To hire In-house or Agency? How to choose your player.

So... you have a budget and you need marketing support? The biggest question facing you now (or maybe should be) is whether or not you are going hire someone into a permanent role or hire an agency? I will start by saying that there is NO WRONG ANSWER to this question. This is a question I've been asked innumerable times in my career - especially having worked in both agency and in-house. Again - for those in the back - there is no wrong answer.

What this comes down to is a couple of key considerations which we will go into below. But first let's quickly break down the difference and then add in a third option: freelance support.

In-house: This is someone you hire permanently into their role. This can be a harder decision because this person will be on your payroll. They will be a part of the culture and team. You will invest time into teaching and coaching them (let's hope). Replacing them if they leave, or especially if they aren't the right fit, will be costly and challenging. However, they will better understand your business, your business goals, the nuances of how things work, how you think and what the business values. This person could grow with the business and into other roles supporting you long term. This person will be committing their full time workday to you and their full attention (hopefully).

Agency: An agency is a company you hire externally. Based on your budget you can hire an agency for a campaign or short-term or a long term. An agency will come with a specialization but within that will have an entire of team of people with different specializations working for you. However, they will have multiple clients and distractions that you aren't aware of. You will still have to sign some kind of time based contract (usually). Agencies have a pitching process that is a lot of sizzle and jazz hands, sometimes making it hard to understand if they're actually good and what they actually specialize in since most will say 'everything.' They are external to your company and therefore will NOT understand the nuance of your business and therefore WILL need someone internal to make sure they're getting it right and staying on track. Everything extra (time, resource, lunch) will be an external cost which will get billed back to you.

Type of agencies I've hired: Creative Ads or branding, media buying/paid ad support, content agencies

Freelance support: Marketing is a world of specializations. You can write 'unicorn' and 'ninja' and 'superstar' all you want in your job posting but inevitably someone will be an expert in 1 or 2 things and need specialized support elsewhere. This is where freelancers come in. There is a whole world of expertise out there and since they are often self-employed and work is referral based they will work hard for you. Once you find a few you like they can even feel like an extension of your team. You can hire them for short or long periods of time, but if you need to stop working with them because of budget changes, you don't have to fire someone. And once you get budget back you can re-hire them without any bad blood since they are (hopefully) used to the ebbs and flow of business.

Questions to ask yourself + Key Considerations:

1. Is this marketer #1 for your business?

You will need someone to set strategy and figure out what your business really needs. I would highly recommend bringing this in-house. Not a marketing expert and don't know how to hire? Speak with a consultant and have them help you interview.

2. Do you need long term or short term support? Do you not know?

All 3 options will work for long and short term. Look at my considerations above. Don't know? Hire in-house and let that person guide you.

3. How senior or strategic does this role need to be?

Senior roles have more impact if they're internal as they understand nuances and business goals overall. Hiring a consultant to consult a senior marketer is the only caveat here.

4. Do you actually need more than one role?

If you want an amazing advertising campaign you may need a designer and a copywriter. You can hire these from freelance but an agency will have a long form content writer and a copywriter and a digital designer and a print designer, and an animator and an illustrator. Depending on your needs - agency might set you up better for success.

5. Do you know exactly what kind of marketing specialization you need?

Same point as above. If you don't know. Hire a strategic generalist in-house but give them a budget to worry about hiring the rest.

6. How much time are you hoping this person/agency will give you? (please be honest about this and then add 10 hours a week)

See above for key considerations here.

7. How creative do you want the outcome to be (perfect design, totally out of the box thinking, perfect copy)?

Agencies can provide a myriad of specializations that can bring forward a more polished result. Often because they aren't bogged down with the day-to-day and are brought in to focus on one thing they can also produce more creative ideas. This is also due to the fact that the agency might have an art director and a strategist and typically will have an entire team of designers and creatives who's job it is to think up crazy ideas and bring them to life.

Good luck in your search.