In-House Marketing vs. Digital Marketing Agency
A strong digital marketing game is the key to successful business growth and better ROI.
Robust marketing strategies help you reach new audiences, boost your online presence, and launch compelling marketing campaigns.
However, businesses often need clarity about whether to hire a digital marketing agency or opt for in-house marketing. The answer depends on various factors such as business size, industry type, budget, marketing goals, team expertise, available resources/assets, etc.
In-house Marketing vs Digital Marketing Agency – each has its pros and cons. In this post, we will elucidate everything you need to know about both to help you make an informed decision.
What is In-house Marketing?
In-house Marketing is when an internal marketing team within your company builds, deploys, and manages digital marketing campaigns and activities. From branding, content creation, strategy planning, SEO, and advertising, to deploying content on multiple sales channels, analytics, and reporting- this team does it all within the organization.
An in-house marketing team can be compact-sized or large, depending on your business size and niche.
Pros of In-house Marketing
Seamless Communication
Since the team is deeply rooted within the company, communication and decision-making are often quick and seamless. This ensures consistent branding and authenticity across all sales channels. Moreover, the in-house team can seamlessly interact with other departments such as product development, sales, or customer service to get a holistic view of marketing goals and curate well-rounded marketing strategies.
Better Control and Oversight
The in-house marketing team has complete oversight over marketing activities and can exert any level of control they would like.
Easy access to Company Data
The in-house marketing team understands the company’s vision and goals better and has easy access to company and customer data without any privacy restrictions. This makes it easier for them to understand and cater to the audiences’ needs and build targeted campaigns that resonate with the brand.
High efficiency and Speed
Since the team works under a single roof, planning, decision-making, implementation, data analysis, and reporting becomes fast and efficient. Teams can quickly gather feedback, derive data insights, and make changes in real-time to meet marketing goals.
Cons of In-house Marketing Team
Limited Expertise, Resources, and Assets
Though the in-house marketing team may be well-acquainted with your company, it may lack diverse skills and extensive resources or assets required for digital marketing, especially if it is a compact team. Likewise, the team may find it difficult to keep up with the latest marketing trends, and industry standards as it requires continuous development, research, and training. This could become time-consuming and expensive in the long run.
Stagnancy
Over time, the in-house marketing team may run out of new perspectives to frame marketing strategies due to being occupied with the same strategies and work culture.
Scalability
As the business evolves, your marketing operations may expand and require more assets, resources, and extensive skills to cover different areas such as SEO, content creation, backlinking, data analysis, social media marketing, PPC, and so much more. This can be a challenge with an in-house marketing team as you may have to hire new staff, invest in tools/technologies, and conduct training. All of this can be overwhelming, costly, and time-consuming.
Hiring an SEO Specialist, Marketing Manager, Content Creator, Marketing Specialist, Graphic Designer, Social Media Manager, etc. can get expensive to maintain in the long run.
What is a Digital Marketing Agency?
A Digital Marketing Agency is a third-party company that you hire to manage your digital marketing operations. Some of them are full-service digital marketing agencies, whilst others may specialize in certain areas such as PPC, SEO, performance marketing, and so on.
Digital marketing agencies work independently and closely collaborate with the brand to understand its values, vision, and marketing goals. With this information, they create customized marketing strategies to cater to the target audience.
These agencies often have expert teams in diverse fields- right from paid advertising, SEO, and content creation, to social media marketing, email marketing, etc. Moreover, since they work for different clients daily, they are exposed to a wider network and new trends, tools, and technologies emerging in the industry.
Pros of Hiring a Digital Marketing Agency
Extensive Resources, Assets, and Expertise
Digital marketing agencies have several talented minds with broader knowledge, skills, and diverse ideas who work on your project to build, test, and manage your campaigns efficiently. The agency is also likely to be equipped with wide-ranging resources, assets, and tools to meet comprehensive marketing needs, which could be difficult to achieve with in-house.
They may even leverage cutting-edge data analytic tools to analyse campaign results and derive KPIs for future changes.
New Ideas
A third-party agency works for diverse clients from different locations and different niches (such as mature companies, start-ups, or SMEs from healthcare, beauty, fashion, corporate, industrial, or educational sectors) daily. Such exposure to a wide network helps them come up with fresh perspectives, industry benchmarks, and unbiased ideas for your brand’s marketing operations,
Flexibility and scalability
These agencies can scale up or down and adapt to your unique marketing needs flexibly. Hence, partnering with such agencies is beneficial for fast-growing businesses or those that experience occasional inconsistencies.
Cost-effective
Though the initial investment could be large, hiring an external marketing agency is far more cost-effective in the long run, since you will not have to spend on hiring more staff for marketing, office space, staff training/development, salaries, employee benefits, new marketing resources/assets, software, new tools, technologies, etc. Moreover, you have the option to only pay for the services you want.
Source: MailChimp
Latest tools and software
Digital marketing agencies are already equipped and well-versed with popular tools/software required for SEO, keyword research, data analysis, web analysis, CRO, testing, monitoring, tracking, etc. Additionally, agencies are also likely to be experienced with leveraging AI and ML technologies in their marketing efforts.
Cons of hiring an External Digital Marketing Agency
Communication Gap
Since an external digital marketing agency works independently, there could be a possibility for gaps and delays in communication and decision-making. These agencies could be handling multiple clients simultaneously, making it difficult for them to prioritize your brand specifically. Moreover, since they are not deeply embedded in your company, their marketing strategies may lack resonance with your brand story.
Lack of Control over Strategies
Since a third-party agency is handling your marketing operations, you may have a limited level of control over marketing strategies. Though these agencies will closely collaborate with you, consult, and seek your approvals, you may still have less control over day-to-day operations and implementation.
Limited Access to Company Data
Sharing your company data with a third-party agency comes with various security and privacy concerns. But this is manageable if the agency you choose follows strict privacy and security regulatory standards.
In-house Marketing Team vs External Digital Marketing Agency: Main Differences
To help you make an informed decision about whether to choose an in-house marketing team or go for a third-party digital marketing agency, we have summarized a few critical factors you may want to consider:
| Factors to Consider | In-house Marketing Team | Digital Marketing Agency |
| Nature of Operation | Operates within the company and works only for the company | Operates as a third-party agency and may work for multiple clients at a time |
| Cost | High Overhead Costs due to salaries, tools, software, office space, training, development, resources, employee benefits, salary taxes, etc. | Upfront Costs could be high but cost-effective in the long run |
| Skills and Expertise | Challenging to build a team with a wide range of technical expertise and skills to cover all marketing areas | Has diverse teams of experts with extensive knowledge and skills in all areas of marketing |
| Speed | Quick collaboration and decision-making | Possibility of communication gap and slow decision-making |
| Efficiency | A high workload may slow down other activities due to the in-house team being occupied with operations at hand | High workload efficiency since teams are often large |
| Brand Familiarity | Profound understanding of the brand’s vision, and goals | May lack an in-depth understanding of the brand but has broader knowledge of industry standards, and market scope |
| Scalability | Costly and difficult to scale | Easy to scale up or down as per marketing requirements |
| Control | Better control and view over marketing operations | Lesser direct control over marketing operations |
| Flexibility | Adapting to new trends, and developments and coming up with new ideas could be challenging | Adapts easily to new trends and changes |
| Accessibility | Easy to access the team and its operations since they work under the same roof | External agencies could be located far away, and only reachable via email, call, or text. |
How to Choose Between an In-house Marketing Team and a Digital Marketing Agency?
Assess your Business Needs
Consider the size and scope of your business and your marketing goals to identify what do you want to achieve with your campaigns. Reaching new audiences, boost in online presence, generate more leads, etc. – what is your goal? Determining this will help you choose between the two.
Budgeting
The in-house team could be cost-effective for a short time, but overhead costs could pile up with time. Digital marketing agency requires a high initial investment but is cost-effective in the long run.
Scrutinize Skills, Capabilities, and Knowledge of the Current team
Does your current in-house team have the required skill set and expertise to handle all aspects of digital marketing such as SEO, advertising, social media, paid ads, and so on? Do you need to hire new staff? Do you need to invest in their training and development? Or do you need additional resources and assets? Partnering with a third-party agency will reduce these additional costs.
Control and Flexibility
Determine how much control you want over your marketing operations. Is your in-house marketing team flexible enough to adapt to frequent developmental changes, market trends, and growing customer expectations? Based on these factors, is the in-house team able to build custom marketing strategies?
When it comes to flexibility, a digital marketing agency is often more rewarding and adaptable due to larger teams, and extensive resources.
Conclusion
In-house Marketing and Digital Marketing agency – both have their benefits and downsides. Businesses must carefully evaluate their marketing needs, budget, existing marketing team’s skillset, and available resources before deciding.
If you are looking for a leading, full-service Digital Marketing Agency to handle your marketing activities, Ignitiv Digital is your ultimate partner! We help businesses build a powerful online presence, generate quality leads, and boost revenue with a well-rounded, strategic marketing plan to provide a competitive edge.
With specialized professional teams onboard, we would love to hear more about your marketing needs and curate a tailored solution for your business. Our team is committed to providing well-defined workflows, clear communication, and seamless collaboration at all stages of the project.
Ready to up your marketing game? Call us Now!