What Should You Choose for Your Marketing Strategy Execution?

When you need help with your marketing efforts, you have several alternatives. You can do it yourself, hire a freelancer, or hire a creative agency to.

Which one you should choose, depends on several factors. Whether you’re a small, medium, or large business, it’s about what you need to get done and how well prepared you are to do it.

If you’re unsure of which route to take, below is an overview of the benefits of each, as well as important things to consider.

In-House

Executing your own marketing strategy can be one of the more cost-effective alternatives, assuming you have the resources and skills to maintain your marketing schedule.

The benefits: Since your team already understands your brand and knows what to do, doing work in-house can be convenient and efficient. Aside from incurring lower costs, you also have the improved flexibility to tweak your strategy without the need for additional coordination with an outside team.

What to keep in mind: While working internally offers flexibility and efficiency, sometimes you can end up in echo-chamber, unable to spot shortcomings in your strategy. Without outside perspective, you may overlook new opportunities or different ideas.

A Freelancer

Whenever you need someone with a specialized skill for a shorter period of time or someone to fill in the gaps, a freelancer can be a great resource.

The benefits: Freelancers will help ease off some of the burden on your internal team and support you in areas where you may not have the time or skill to execute something.

What to keep in mind: It can take time to find a good fit for your needs, and there is a learning curve to get them up to speed. Freelancers may also require additional oversight and guidance, e.g. when it comes to things like applying brand guidelines.

A Creative Agency

A creative agency can be a great collaboration partner if you feel like your strategy needs improving, you don’t have the necessary resources, or lack the particular skills required to properly execute your strategy.

The benefits: In general, an agency can provide a wide spectrum of services including the overall guidance, skills, and support your brand needs. Whenever you struggle to kick-off a campaign, miss deadlines, or postpone projects because your team isn’t able to keep up with the volume, an agency can be a huge asset. You can also work with them as you see fit. They may steer your entire strategy or simply enhance your content creation.

What to keep in mind: An agency will sometimes move a bit slower initially than you expect because they need to go through the discovery process, get to know your brand, and follow their creative processes to come up with ideas. Therefore agencies might not be able to accommodate urgent requests. You should also consider the size of the agency you’re working with.

Larger creative agencies often provide a wider range of services. However, with more overhead, they can come at a higher cost.

Boutique creative agencies are usually smaller and often specialize in a particular area. This gives you the benefit of highly specialized knowledge. They have fewer clients and are highly invested in building long-term relationships, which can benefit your brand.