Digital marketing has become an important part of any business, be it big or small. As you grow your digital marketing activities also increase. You realise there are so many things to take care of – search engine optimisation, PPC, social media, email, blog and other content etc. Not only is digital marketing complicated but also time-consuming and you can not do it all alone. You need a helping hand. Question is should you hire a digital marketing agency or have an in-house team to take care of all your digital marketing requirements?

Answer to that question is – It depends.

If you are a large organisation and you plan to increase your digital marketing activities then maybe it makes sense to have an in-house team. But, if you are a small organisation, having a full in-house team may not be advisable.

Here are a few reasons why it makes sense to hire a digital marketing agency for a small business.

1. Cost factor

Compare the cost that is to be incurred on an in-house digital marketing team and a digital marketing agency. You will be surprised to see that the digital marketing agency will cost much less over time. One big reason is that the digital marketing agency is a contractor and you do not have to take care of other benefits that you would pay your employees. Also, you only have to pay for services that you take from the agency, which may vary from month to month based on the scope of work.

2. Handling digital marketing activities is not a one-person job

If you think hiring one person can look into all your digital marketing activities then I would suggest you reconsider your decision. A person can not be an expert in all aspects of digital marketing. Most digital marketing professionals will be able to oversee a handful of marketing initiatives. You will still need outside help in the form of experts.

Having a person is a fixed cost and then hiring experts on the case to case basis is an additional cost. A digital marketing agency can take care of all your needs.

3. Team of experts

A small business can not think of hiring an expert for different digital marketing activities. A month’s salary of an expert can be almost half of the advertising budget of a small business (not all but a few at least. You got my point). Hiring a digital marketing agency gives the advantage to small businesses of getting expert advice at a fraction of the cost.

4. Focus on running your business

Hiring an in-house digital marketing team means guiding then and spending time and resource to get things started. You will also have to spend time monitoring activities as they may lack expertise in certain areas. Hiring a digital marketing agency means you can share your goals and timeframe and you continue to focus on your business. They manage their team and all you have to check is if timelines are met if the activities are going as planned.

5. Get new ideas

Digital marketing agencies work with various clients at the same time. This gives them exposure to various markets and industry and also an insight into what works and what does not. The digital marketing agency that you have hired will bring with them these insights and also suggest new ideas that can work for you. It is difficult for an In-house team to get such an insight into the industry.

6. Scalability

Apart from cost, I think scalability is the most important factor why hiring a digital marketing agency makes sense for small businesses. In a normal situation, you will have to increase your team size whenever you need to grow your activities Or may hire a freelancer if the requirement is temporary. This is a time-consuming process. With a digital marketing agency, you can easily increase or decrease your activities as per your need, without much of a hassle.

7. Subscription charges for tools

Digital marketing requires the use of numerous tools to analyse and streamline marketing activities. The subscriptions for these tools are recurring in nature and some of these tools and application are very expensive. Subscription charges for these tools are hefty and can be a big burden for small businesses. Since digital marketing agencies work with various clients at a time, they normally opt for plans that not only costs less per client but also has more features as compared to the individual plan.

The best way to deal with this question is to do a cost-benefit analysis. Compare the cost of hiring a Digital Marketing Manager and a Digital Marketing Agency and what are the benefits each option can provide. This exercise will help you understand which is the best option in the long run. Looking at all the above benefits, I believe hiring a digital marketing agency is the best choice for small businesses.