Hiring a Digital Marketing Agency vs. Hiring In-House
It’s almost Black Friday - which means digital marketing is as essential as toilet paper and picnics in lockdown.
The first hurdle is deciding whether to hire an in-house internal marketing team or an agency.
While we’d love the answer to be as clear cut as ‘always hire an agency’ - we are, after all, an agency (and a good one at that 😉), it’s a bit more complicated than that:
Just like marketing is an art and not a science, what will work best for you and your business is totally dependent on your company’s needs.
There truly isn’t a formula, and there may be different stages of your business where you may need different support - which may include having both internal and external capabilities.
In light of this, we thought instead of giving you an answer, we’d help break down the benefits and structure of each, so you can make your own decisions.
Hiring an in-house digital marketing team
To put it as simply as possible, marketing teams promote, sell, and distribute a product or service. Depending on the size and type of your business, you may need a whole team or one or two employees to fulfil these needs.
Your digital marketing team, ideally, would work together to create compelling campaigns and programs that grow the business.
The responsibilities are wide, but include:
Analysing data, website optimisation, email marketing, maintaining listings across e-commerce platforms, coordinating with sales teams to create marketing campaigns, social media management, brand strategy and more.
The different roles of in-house digital marketing teams
Marketing is a collaborative discipline by nature, so there will always be some overlap between roles, and again, depends on the size of your business. Some in-house roles include:
- Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)
- Promotions Manager
- Social Media Manager
- Brand Strategist
- Digital Marketing Manager
- Campaign Manager
- SEO officer
- Copywriter
- Designer
Hiring a digital marketing agency
Ah, agencies. Filled with tech nerds, offices that look like adult playgrounds, and acronyms like ROAS (Return On Ad Spend) that get thrown around in every meeting. And hey, we’re no different - but at least we’re self-aware.
What do digital marketing agencies offer?
The capabilities and structure of digital marketing agencies differ from place to place, some that focus purely on the strategy side of marketing, others that focus on the design/content side, and then there’s ones like us that do it all.
Some key services of digital marketing agencies include:
Paid Social Ads
- Facebook/Instagram
- TikTok
- Snapchat
Paid Search Ads
- YouTube
- Snapchat
Video, Content & Web Creative
- Animation
- Branding & logo design
- Copywriting
- Email automation/design
- Organic social media feeds
- Video content
- Web design
- Website auditing
At DataSauce, we build our teams around our clients and their needs. Each client sits within a squad of digital marketers, each with varying talents - whether it be paid search, social, design, communications and more.
The needs of our clients are diverse - we have some that we do the full monty for, others where we purely do ad buying, and others where we develop their online presence through organic content and SEO optimisation.
Flexibility is a bonus of digital marketing agencies. As our clients grow, we grow with them, which might mean amping up our responsibilities, or toning them down.
How to find the right digital marketing agency
Our advice for this one is pretty simple: look for agencies that don’t BS, have proven and consistent results from a range of clients, and that most importantly you click with.
Building a partnership is the key - you’re trusting an agency to put your business first, so make sure you’re sure that they can get the job done.
Ready to learn more about DataSauce? Get in touch for a chat today.
.png)
.png)
.png)
