Should you hire a marketing agency or an employee?

An in-depth case study and analysis by Phvntom Inc.

Before we dive in, this article is mainly focused on people with small to medium-sized businesses who are considering hiring their first marketing employee. That’s because most larger companies already have an in-house marketing department. Although, the information contained herein is still applicable for those that don’t.

🤷‍♂️ Anyhoodle…

You might be considering hiring a marketing agency or an employee to handle your marketing. But what’s better? There are many pros and cons to each, so let’s dive in!

When (and why) businesses decide to hire someone for their marketing

Hiring someone to help promote your business is an important, strategic maneuver that can either produce great results or be a costly mistake for your company. These decisions often come during a critical time for your business because it’s usually in response to one of these three situations:

1. You don’t know how to perform the tasks required to accomplish your marketing objectives, or…
2. Your company is growing so fast that you need to pass the responsibilities of marketing to someone else, or…
3. Your sales pipeline is slowly grinding to a screeching halt.

Either way, you know that it’s time to find someone to lend you a helping hand. 

There are a lot of factors to consider when you’re going to have someone else take command of your marketing – and a lot of it depends on what you’ve done in the past. 

If you’re someone who has been managing it yourself – and you’ve had great success – you’ll probably be fine hiring an employee as long as your strategy is formulaic and can be easily taught. On the other hand, it’s unlikely that a single employee will be able to produce better results than you have on your own… especially in their first few months. If you haven’t had much success marketing the business yourself, you really shouldn’t have high expectations that a new employee can “rescue” it while they’re just learning the ropes – even if they have an extensive background in marketing.

In a moment, we’ll review the pro’s and con’s of hiring a dedicated employee vs an agency. If you’re looking for the abbreviated version, here are the key takeaways:

• Hire an agency if you’re in a bind. An agency is the most likely to produce impactful results because they practice marketing every day. It will take a lot less time to find talent you can depend on, and the out-of-pocket expense is usually about the same. 
• Hire an agency if you don’t have a proven strategy. This is characterized by your business having success intermittently… or when it feels like you’ve been “spinning your wheels”. An agency can help you identify what’s been helping or hurting your sales. 
• Hire an employee if business is booming. This is the least common but best scenario because you already have everything figured out. Now, you just need to reclaim some of your time by adding good people to your team and teaching them your strategy.

Hiring an employee to market your business

For small business owners, hiring a new employee can be a daunting task. The issue only becomes further complicated if you’re hiring someone to do something you know very little about – such as marketing. 

It’s no secret that the hiring process is time-consuming and often expensive. It’s uncommon to find a quality, committed employee out of the first person you hire for a position. Employee turnover is one of the most difficult challenges for a small business to overcome… it’s exhausting to search for talent, go through the onboarding process, fulfill all the legal obligations, and get someone assimilated to your company’s culture – only to have them quit or fall short of your expectations.

However, all the pain and struggle becomes worth it when you do find a good member for your team. There’s simply no substitute for a person who makes excellent contributions to your productivity and environment. Quite frankly, those people are invaluable.

The benefits of having an employee manage your company’s marketing:

• The marketing happens on a consistent basis
• You have more control and involvement with the employee on a daily basis.
• In the future, they can be used as a resource to train other employees.

An employee will probably work more hours per week than a marketing agency would for the same cost. Hiring employees is also beneficial when it comes to training them in various aspects of your business operations because they’ll already be working with you full time! The downside is that there are no guarantees as far as performance goes – some people simply don’t have what it takes.

With that said, hiring someone in-house also gives your company opportunity for growth because they’ll likely become one of your most dependable employees if they’re good enough.

How much does it cost to hire an employee to manage your business’s marketing?

As a business owner, it can be difficult to find the time and resources needed to create content, run ads, and stay on top of social media. The good news is that there are people who specialize in these tasks at affordable rates.

What does this cost? A typical rate for freelance marketing services is $25 per hour with some charging as much as $50 per hour. If you hire someone for 20 hours a week, you could expect to pay about $2,000-$4,000 per month, depending on the level of expertise required and whether they have any additional expenses.

The average monthly salary for an entry-level marketing assistant ranges from approximately $3,500 – $4,000. This doesn’t factor in other benefits or payroll tax. Depending on your state, a business’s payroll tax obligations will be 13.65% – 21% of the employee’s base salary. With a $3,500/month salary and a 15% payroll tax, it would cost your business $4,025/month to hire a marketing employee.

Hiring an agency to market your business

A marketing agency is a company that provides services like advertising, public relations, and web design to businesses. These companies typically have a team of experts who help you create a strategy for your business. Marketing agencies can also offer digital marketing strategies such as social media management or search engine optimization.

It can be difficult to find a marketing agency that meets your needs. It’s important that you know what you’re looking for and to ask the right questions. What are the services they offer? How much will it cost? Are they using modern marketing strategies like content marketing, email campaigns, social media, or SEO?

A business owner who has no time or expertise in digital advertising may need to hire someone else to handle their promotion strategy. A company may want a partner who specializes in generating leads and converting them into sales by providing them with measurable results on various channels. Marketing agencies help brands reach their target audience through different types of advertising (print ads, TV commercials) as well as social media and search engines.

The benefits of hiring a marketing agency to manage your business’s marketing:

• They can offer expertise and advice on your marketing strategy.
• They’re able to handle the planning, execution, measurement, reporting, analytics and optimization of your marketing campaigns.
• Marketing agencies have access to all kinds of different media channels that you may not even know about or be very good at using yourself.
• They have more professional marketers at their disposal for every type of marketing.
• Marketing agencies can be retained on a monthly basis for about the same cost of an employee.
• You get to skip payroll, training, and research with just one contract.

Generally speaking, a marketing agency is sure to produce higher quality content and better results than an employee would with the same budget.

This is because agencies have a more expansive and complete understanding of all the different marketing platforms and tactics. They can deploy entire marketing funnels and campaigns in a matter of days, which is much faster than the weeks (or months) it might take a new employee.

How much does it cost to hire a marketing agency to manage your business’s marketing?

The cost of hiring a marketing agency varies dramatically because they don’t follow the same pricing models. Most agencies provide quotes for one-time projects and propose long-term contracts for ongoing service.

Small agencies will usually quote website projects for less than $10,000. However, the cost of hiring a marketing agency to manage your marketing can range from $25,000-$100,000 or more per year. This is an investment that will likely have a positive return for you in the long run, but it might not be feasible for every business owner.

Marketing agencies are usually an investment, but they’re worth it when you leverage their services effectively.

If you have the budget to do so, marketing agencies can be a good investment for your business’s marketing needs because of their capacity and range of resources at their disposal. They will help your company grow while freeing up time for other aspects of running the business – like product development or customer service.

In many instances, hiring an agency is much more cost-effective than hiring employees with limited knowledge on how to market effectively. In addition, most agencies offer monthly contracts that allow flexibility if any changes need to happen within the first year (such as downsizing) without penalty fees or early termination clauses.

Which should I choose: an agency or an employee? Why?

Analyze your current situation to make an informed decision. It’s a lot more risky to hire an employee when you really need a positive return on investment in the near future. Most agencies can produce a positive ROI within three months, yet some employees take three months to get fully integrated with your company.

If business is going well, it might be a good time to add a marketing employee as part of your long-term strategy. You can reasonably expect having a valuable employee within a year.

• Hire an agency if you’re in a bind. An agency is the most likely to produce impactful results because they practice marketing every day. It will take a lot less time to find talent you can depend on, and the out-of-pocket expense is usually about the same. 
• Hire an agency if you don’t have a proven strategy. This is characterized by your business having success intermittently… or when it feels like you’ve been “spinning your wheels”. An agency can help you identify what’s been helping or hurting your sales. 
• Hire an employee if business is booming. This is the least common but best scenario because you already have everything figured out. Now, you just need to reclaim some of your time by adding good people to your team and teaching them your strategy.

You can get the best of both worlds with Phvntom Inc.

Phvntom Inc. offers almost every discipline of marketing on a monthly basis without any minimum contracts. You don’t need to worry about hiring an employee or getting locked into a long-term contract with an agency that doesn’t meet your expectations.

Our pricing is competitive and our commitment to service is unparalleled. We offer the ultimate flexibility in marketing and can help you take your brand to the forefront of your target market’s minds.

Oh, and you can get started right now. We don’t need to waste your time with any of the back-and-forth quotes and contracts. Our pricing is the same for everyone and you can hire our agency right here on our website. Start your marketing plan today.