If your marketing team is stretched thin, devoid of new ideas, thirsting for more structure or you're just looking for some help, you have two choices:

• decide to invest in a new employee and/or software, or
• outsource to a marketing firm or freelancer.

There are pros and cons to both choices, and what works best for you will depend on your long term marketing goals, your company resources, and your budget.

The Pros

1. Outsourcing is a Time Saver

Outsourcing marketing can be a great option to avoid making the big time investments that come along with new hires and/or new software. Though there will be a learning curve whether you hire a contractor or an employee, the outsourced firm will most likely have a set system and software in place that they are experts in, and a tried and true marketing plan ready to go. This know-how and preparedness can be invaluable if you are looking to quickly and efficiently diagnose problems.

2. Outsourcing Offers a New Perspective

Outsourcing can also offer a much needed new perspective. Hiring an agency can be refreshing because they will be able to objectively view your marketing efforts from an outside perspective and highlight problems that your team might have been overlooking. They also will have their own unique working style and culture that can refresh and revamp your team if you've fallen into a rut. An outside agency can be a cool new influence that forces you to take new risks and try new things, and this can lead to big pay off for your marketing strategy.

3. Outsourcing Can Save You Money

Outsourcing is often a financially smart choice as well. With an agency, you are only paying for what you need, instead of taking on an entire new employee salary and benefits. The same idea goes for software, where you are usually buying a subscription on an annual basis, and committing to investing in using the product long term. Agencies are experts in what they do, and by outsourcing the marketing work to them, your company is able to focus on what you do best and save the time and energy it costs to master an entire skillset. When done correctly, outsourcing can end up offering big returns for your company. And, if you remember from business class, big returns = big money. It’s a pretty simple equation.

The Cons

1. Outsourcing Requires Flexibility and Communication

One of the major cons of outsourcing is that the person you're working with is not physically in the office from 9-5. If you are not equipped with the means to communicate with your agency through email, phone, and social media, you may struggle to adapt to working with a remote team member. Agencies also have multiple clients, and you will be one of many clients they are working with. Companies that are looking for an on-call, at-the-drop-of-a-hat team member may be better off getting someone in house.

2. With Outsourcing You Are Not Investing In Your Employees

As everyone knows, everything you teach your employees and each experience you give them ends up benefitting your company. A con of outsourcing is that the know-how that your agency is developing through the experience of working with you is not necessarily feeding directly back into your company. If your long term goal is to have a self-sufficient, successful marketing department, investing in your own employees and software might make more sense for you.

3. Outsourcing Can Also Be More Expensive

When you DO have a few extra people on your team that can handle the work, outsourcing will more than likely cost you more than just keeping everything in-house. There are of course trade-offs. You have to consider everything we’ve listed above in the pro list like expertise, time to dedicate to your project, and a fresh perspective.

There You Have It

We are an agency. So, while we strongly encourage you to consider the pros of outsourcing, we also want to be an objective partner and make sure we offer as much value as possible. Most of our clients tend to mix it up a bit. We act as strategic partners with some of them, and then execute the all parts of the strategy, while other times they handle all of the execution on their own. Our goal? To make you shine.

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