5 Reasons Your In-House Marketing Needs an Agency

Digital marketing connects customers with your business through online channels. And there are many online channels like social media or video or content on your website or paid advertising.

When your company starts out, you may have one person or a small team to manage digital marketing channels. With all the skills involved with digital marketing these days, your small team may not have the resources to work efficiently in the various marketing channels.

Your business may need to outsource professional photography or videography for your website or YouTube channel. And someone needs to manage the metadata, and other search engine optimization (SEO) needs to create visibility for your channel.

Or you may need someone who understands how to write content to publish as articles or blogs on your website. That person needs to understand how to write clear, concise content that is written in your customer’s language in order to make that all-important connection.

Or your business may decide that online advertising is the perfect way to gain instant visibility and connect with customers to bring in revenue quickly.

Whatever the skills of your in-house team, you may find that as you expand, you want to increase your digital marketing beyond the skills of your in-house team.

When you do, you can turn to a digital marketing agency to fill in the gaps.

Agency As Resource Center

An agency already has a team of skilled professionals ready to address your expanding marketing needs. There’s no need to recruit, hire, and train new people. An agency has the people you need without all the hiring headaches.

Think of an agency as a resource center with the people and tools you need to expand your digital marketing. And the costs are less than bringing on new in-house team members.
The people at the agency are skilled professionals ready to bring their highly-experienced skills to your digital marketing needs.

In fact, the agency can show you ways to increase revenue from the marketing efforts your in-house team is doing right now.

Agency Resources You May Not Have In-House

While your in-house team has their skills, an agency can expand your current resources and add new methods and techniques to your ongoing marketing.

Strategy Design

Marketing services don’t just begin and end with the creative side. An agency can evaluate your website to ensure it meets all of your goals. And they can help you get hyper-local reach or a global audience through your site.

Web Design

A strategy review may uncover old techniques that keep your website from appealing to your current consumer base. Their skilled technicians can streamline your website layout, appearance, and overall content, keeping your target audience in mind.

SEO

Unless your team has someone dedicated to search engine optimization, your business may not be up to date with the ever-evolving changes in the world of search. They will know how to work with topics, entities, co-occurrence, and ontologies to make sure every page tells search engines like Google why your website is the answer to a query for a future customer.

Copywriting

Copywriting is the skill of writing content that speaks to your customers. Good copywriters know that plain language has the power to convert customers with no technical jargon or fancy words. Strong copywriting goes right to the heart of your customer’s needs. The one your business can solve.

Social Media Marketing

Skilled social media marketing helps your business organically to reach as many customers as possible with powerful results. The entire process includes integrating your brand with marketing goals and sales funnels. And directly connecting with customers through direct messaging and responding to post replies.

Paid Digital Advertising

An agency uses the latest technology and analytics to stay ahead of the game with paid online ads. They can integrate your existing copy and graphics or create the full campaign from start to finish. Plus, the agency knows how to efficiently and effectively create a campaign that gives you the best return on your advertising dollars.

Overall, an agency is prepared to supplement any digital marketing needs not covered by your current in-house team.

Reasons to Choose A Digital Marketing Agency for Your In-House Team

When you want to expand your digital marketing footprint, using an agency will be cost-effective creating results dovetail with your in-house efforts. You’ll also get access to the expertise that some agencies offer, like technology or design, which can be a challenge in-house. The right agency can even help you develop the skills you need to take on digital marketing itself.

It’s important to know that agencies can provide marketing consulting services which help your company understand which digital marketing tactics work best based on market response. Plus, the agency can help you evaluate your in-house marketing efforts to maximize the ROI while telling you whether they’re worth the investment.

1. Flexibility

When you have an established in-house team, an agency’s flexibility is like expanding your own in-house team. Good agencies encourage close collaboration, are responsive to ad-hoc issues, and facilitate frequent meetings to discuss results and projections.

You can choose the right level of service to augment your in-house marketing efforts. Typically, agencies offer a range of service levels so you can choose the Service Level Agreement that meets your communication needs.

2. Fresh View of Your Business

Because an agency works with a variety of clients, they can provide an outside, objective perspective on your business brand and your internal marketing objectives.

Agency experts in the industry share their knowledge of industry trends and competition. Marketing teams in-house will know more about your business in the beginning. However, often an external perspective provided by a company can benefit your business.

3. Wide Range of Skills

Your business needs a large number of skills needed to develop a digital marketing plan—Social media, budgeting, copywriting, creative, Google, Facebook, video ads, emerging platforms, and the list goes on. These pieces require unique abilities.

Building a team of all these talented individuals can take months. When working with a marketing agency, you get a pre-packed team of highly trained experts who possess the right combination of skills. You will have the ideal full-time equivalent (s) who can quickly start your marketing programs without complex hiring or salary costs.

4. Latest Technology and Best Practices

Educating and training their staff to stay on top of industry best practices and latest developments is a constant commitment of marketing agencies. These teams arrive at the table with expertise and knowledge, as well as established partnerships, industry must-have technologies, and best tools that small in-house teams cannot afford or simply do not have access to.

While you focus on your business, the agency brings knowledge and technology to expand your marketing reach.

5. Increased Return on Investment (ROI)

Agencies are result-driven. As the agency’s business and reputation grow, they want to keep you happy (and maximize your ROI) to retain your business.

If you are hesitant about spending money on agency fees, consider the savings you can make with all your agency expertise. Think of your in-house marketing team member who is familiar with SEO, Facebook ads, social media, and email marketing but only knows how to apply each. In fact, while this person does a great job in running the business day-to-day marketing, you need a deeper knowledge of how to scale a specific area and get the results you were looking for.

That’s where the agency’s experience and expertise can help.

Along with these five major reasons to work with an agency, you’ll also gain the aggregated experience of the agency’s team members and experience the end-to-end project management that saves you money and time.

How to Choose a Digital Marketing Agency to Work with Your In-House Team

Today, with such an abundance of new marketing tactics popping up every day, it is nearly impossible for a business to stay on top of the latest trends and figure out the best ways to use different platforms. Your in-house team needs to know so much that is beyond the scope of a small team. That is why getting skilled professionals at an agency can be highly advantageous.

But, how do you tell a good agency? What makes an agency different? How do you decide on a marketing agency? How do you know you’ll have a good working relationship with your marketing team?

There are steps you can take to make a rational decision in your search for a digital marketing agency to augment your in-house efforts.

1. Know What You Want. The first step is to determine how you want to expand your marketing efforts. You’ll need to take into consideration factors like where your target market spends time online and how they make buying decisions. You may have an in-house SEO person but you want to create paid advertising campaigns. You need to know what steps you want to take in order to ask the agency to take on your new marketing tasks.
2. Find an Agency to Fit for Your Needs. Do the agency services fit your plan? Some agencies only work with bundled service packages. If you already have an in-house team, you’ll need an agency that can perform the specific services you need.
3. Ask for Campaign Examples. We all know that prior results are no guarantee of future outcomes. But seeing examples of prior work will help you evaluate if the agency does the kind of work you envision for your business.
4. Client Retention. While testimonials are great, ask for examples of clients that have worked with the agency for a long period. The longer the better. It means the client is happy with the continued results from the agency.

5. Reporting. Ask about reporting frequency and what metrics they use for measurement and ROI. Depending on what services you need, the reporting will vary, but you do want examples in your required marketing area.

6. Background Research. Check LinkedIn for reviews and background on the company. Research the company’s CEO and other personnel.

7. Know Your Contacts in the Agency. Know who your main point of contact will be at the agency. Ask which agency team members will be working with your business. For your ongoing relationship to work well, you’ll want to work with people who “fit” with your business.

Take all these steps to ensure that the agency and your in-house team will work effectively together to achieve the results you want. The more questions you ask, the better understanding you’ll have.

What to Expect From the Digital Marketing Agency

As with any business—whether it be a marketing, writing, or coding agency—a primary aspect of working with a marketing agency is to understand what to expect. As with all of your business relationships, understanding your expectations will be key to your agency experience.

No matter what your situation, however, you need to communicate your expectations and know what your agency is prepared to deliver. To ensure a successful business relationship, it is important to make the time for your expectations to be set and properly communicated.

Of course, the agency will have expectations from your business and will set up communication guidelines too. The best way for your in-house team to work with the agency is frequent and open communication on both sides.

To give you a rough idea of what to expect for a return on investment (ROI) Single Grain did a study of the average return on investment for each dollar ($1) spent in various digital marketing channels.

There are many factors involved in getting a high return, which is why no specific result can be guaranteed for every company. For example, factors that influence ROI:

• Quality and competitiveness of products
• Competition and sophistication of the industry as a whole
• Competence of the agency responsible for marketing the product
• Which marketing channel is being used
• The accuracy of conversion tracking

Expectations evolve as you work together. That’s why ongoing communication is key. The bottom line of expectations is clear communication so each side—your in-house team and the agency—knows what to expect. At this stage, you’ll also want to define targets and objectives according to your marketing plan.

The time has come to decide on a budget, including creative, technology, and support. Then when you approve the budget, the agency can start budgeting project costs in accordance with your company’s policies and procedures.

Consider the Hybrid Benefits

In the end, combining outsourced digital marketing through an agency with your in-house team’s efforts can bring your the best of both worlds and spur your business to new growth.
Once you’ve identified the right agency, set your goals, and continue communicating, your business may end up being one of those long-term clients.

At Erfolk, our team members contribute decades of experience and stay current with technology. We’d love to talk with you about integrating our services with your in-house marketing team.