5 reasons to hire a marketing agency in 2023: To outsource your marketing or not to outsource your marketing, that is the question. Many small businesses find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place and have to decide whether to hire more employees to manage their marketing efforts or simplify and work with a marketing agency.
By far the biggest point of apprehension for most companies when considering outsourcing their marketing: How will you know the ins and outs of my business enough to portray that to the public? Indeed, it can be a struggle for a marketing agency to know everything about installing a septic system, but marketing agencies work incredibly hard to understand their clients and their business to "know what they're talking about" in their marketing efforts.
In this post, we'll cover the 5 reasons to hire a marketing agency in 2023 and why it will benefit your business if you choose to work with the right one.
Reason #1: Expertise
One of the main reasons to hire a marketing agency is because they already possess the know-how to elevate your marketing efforts. Rather than spending months and even years trying to find a skilled and dedicated in-house team of marketing experts, the benefit of working with a marketing agency is that they've already assembled a highly skilled team and have had many years to refine their skills and procedures.
Reason #2: Cost Savings
Let's face it: employees are expensive. What's worse is the amount of time and money it takes to find the right people in the first place. And sometimes, employees underperform once hired, meaning it's time to start the lengthy process over again. But the costs don't end there. After finding the right person/people, then you have to pay their salary, which on average can land anywhere from $45,000 — $100,000+ per year depending on experience level and prior skills; and that's per employee.
The biggest benefit of working with a marketing agency is the amount of savings in overhead costs. Many marketing agencies charge a fixed amount each month, typically ranging from $2,000 — $10,000+, depending on your marketing needs. To put everything in perspective, let's consider the following:
- Marketing departments, on average, consist of 3 employees for small to medium-sized businesses.
- Each employee's salary costs anywhere from $45,000 — $100,000+ per year
- Turnover is a fact of business; finding the right people takes a lot of time and money
In-House Figures
If we consider a business with 20-50 employees that bring in anywhere from $3m — $12m+ per year, the general rule of thumb is to invest around 5%-10% of total revenue on marketing. For example, a company in this range should expect to spend $150,000 — $1,000,000+ yearly on marketing expenses, depending on their needs. Now, this might seem like a huge range, but since every business is unique, it is impossible to give exact figures.
Ideally, spending the least amount of money for the highest possible return on investment is ideal. Let's take a look at the lower-end budget of $150,000 for this example. Say your business generates $3m yearly, and you want to spend 5% on marketing, giving us this $150,000 figure. If you were to manage marketing efforts internally, let's say you opt to hire one person to act as a marketing manager who manages everything from social media management to Facebook ads.
The average marketing manager in the US makes approximately $115,000 per year. Most marketing managers have the skills and know-how to manage all facets of your marketing efforts, which is why they earn such a high salary. But remember, higher-skilled and experienced candidates will expect compensation upwards of $150,000+.
Right off the bat, your entire budget is blown on salary alone. This leaves no room for the cost of ad spend, marketing software, physical marketing materials, or any other marketing facets, such as donations, sponsorships, etc.
In a monthly overview, a salary of $150,000 annually comes down to $12,500 per month on salary alone. Should you decide to hire some support for your marketing manager, expect to pay an average of $45,000 — $65,000 depending on the position, driving your overhead through the roof.
Hiring a Marketing Agency
Now, let's consider this same budget of $150,000 per year, or $12,500 per month, with a full-service marketing agency. Most marketing campaigns can be achieved for much less than this per month. For a $3m/year business, expect to pay anywhere from $2,000 — $7,500 per month, depending on your needs. With this price range, you don't get just one marketing expert at your disposal: you get an entire agency of highly-skilled and experienced marketing experts dedicated to fueling your business.
Not only that, but depending on your needs, included in the price—for this purpose, let's call it $7,500—can be a local SEO campaign, social media campaign, and ads campaign, including your monthly ad spend. After your digital marketing efforts are paid for, you still have $5,000 left over per month for physical marketing materials, sponsorships, donations, etc., leaving you the freedom to get the highest possible ROI.
Reason #3: Experience
When you work with a marketing agency, you can trust that your campaigns will be handled by highly experienced professionals who have worked with similar companies in your industry. For instance, if you own a plumbing business and are unsure about how a marketing agency can create relevant blogs for your company, rest assured that they have worked with numerous plumbers in the past and can leverage that experience to benefit your business.
Marketing agencies are known for their extensive knowledge of a wide range of topics. They conduct thorough competitor research, maintain regular communication with clients to stay informed, and conduct online research on topics related to each client's business. This ensures that even if your marketing agency has no experience installing water heaters, they possess the expertise to effectively communicate these crucial topics to your current and potential customers.
Reason #4: Software & Analytics
Another deterrent to hiring an in-house marketing agency is the cost of software and programs needed to perform daily tasks. Most businesses don't realize the overall expenses of programs that streamline marketing efforts, such as SEO analyzer suites, social media scheduling and management suites, reporting platforms, etc.
SEO and social media platforms can cost upwards of $600+/month each, depending on your needs, whereas reporting platforms can cost you upwards of $200/month. Not to mention all the other little $10 and $30 monthly costs here and there that are easily forgotten about.
But let's forget about the costs for a moment; each of these platforms has a substantial learning curve and can take months to understand fully. Every hour spent by employees learning something new, however beneficial, costs money. But since marketing agencies, on average, work with dozens of clients, they can justify spending more on platforms with bulk discounts and are experts at using them for maximum efficiency.
Many marketing agencies also deliver reports in easy-to-understand formats that make it easy to see how your business is performing and areas that need improvement, leaving you more time to focus on what matters.
Reason #5: Time Savings
For a moment, let's take money out of the equation; marketing is an incredibly time-consuming endeavor. Forget the time it takes to find the right people, but just the act of marketing alone takes hours and hours every week. Many small business owners attempt to manage all their marketing efforts without hiring marketing experts and quickly learn how difficult it is to learn the ins and outs of marketing while managing day-to-day operations.
If you're looking to elevate your business without spending every waking moment worrying about which ads are underperforming, you should consider hiring a marketing agency to remove the added stress from your life.
In Summary
To summarize, businesses considering outsourcing their marketing to an agency in 2023 should take into account the benefits of expert insights and cost savings, which can give them an edge over their competition. Additionally, agencies often provide software and analytics services that could be expensive if managed in-house while also freeing up time for businesses to concentrate on their day-to-day operations. In conclusion, outsourcing marketing to an agency in 2023 can be highly advantageous for businesses looking to succeed.
