Three ways to buy the same work
Marketing work can be done by people you employ, by an independent specialist or by a firm. The work itself is the same. What differs is how much range you get, how much attention, how much management it takes and how easily the arrangement can change.
This piece is published by a company that does agency work, so read it with that in mind. We have tried to describe each option as its strongest advocates would. There are stages at which an agency is the wrong answer, and they are set out below.
What a freelancer does well, and where it strains
A good freelancer is a specialist you deal with directly. The person you brief is the person who does the work, with no account layer in between. Overheads are low and arrangements are flexible. For a well-defined task in one discipline, such as a set of landing pages, a paid search account or a technical review, a strong freelancer is often the most efficient choice available.
The limits follow from being one person. Capacity is finite, so illness, holidays and other clients affect your timeline. Range is narrow, so a brilliant paid media specialist may not be the right person for analytics or content. Someone on your side also has to set direction, join up the pieces and check quality, and coordinating several freelancers is a job in its own right.
Freelancers suit businesses that know what needs doing and have someone able to manage it. They suit less well a business that is still working out what the plan should be, unless the freelancer is a senior strategist hired for exactly that purpose.
What an in-house team does well, and where it strains
Nobody outside the company will know the product, the customers and the internal politics as well as an employee. In-house marketers sit close to sales, product and leadership. They hear objections at first hand, react the same day and build knowledge that stays in the business. For a company where marketing is central to how it competes, that closeness is a real advantage and hard to rent.
The costs are fixed and slow to change. Hiring takes time, and a hire that does not work out takes longer to undo than a contract. One or two people cannot cover search, paid media, content, design, analytics and development to a specialist standard, so small teams tend to become generalists stretched across everything. A lone specialist can also become isolated, with nobody to check the work or keep the knowledge current.
In-house teams suit businesses with enough steady work in a discipline to fill a role, and with a leader able to hire, direct and develop marketers. Without that leader, a first marketing hire is often asked to be a strategist and several specialists at once.
What an agency does well, and where it strains
An agency sells range and continuity. A single contract gives access to several specialisms, each practised across many accounts, without a hire for each. The work does not stop when one person leaves. Exposure to many businesses means an agency has usually met your kind of problem before, and has the tools and processes already in place.
The trade-offs are real. Your account shares attention with others. The people who pitch may not be the people who deliver. An agency will never know your business as an employee does, and it depends on you for access, approvals and expertise. Margin and management overhead are part of the fee, as explained in how digital marketing agencies price their work.
Agencies suit businesses that need more than one discipline, cannot justify a full-time role in each, and want one party accountable for a result across them. A specialist agency for a single channel, offering SEO services alone for example, sits somewhere between a freelancer and a full-service firm.
When is an agency the wrong choice?
There are situations in which hiring an agency, ours included, is likely to disappoint.
In the first case the money is better spent on finding out what customers want. In the others, a freelancer, a first hire or simply waiting is the more sensible move. A good agency will say so when asked, because a client who should not have signed becomes a poor reference.
- The offer is unproven: no agency can market a product buyers do not want.
- Nobody internal can give time for briefs, approvals and access.
- The need is one narrow task that a freelancer can complete.
- The budget covers the fee and leaves nothing for content, media or fixes.
- Marketing is the core of the business and should be owned inside it.
- You want a supplier to blame more than a plan to follow.
Which option fits which stage
At the earliest stage, with a small budget and one channel to prove, a freelancer or a narrow agency scope is usually enough. The aim is evidence that a channel can pay back. Anything broader spends money on coordination before there is something to coordinate.
Once one or two channels are working and demand needs to become steadier, range starts to matter. This is where an agency tends to earn its fee, often alongside a first in-house marketing lead who owns the plan and manages suppliers.
At scale, with several channels and a marketing team in place, the question changes from who does the work to who does which part. Strategy, brand and customer knowledge usually move in-house. Agencies and freelancers supply specialist depth, extra capacity and an outside view. Very large organisations often add governance and training to that list.
Most businesses end up with a mix
The three options are not exclusive. A common and healthy arrangement is an in-house lead who owns direction, an agency for the disciplines that need a team, and freelancers for specific crafts. What matters is that one person owns the plan and that every party knows what it is accountable for.
Expect the mix to shift. Work that an agency starts is often brought in-house once it is steady enough to fill a role, and a sound agency plans for that handover. The SERPMOZ engagement models are organised by stage for this reason, and several assume an in-house team alongside. Whichever route you take, the questions in how to choose a digital marketing agency apply equally to a freelancer or a job candidate.
