Digital marketing is one of the most essential requirements of any business in this age, next to accounting, sales, customer service and other core areas. For both businesses starting up and those with multi million pound turnovers it is always an important decision to make whether to carry out digital marketing in-house or outsource to a specialist agency.
In this blog we analyse the positives and negatives of in-house digital marketing and outsourcing to an agency.
In-House Digital Marketing – Positives
- Collaboration – Easier communication between all company departments for certain marketing projects for decisions, approvals etc.
- Product Knowledge – It can take time for an agency to fully understand your product or service and the goals required. If it’s in-house the team should already be fully up to date on the company’s objectives. This is especially relevant with regards to content creation.
- Time Allocation – An agency will be working with numerous clients and spitting time between them whereas in-house the responsible person would likely dedicate all their time to digital marketing.
In-House Digital Marketing – Negatives
- Cost – Paying an employee a full-time salary will typically be higher than using an agency.
- Lack Of Experience – An in-house digital marketing employee likely won’t have the experience to devise a correct strategy and oversee its completion.
- Lack Of Resources – An agency has access to all the skill sets required for digital marketing. Very rarely will one employee specialise in content writing, email marketing, technical on-page SEO, managing Google Ads budgets and other skills.
- Staff Turnover – A new employee requires a lot of training to become proficient in digital marketing skills. If an employee stays only for a short amount of time it won’t be worth the time investment.
Outsourcing To An Agency – Positives
- Experience & Resources – An agency will have access to highly skilled SEO specialists, PPC experts and designers.
- Outside Perspective – Having an outsider’s view of the business can be incredibly valuable in identifying digital marketing strategies that would be overlooked by being fully within the business’ day to day activities.
- A Proven Strategy – Having worked with many clients, an agency will have lots of previous knowledge regarding which strategy will be most effective for your business.
- Responsibility – Working with an agency means agreeing to monthly deliverables. An in-house employee may get distracted by other work or delay targets to the next month if they are stretched for time, while their monthly salary will be paid regardless.
Outsourcing To An Agency – Negatives
- Time Allocation – Depending on your business, there may be a huge amount of monthly work needed to be carried out, and as an agency will have other clients to attend to, it will be tough for them to be at your disposal 24 hours a day.
- Not Being Hands-On Enough – While it’s necessary to delegate work, it still is important to have a general overview of the digital marketing work being carried out. This can sometimes be tricker with outsourcing the work depending on the agency.
- Possible Long-Term Contracts – Many agencies try to tie you into long contracts. If you aren’t happy with their strategy and the results you are getting then this can clearly be problematic.
Our Approach
Avida Brands offers flexible solutions to suit every company. If you want us to carry out all your digital marketing work we make sure to have monthly consultations so that you are kept in the loop with decisions and we work together to get the correct results.
If you are looking to do your digital marketing in-house while just outsourcing certain work to us for example blog writing or white-hat link building then we can create a bespoke package for you.
Possibly you wish to carry out all the work in-house and just use us for advice, in which case we recommend a monthly consultation package whereby we analyse your work and give direction to your ongoing work.