Many business owners are torn as to whether they should manage inbound marketing in house with an internal team or partner with an agency. What’s right for one business might not work for yours. How can you make the right decision?
The solution that’s right for you depends on what you hope to achieve. But success either way requires an understanding that inbound marketing isn’t a quick fix or a magic solution for your company’s problems. It’s an investment requiring a long-term commitment; it’ll take time to see your desired results.
Let’s compare each option to help you make an informed decision.
Control
No one knows your business like you do. One benefit of managing inbound marketing on your own is being able to maintain full control over your efforts. You’ll have full authority over every detail of your marketing campaigns.
Your internal team could also collaborate easily because you share an office or are digitally well connected.
Steep Learning Curve
There’s a lot that goes into successfully implementing inbound marketing; it’s not as easy as it looks. The diverse skills required to succeed with inbound marketing include:
From planning and development to completing everyday tasks and measuring analytics, inbound marketing takes a lot of hard work.
Higher Costs
It can be challenging and costly to put together a complete inbound marketing team. To be successful, you need people with the right experience and skills. Consistent content creation is key, as this is what will enable you to drive more traffic to your site, educate prospects, and generate leads.
Your current employees already have their own responsibilities. And a single person won’t be able to handle all the necessary tasks. Thus, the costs of new hires will be steep. And employee turnover can further increase these costs.
Expertise
When you partner with an inbound marketing agency, you’ll get unlimited access to expert advice and marketing resources. Without needing to assemble a team on your own, you’ll benefit from individuals with expertise in every area of inbound marketing.
As an agency’s sole focus lies in the inbound marketing world, you’ll benefit from faster set-up and execution. The right agency will offer you ongoing support and will adjust your marketing campaigns based on data analytics.
Analytics
An inbound marketing agency will help you outline SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely) marketing goals and develop a strategy to reach them. With advanced analytical software (like HubSpot) to track and measure your goals, calculating the ROI of your efforts is made easy.
You’ll have a clear understanding of where every lead and customer came from based on these specific analytics. The agency will continually track and test campaigns to ensure they’re constantly optimized to achieve the greatest ROI.
Cost-Effective
Especially if you’re a small or medium-sized company, partnering with an agency will be a more cost-effective option. You likely can’t afford all the new employee costs that come along with managing inbound marketing in house.
It’s best to get the help you need right from the start. A HubSpot certified agency’s work will be highly productive and cost efficient. These agencies can quickly and simultaneously produce content, manage your social media accounts, optimize your website, and more.
An agency will help you make the most out of your investment in inbound marketing. The experts won’t only focus on individual tasks but on maintaining inbound best practices and achieving the results you need.