With smartphones, apps, and a lifetime’s worth of information available at our fingertips, why should you hire a marketing agency to help you reach your goals and objectives?
Even a decade ago, the concept of being able to take pictures, videos and create posts from your own cell phone or laptop was unheard of. As companies and organizations began to realize the importance of digital marketing to reach their target audience, many began to create and hire for these roles internally.
So why should you hire a marketing agency if you can do many marketing and advertising tasks yourself, or you can hire a dedicated person or team to do so internally?
Advertising Technology is constantly evolving and changing.
Unless it’s your job to stay on top of marketing trends and technology, you probably aren’t aware of all the new tools, platforms, apps, and software that’s available. Virtually every day there is something new coming out, and unless you are constantly researching, experimenting with, and comparing them all, you are already falling behind. If you happened to master something marketing related last year, it’s likely undergone several updates, been replaced by something better, or maybe completely obsolete!
Advertising/Marketing Technology IS what a marketing agency lives and breathes 24/7, because it’s what they do.
Unless you do something all day every day, you aren’t likely to be able to constantly master all the things you need to in order to effectively execute a marketing plan and strategy for your business.
Marketing takes TIME.
While there are more and more functions that can be automated (see what we said about technology above?) for the most part, marketing takes TIME. A lot of time. Hours of every day, seven days a week. Many business owners and managers underestimate just how much time it takes to research, develop and implement an effective marketing plan or campaign, and they certainly aren’t prepared for the ongoing day to day activities that are required to maintain it.
Depending on the size of your business, the time investment that you would be required to make could be the equivalent of a part-time job, or even multiple full-time positions! If you don’t have that kind of time to dedicate, your marketing is going to struggle to be effective.
Effective Marketing Takes EXPERIENCE.
The person who changes your car’s oil could probably pull your tooth out as well, but would you want him to? Your dentist may also be able to change your oil, but would you ask him too? Experience matters. When you are making decisions as a business owner or manager, your experience, your staff’s experience, and the experience of trusted advisors matters. No amount of YouTube “how do I” binging or Googling can replace years or decades of experience; the kind of experience that a reputable marketing agency can have.
Effective Marketing takes COLLABORATION.
When you see a streaming or banner ad, what you are witnessing is the cumulative efforts of dozens of people, multiple business units and weeks to months worth of coordination and collaboration. One graphic, one video, even one social media post is the result of research, conversations, strategy development, adherence to brand standards, industry regulations and compliance, scheduling, project management and more. It takes experience in order to enable the kind of collaboration that a marketing campaign requires, not to mention TIME.
Effective Marketing takes SPECIALIZATION.
Who is the most brilliant person you can think of? The smartest person you’ve ever met? Do you have a mental picture of that person in your head? Now think of ALL the things that they would have no idea how to do, or know absolutely nothing about!
This is specialization. Somebody somewhere is the world’s ranking expert on ancient underwater basket weaving or the world’s foremost expert on 1984-2000 Plymouth Voyager minivans. Now think about your own company or organization. There are people literally spending all day doing things that you have no idea how to do, and this is true for marketing too. No one person can adequately perform well as a team of individuals with specialized talents and experience.
Hiring a Marketing Agency may improve your bottom line.
Let’s say you own a laundromat. If one of your machines breaks down, you may be able to fix it yourself, but just how long is that going to take? And since you don’t repair laundromat machines for a living, how many mistakes might you make along the way? The time that it might take you to get the machine up and running again could wind up costing you ten times the amount it may have taken to simply have it professionally repaired! Having things done quickly, efficiently, and done RIGHT could save you a bundle in opportunity cost, downtime, and just plain old wasted time! Where else could you be focusing your energy if your marketing needs were being completely and punctually taken care of? It’s the same for marketing as for several other services that you may already be hiring out (janitorial, bookkeeping, HR, etc).
Hiring a marketing team or person is expensive, time-consuming, and may still not cover all your marketing needs.
As a business owner, you know how expensive and time consuming (and stressful!) it is to hire, recruit, onboard, and retain even one position, let alone several. Payroll is oftentimes the biggest obligation that a business incurs financially, and finding that one or two individuals that can do it all can take months, if not longer! When it comes to marketing, finding that unicorn who can develop a strategy, produce videos, capture images, format everything, design and build a website, write great copy, generate content, and implement and publish it all is a tall order for even the biggest corporations.
A reputable, experienced marketing agency not only has all of these roles already filled, but takes on the responsibility of managing and retaining the talent FOR you. The cost savings can really add up when you take all of this into account, and can eliminate the disruption and stress of onboarding and integrating new roles, personalities and responsibilities on your existing team.
How will I know when it’s time to hire an agency?
After considering these points and realities, you may be ready to streamline your marketing efforts by outsourcing with an agency. The next step is to begin your research and find an agency that is experienced with either being your marketing department or working as an extension of your existing team.
