Is It Better to Hire a Digital Marketing Employee or Outsource a Digital Marketing Agency?


Companies have to shift from traditional marketing techniques to digital marketing techniques for advertising their products, services, and brand names. "Digital marketing" refers to all the marketing communications done by the company through digital platforms and the internet. Digital marketing is necessary for the company because −

  • Consumers are spending the majority of their time on digital media.

  • Consumers actively search for data online before making a purchase.

  • It is a cost-effective form of marketing communication for the company.

  • It provides the company with a wider target audience.

  • It helps the company customize the ad as per consumer behavior.

After understanding the need for digital marketing, it is time for the company to make an active choice on how to move ahead with digital marketing. In this article, we will be understanding the pros of hiring a digital marketing agency for the digital marketing needs of the company and the pros of hiring a digital marketing team within the company. After reading those, a firm can make the right decision for itself.

Pros of Hiring a Digital Marketing Agency

  • It will release the company from hiring stress and hiring cost − When a company is planning to hire a digital marketing team, it has to ensure that it has an SEO expert, an SEM expert, a content writer, a graphic designer, a digital marketing manager, and others for effective working. According to LinkedIn, a social media platform for the business world with 900 million members, it takes an average of 40 days for a recruiter to close a position. There are myriad costs involved with the hiring of any employee, in terms of the salary of the recruiter, the cost of posting a job, promoting the job on various platforms, the billable hours of the interview panel, and others. On the other hand, if the company is hiring a digital marketing agency, it can include this cost in its digital marketing budget and get better results for the company.

  • It will be a more cost-effective decision − When the company is hiring a digital marketing team, along with the hiring cost, it has to bear other costs. The other costs could be the cost of providing the employee with software and hardware to do the work, the perks, and benefits that every employee gets, the overhead cost of the employee whenever he is coming to the office, the internet reimbursements, and other costs if he is working remotely, the cost involved during his training period, and others. On top of that, any employee from the digital marketing team can leave whenever they wish, so the company would have to bear the replacement cost. All these costs can be avoided if the company decides to hire a digital marketing agency. In the case of the agency, the company can add all these costs to the budget and pay only for the billable hours.

  • Would get the best of resources − It is very difficult for a small or mid-sized company to have the best digital marketing technologies and people who are experts in email marketing, content marketing, SEO, SEM, network marketing, website building, social media marketing, and others. The company has to hire too many resources, which might seem like too much expense. Along with this, the company has to take subscriptions to various websites for content, pictures, keywords, lead generation, and others. It will not be a cost-effective decision because the work of digital marketers may seem limited for mid-sized and small firms. In these cases, instead of going through all the trouble and cost of hiring a digital marketing agency, the company should easily hire one. The company will get the best of resources, brains, and technology for its digital marketing.

  • Easy to replace − If the employees are not being productive or not bringing in desired results, it gets difficult for the company to remove them as there are other policies stopping the company from doing the same. On the other hand, in the case of digital marketing agencies, if the company is not satisfied, they can easily change their agency with the next project, tenure, or calendar year.

  • It helps the company with the entire digital marketing process − A digital marketing agency will not only design marketing campaigns for the company but will also ensure that they are measuring the results against the cost involved and suggesting to the company what went wrong in this campaign. What, for example, can be improved? In short, the digital marketing agency will do wholesome work for the company.

Pros of Hiring a Digital Marketing Employee

  • When it comes to data privacy − While sharing the company's data with the outside world is an offensive and punishable act, when you work with a digital marketing agency, you will always be at risk of a data or privacy breach and competitors taking advantage of this for their own benefit.

  • When you want to provide your internal marketing team with a helping hand − it might be the case that you have an internal marketing team that is well established. In those cases, if you need an expert like an SEO specialist or a content marketer, you can get them onboarded with you, or you can also get a digital marketer with experience in various fields of digital marketing onboarded with you. When you hire an external agency, clashes will arise, and this friction might cost the company.

  • When you are a well-established company − If you are a well-established company with branches all over, it is recommended to have a large team of digital marketing experts in various domains and various technologies, such as access to Google Analytics to measure the performance of SEM done by the company or organic website traffic, SEO applications to determine the keywords, subscriptions to various sites for getting relevant trademark-free pictures and videos, subscriptions to various sites for getting relevant trademark-free pictures and videos, subscriptions to various sites for getting relevant

  • When you need to keep the cost down − A digital marketing agency is going to cost you bucks, and it will be a costly affair. Instead of the agency, small startups or small-sized companies can hire one digital marketer for all their digital marketing needs. These digital marketers are going to help the company set up its base and generate leads for sales.

Hiring a digital marketing agency or hiring a team of digital marketing specialists in various domains or firms can just hire one digital marketer for all its digital marketing needs. All the above three could be valid and fruitful options for the company. Before deciding upon which option to go with, a firm needs to weigh its pros and cons and also weigh the demand for digital marketing needed by the firm. Going digital is not an option for the company, but how to go digital is something that the company has to think about. For example, an FMCG company has to ensure the active digital presence of social media platforms and websites because of the huge competition. On the other hand, a company that produces technological products should invest in personal selling and email marketing. The best way is to understand the product type and the behaviour of the consumer before deciding upon their digital marketing strategy.

Updated on: 17-Mar-2023

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