6 minute read
B2B start-up companies and small businesses eventually all come to the same conclusion, that they need marketing to reach their business goals, grow, and compete in your industry. But the million-dollar question is should you hire a marketing agency (external) or hire an in-house marketing department (internal).
The task of deciding who should conduct the marketing efforts of your business is one of the most difficult and important decisions a business owner can make.
Before we dig deeper into hiring a B2B marketing agency vs in-house marketing department, lets go over basically what marketing is…
What Is Marketing?
Marketing is an essential activity for ALL B2B businesses, regardless of size or industry, because it acts as the bridge between your products or services and your customers. Marketing is also one of the most cost-effective and vital investments a business owner can make to achieve a substantial ROI. Marketing consists of branding, websites, content development, the buyer’s journey, personas and target audiences, paid advertising, social media, email campaigns, workflows, and much more.
7 Reasons Why You Should Hire A B2B Marketing Agency Vs In-House Marketing Department
In this article we discuss the pros and cons, comparing a B2B marketing agency vs an in-house marketing department, and which is the best option for your business’s goals.
1. Cost
At the minimum, a basic internal marketing department includes at least two Analysts. One Analyst is responsible for paid traffic and another responsible for organic traffic. On average these analysts are paid around $80,000.00 each year.
A Content Creator, because what’s marketing without content? Content Creators may cost your company about $65,000 annually, and the more your business scales, the more content you would need to create. Which also means allocating more of your budget towards content strategies.
A Social Media Marketer, because social media is huge, getting bigger and is not going away. You would definitely need someone dedicated towards managing your company’s social presence. These social media managers aren’t cheap by anyone’s standards and will cost approximately $51,000.00 every year.
Based on these estimates for a basic internal/in-house marketing department you are looking at a cost of about $276,000.00 per year, plus equipment, software, benefits, etc.
If you hired an external marketing agency, it’s estimated to cost the same sized business around $48,000 per year. That’s a major difference, especially to your profit margins.
2. Expert Perspective
You’re an expert in your field, not in marketing. So naturally it would be smart to hire an external B2B marketing agency to achieve your business, sales, and marketing goals? An experienced marketing agency is comprised of individuals who are also experts in their field. This give you, the business owner more time to focus on what you need to the most, your business.
Marketing agencies are creative and experienced professionals who are capable of advising, strategizing and executing your marketing objectives.
These marketing professionals will not only be able to help get the word out on your brand, service or product but also generate the best ROI for your budget. In addition, give you their unbiased perspective that will help your company excel beyond your competitors.
Persons employed in your in-house marketing department may not want to give you their unbiased perspective based on the fact that they are employed by you and may fear getting fired.
3. Hiring
Let’s face it, hiring new employees is a tedious and time-consuming process. You’ll have to interview numerous candidates, go through a selection process, probably do some more interviewing to get the candidate who is the right fit for your organization and may still end up with someone who is incapable of performing the job to your standards.
After all this, you may have to go through this process all over again and again. The solution to this is to hire a B2B marketing agency vs having your own in-house department to manage.
Yes, an external B2B marketing agency may take some time to get familiar with your organization, but a reputable agency is dedicated to providing their best marketing expertise to hit that goal and earn that referral for more business. They will be able to absorb and comprehend your company’s objectives relatively quickly and guide you as to what are the best actions to take next regarding your immediate and long-term goals.
4. Resources
An external B2B marketing agency may have more connections and resources at its disposal. You want your brand to be a household name within your target market.
Your in-house marketing department may not have the connections or resources needed to achieve a high level goal. Pretty much setting yourself up for failure before you even get off the ground. With a marketing agency’s vast range of media contacts and general know how, they can exponentially grow your name and help build your brand.
5. Your Business May Be Seasonal
Often, businesses sell more products and services during a particular season. For example, retailers have a very hectic fourth quarter leading into the Christmas and holiday season, but the first and second quarters of the year are usually slower. If your business follows these seasonal trends, then why hire a fulltime annually paid employee? It makes more sense to hire an agency when your business needs to scale up marketing efforts and scale down during slow periods therefore maximizing your ROI and profit margins.
6. Time Management
Running a business is a difficult and risky endeavor. You want to spend your limited time dealing with customers and focusing on urgent task, not with managing a marketing team.
An external marketing agency can allow you to focus on other important aspects of your business, because they are trained professionals who develop and execute marketing campaigns strategically and effectively, from start to finish, with minimal oversight regularly. Therefore, allowing you to run your business, and as the old saying goes, time is money.
7. Geographical Location
Let’s face it; if your business is located in a rural area or there isn’t a thriving marketing scene where you’re located, it may be difficult to hire the right candidate into your organization.
However, an external marketing agency can fulfill your marketing desires remotely as there is no need to be physically located within the proximity of your business due to advances in technology. Everything can be run with access to the Internet and a phone such as screen sharing and file sharing via the cloud. Also getting in contact with an agency via phone, email and video conferencing is very simple with a few clicks of a button.
The Right Choice for Your B2B Company
Based on these 7 reasons, I hope your decision to hire a B2B marketing agency vs in-house marketing department is clearer. Weight out the pros and cons, various factors specific to your business, and the resources required growing your company.
If your business is a small or medium-sized organization with limited resources and working capital, it may be smart to hire a marketing agency to take care of your marketing needs.
At Tag Marketing we are 100% client focused and results oriented. We are a family company and we treat our clients as part of our family as well. We’re the best of both worlds, the in-house department and the external marketing agency because we are a smaller agency that connects directly to our client’s, their staff, their customer’s interactions and to our campaign strategy all within one tight knit team. This closes the entire communication loop, removes any misinformation or disconnect, and produces the best results.
We pride ourselves on taking your brand and business to the next level through successful, proven inbound marketing strategies.
Call Tag Marketing Today For A Free Consultation – (773) 680-6952.
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