Hiring an inhouse marketing team VS. outsourcing digital marketing services

Digital marketing should be a key element of your business strategy, however, for your company to achieve its marketing goals it is imperative to choose the correct marketing team to create and implement an ongoing digital marketing strategy.

When determining who to work with, many business owners find it challenging to decide between recruiting an in-house digital marketer or opting to work with an outsourced digital marketing services team, also known as a full service digital agency. There are a variety of differences between the two options, and both offer their pros and cons, however, the decision depends on who can best meet your marketing requirements.

To help you decide which route to take for your company’s digital marketing services, we have rounded up some common positives and negatives for each option…

In-house marketing team vs outsourcing digital marketing: The pros and cons

Skillset and industry knowledge

When choosing between hiring an in-house marketer or working with a fully integrated digital agency, it’s important to consider the skillset and knowledge that each option has to offer.

Creative agencies often have a team of marketing experts that specialise in different areas of marketing such as SEO, web design, content marketing services and social media. Each member of the team will have a variety of skills that business owners can utilise when developing and implementing a marketing strategy.

In comparison, although an in-house marketer will have their own diverse skillset, it’s likely that they won’t have the same amount of knowledge and as vast skillset as an agency and therefore, may not have the ability to meet your marketing requirements if you are looking for a complete digital marketing strategy.

Budget

Budget for all companies is one of the most important factors when considering a new digital marketing strategy.

To employ an in-house marketer, you must consider their salary as well as any further marketing costs for running campaigns. Additional costs could be extra support in areas where your marketing team are missing skills or knowledge, paying for advertisements on social media and advert placements and high-quality links for search engine optimisation purposes. Over the course of a year, these fees can add up, and may be things that you haven’t budgeted for.

However, often when working with a digital marketing outsourcing company you will pay a single monthly fee which covers the cost of the agreed marketing services. Although as the campaign goes on there may be increases, these will be discussed with your digital agency and based on return on investment. For this single fee multiple digital marketing methods can be included, and regular reporting and meetings in place to discuss how the budget is performing in comparison to leads, traffic and brand awareness being generated.

Commitment

As a business owner, you’ll understand that hiring an in-house marketing team is a big commitment. You should consider that they must be paid a set salary throughout the year when their services may not always be required. Furthermore, if you can no longer afford to pay them, it can be challenging to terminate their contract.

In contrast, when working with an outsourced marketing agency, you pay for a service monthly, and the contract between yourself and an agency relationship can be paused or ended if you come into financial difficulty. Most digital marketing companies ask for a minimum of one months’ notice, known as a termination period, before the cancellation of your contract.

Tools of the trade

There are a variety of online tools and plugins which can be used in conjunction with digital marketing strategies to simplify the process of monitoring results. Software such as SEMRush, Mangools and Google Analytics are just three of the many online tools available. When hiring an in-house marketing team, you need to consider which tools will be required to enforce the marketing strategy, along with the cost of these tools.

Creative digital agencies already have the necessary tools in place to carry out marketing strategies along with knowledge of how to use them. Additionally, the cost of these tools is included in your monthly marketing fee and therefore isn’t something that you will be required to pay for on a monthly basis.

Professional outsourced marketing services from a creative digital agency

We are a specialist digital marketing agency that can fulfil every aspect of your marketing needs. Our team have experience working with businesses in any industry and we are dedicated to ensuring that all our clients achieve their marketing goals. From web design and development to social media management and SEO – we can do it all.

If you are interested in finding out more about the services we provide, or if you would like to speak with a member of our professional team, please feel free to get in touch. Call our office on 01254 447050 or email us at hello@infused.media and we’ll happily answer any of your questions.