If I had a £ for every founder that has said they don't trust agencies, I would be retiring now.
How quickly does an in-house creative marketing team move onto pastures new?
And what does a consultant do anyway?
It's frustrating because so many small business owners need to invest cash wisely. Every penny counts.
Over the last few months I have heard horror stories of digital marketing agencies over promising and under delivering - spending thousands of pounds of clients money on bottom funnel sales, to return...yep you guested it... nothing.
Zilch.
Zero pounds.
How traumatising. It would be enough for a founder to give up on marketeers forever.
But how do you scale without them?
When it comes to marketing, there are three main options you have when deciding how to staff your business. You can hire an in-house team of marketers, you can bring on a consultant to help you with your marketing efforts, or you can contract with a marketing agency.
How do you choose between these three options?
And how do you trust who you are working with?
Marketing Agency
A marketing agency is a full-service provider that offers implementation services. In other words, they will do it for you. This makes them especially helpful if your business does not have an internal team that is experienced in digital marketing strategies and tactics. An agency will typically offer services such as website design and development, social media campaigns, search engine optimization (SEO), content creation, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns, email marketing campaigns and more. They usually have experience working with businesses of all sizes across different industries so they are able to provide valuable insight into what works best for businesses like yours.
Marketing Agencies are great for measurable projects such as performance marketing and SEO.
Did they achieve a high ROAS? great let's keep them.
Did they improve organic search rankings? Perfect.
Are they underperforming on conversions? Let's look at testing and adapting campaigns.
Easy. Measurable. Scalable.
The one thing agencies don't do well (in my experience)... is foundations. The levels of deep routed brand that hold your campaigns together are built by brand strategists. And the only way to truly know a brand, is by working in-house or with a 1-2-1 consultant.
Marketing Consultant
A consultant is an individual who specialises in marketing strategies. They typically work with clients on a 1-2-1 basis and offer advice about what type of brand and marketing strategy would be most effective for their particular business model and goals. You may want to hire a consultant if you don’t need full-scale implementation of your digital strategy but rather just need advice on how to go about creating one. Consulting fees are usually based on an hourly rate and the amount of time spent working on your project.
Consultants (like me) work closely with senior teams to get to the root of the brand. They are able to create long term strategy and tactics that guide agencies and in-house teams.
Consultants work best looking at the big picture and designing ways to achieve it. Although I don't want to say what is limiting about a consultant (for obvious reasons) you're best leaving your day-to-day marketing up to an agency, or in-house team.
In-House Team
If your budget allows it, hiring an in-house team of marketers can be beneficial because they are dedicated solely to your business’s success and will be available whenever needed without having to wait for availability from outside vendors or consultants. An in-house team also has the advantage of being able to collaborate easily since everyone is working together under one roof.
The downside is that this option tends to be more expensive than hiring an agency or consultant since salaries must be paid out regularly even when projects are completed or slow times hit—unlike agencies or consultants who can simply move onto another project after completion/termination of their agreement with you.
Another downside to in-house teams is inspiration and churn. Your teams need to constantly be inspired to learn and grow otherwise they will end up doing the same thing, day in, day out. Then you have the risk of employee churn, having to go through the hiring process every 2-3 years.
So here's the run down:
Consultants: Dreamers, Strategists and Long Term Brand Builders
Agencies: Doers, Tactical and Measurable Marketeers
In-House: Reliable, Available and Consistent Creators