing manager is $96,975, not including healthcare, insurances, taxes, etc. And that’s just having one hand in the pot.

Closing Thoughts

For business owners, the question isn’t if you can afford a marketing agency. Rather, it’s “Can you afford the headache of a DIY marketing strategy?” Can you afford to pin a must-have campaign on your internal team who have other concerns? At DemandZEN, we can complement your internal team to expand your ability to strategize and execute an array of efforts to create an omni-channel experience instead of limiting your opportunities. We let our clients work on improving operations or nurturing relationships instead of worrying about content or tweaking campaigns to improve lead viability. That’s what marketing agencies are here to do.

Hiring the right digital marketing agency allows you to craft a more complete marketing strategy, gain access to experts in specific marketing areas, and ultimately grow your business. So now you know the benefit to using an agency, here’s how you pick the right one for you.