A lot of businesses assume in-house is cheaper, and that agencies are a luxury. Makes sense, but neither is reliably true.
It’s great to be self-sufficient, but leaving it all to your own devices can lead to subpar quality – case in point all the awful AI slop images you see in loads of small businesses now. It can also be burning out your staff if you’re giving people a tricky task that they’re not trained in, which will end up with you paying more to rectify things anyway!
There’s an argument for both in-house and outsourcing, so it’s less “which is better?” and more “which is right for your business right now?”, or “which areas do I need to get professional help with?” The answers change as you grow, but let’s have a quick rundown.
The case for in-house
- Deep brand knowledge and context would take time to transfer to any agency, and may still not be fully coherent
- Faster internal communication, messaging, response times
- If volume of work is consistently high it might make sense to keep someone on the team that knows what to do with it
- You get someone that doesn’t give attention to other clients, or even your competitors
Although, there are hidden costs that people forget to factor in too, think management time, the risk of a bad hire, pension, training costs.
The case for an agency
- Breadth of skills without the breadth of salaries and having to hire 5 different specialists
- Exposure to what’s working across multiple industries and accounts, including potential rivals
- No HR or internal management regarding sick days and recruitment
- Easier to scale up or down
Although, there’s still relationship management, onboarding time and potential poor communication to take into consideration.
Where each approach succeeds
Early stage companies & SMEs are likely to see the benefits of connecting with an agency, based on flexibility, cost and pre-existing expertise in different fields. This is particularly the case if the business in question has varied needs and multiple areas that require attention.
For an enterprise with massive content/campaign output an in-house team would make more sense, so that they can solely focus on the company in question, and be trained with specific objectives in mind.
The hybrid method
It might seem a bit self-explanatory, but many businesses land here. Something along the lines of an in-house marketing manager who controls strategy and brand, with agencies or externals handling execution in certain channels. Increasingly common, giving you the best of both worlds, particularly if your business is trying to scale up.
Ask yourself a few questions before you start to strategise, so that you can figure out what’s best for your company’s individual needs. An enterprise with an in-house team might still work with an agency for performance driven campaigns, or to fill any gaps in their expertise.
Do you have enough consistent work to justify a full time hire?
Can you manage, develop and retain a specialist employee?
Do you need one specific skill or many different ones?
How quickly do your needs change?
Have you got a long term project in mind?
Long story short, there isn’t a universally right answer for agency vs in house marketing. It may even be worth auditing your business so you can accurately decide what your next steps would be, and seeing from there whether you feel you need to enlist some external help.
My advice (if you’re still reading) would be to do a mix of the two, give a couple of your staff some job enrichment with a bit of extra training, but don’t bite off more than you can chew – agencies exist for this exact reason, so you can focus on what your business does best.
