Being a marketing agency that does great work (if we do say so ourselves) for both B2B and B2C companies, you would assume that we would be all for promoting the outsourcing of your marketing efforts to an agency. And by all means, there is a time when that is the route you should take. But is there a time when it may benefit you more to bite the bullet and bring someone to the team to work in-house? The answer is yes. We wanted to revisit when you should outsource your marketing efforts, and when you should keep them in-house. Here are some things you need to consider:
Time
What a lot of people don’t realize when they think of social media, is the time that it takes up. People think “Oh I’ll post on Twitter now and then, share some articles on LinkedIn, and we’ll be all set!” Right? No, of course not. Wrong, very wrong.
Knowing about your industry, your competitors, and what’s new with both takes a good amount of time and research. This is where hiring an agency can come in handy—because agencies who specialize in social media, have all of their time to dedicate to it, rather than just a portion, like a member of your team might. If you want to stay on top of news and best practices, you should be ready to commit a good amount of time to increasing your knowledge on this. And if you’re not willing to commit your time, be willing to commit someone else’s.
If you think that one of your employees has the time, then that’s great. How much knowledge do they have?
Experience
When it comes to experience with social media and marketing, it’s hard to stay on top of the best practices in the industry. What practices get your company the highest rate of conversion and why? How are you tracking that progress? How are you strategizing to improve that process?
This is something to consider when you’ve decided to hire a social media agency or to hire someone in-house. If you hire someone in-house, there is the chance that they are more entry-level, which can be good because they cost less money to hire. That said, they cost more money to onboard because someone will have to spend the time (and money) to train them. But if you spend the money to hire someone with more experience, you could get a faster payoff when that employee hits the ground running with your strategy.
Money
How much does a lot of experience cost? It could cost the amount of an average salary, which could seem less upfront when considering the per-project or per hour cost of an agency, but it also comes along with other things (like benefits and taxes). However, this is why for some, it may be more cost effective to hire an outside marketing agency.
The people in these agencies have the time to perform the research needed, as well as the experience with social media. Because they have the experience and the time to execute the practices their experience has taught them, you may see more immediate results.
Team Bandwidth
Time, experience, and money combined, what these factors all contribute to at the end of the day is your team. How much can they handle? How well can they adapt?
Look at your business right now. Is it small? Is it medium? Is it large? Is it small but you plan to expand and grow? These growth factors, both of your business and its team, are what’s at the foundation of your answer to this question: should I hire a social media agency or hire in-house? The decision you make will have to be made based on the factors above, but also based on how you project your team to grow in the coming months and years.
Overall—what’s the verdict?
So, with the above four factors in mind, we can’t make this decision for you. But we believe we’ve presented some key factors to consider. Our big piece of advice is to do what is right for your business—not your role model business or a competitor. Keep your future goals and projected growth in mind, but also do what is right for your business and team now. In the future, you can always revisit this question and adjust things as needed.
Do you have a question about where to go from here? Need to reassess your social media marketing strategy but aren’t sure where to start? Feel free to get in touch for a consultation with The Zen Media Group today, and we’ll help point you in the right direction.
