Is Hiring A Digital Marketing Agency a Smart Financial Investment?
You may have heard that a digital marketing agency can break the bank. You look at how much an in-person marketer may cost and try and see if a digital marketing agency is worth the money. There are many factors to consider when making this decision. One of the main factors is cost. The question remains, is an Idaho Falls Marketing Agency really worth the investment? Keep reading to find out!
First, we want to talk about what a digital marketing agency is. A digital marketing agency can be local or work from the other side of the country. It can help you with a variety of digital marketing tasks including social media, websites, search engine optimization (SEO) and so much more. Since your marketing is such a critical part of your overall business and can be a huge determining factor of how successful you are, marketing is a big decision. You may be thinking, hiring an agency may be expensive though. That’s where you are actually wrong.
There are many different kinds of entrepreneurs out there that are considering hiring a digital marketing agency. Firstly, there are entrepreneurs that would rather save themselves the money and do it themselves. You may have watched a couple of YouTube tutorials and are convinced you can do that yourself. The thing is, a digital marketing agency does this ever since the day, so they will most likely get much better results that you will. Not to mention, you are going to be so busy running your business. You should spend that time focusing on things you are great at.
The second kind of entrepreneur thinks perhaps hiring a full-time in-house employee would be more cost-effective. Let’s do a quick comparison.
With an employee, you will be paying them a set salary regardless of what is happening. This means the first couple of weeks when they are getting organized or they are getting trained and getting to know the other employees you will be paying for that. You may be comparing what you are paying the agency compared to what you are paying the employee, but there are more costs associated with the employee. When you are hiring an agency they start the minute you hire them. Their business knows exactly what to do and this is what they specialize in. They do not need any training. There may even be multiple people that specialize in each task work for you. This means you are getting the best person for each job. With an employee, it doesn’t matter which task they specialize in, they will be doing them all. If you hire a digital marketing agency for social media, Google ads, and blogging. You may get a separate person for each of those tasks which equals three different employees. When it comes to an employee, you also need to pay their paid time off. With an agency, it is a once per month cost. There are no hidden costs and no time off you are paying for. You also need to pay for things like health care for your employee. Once again, with an agency, you do not pay for healthcare. Finally, many employers contribute to an employees 401K or a form of a retirement account. You assist the agency with none of this when you hire them. Finally, you need to give the employee an office to work from, a computer and if any electronics breaks, you will be the one that pays for it. With an agency, they purchase their own electronics and you don’t have to have any space available for them in their office. The amount to talk to the agency is even up to you. If you just want them to send you a monthly report but have little communication, they can be in another country and not bother you at all. You also can let them know you want to be hands-on and want to sit down with them regularly and go over all of the metrics. Digital marketing agencies are typically very flexible and want you to feel comfortable at all times.
There are a few things that also set an agency apart from an employee. These will also differ from agency to agency, so if you are planning to go that route, make sure you have a few options in mind and ask them a few questions. One of them is if you have to sign a contract. Many agencies require you to sign a minimum of a 6-month contract. This may not be something you feel comfortable with. With that said, you can always start with something small so it is not the end of the world if you are not as happy with them as you thought you might be. Once you are able to prove themselves over the 6 months, you can move into giving them more and more tasks. You can also do this as your business grows. The great thing about this is that is that maybe your business has an offseason and you don’t want to have your full-time employee, you typically still would need to keep them on. With an agency, you can ask if they can increase their efforts during some seasons and when it is your low season they can decrease the amount of work which helps you financially.
Now you are able to see how useful a digital marketing agency really is! Not only will it help to increase the sales you have, but it can actually save your business money and have a game plan for when it grows. If you are ready to get started with a digital marketing agency that you can trust, give us a call today!