Marketing agencies are a great option for any business company who wish to gain a competitive advantage, as they provide services that would increase your brand awareness, have extensive knowledge and experience in their field and primarily focuses on the marketing aspect without interfering the main business.
They may be the answer to your marketing-related troubles, but they may not be the right one. It is not necessary for every business to hire one, as they are simply an option and before you consider it, you may want to consider the idea that you don’t need a marketing agency in the first place.
Self-Taught
Why hire someone if you can do it on your own? With the help of the internet, you can find limitless sources that would help you understand the world of marketing. From professional guides to video tutorials, audio podcast and online workshops, there are many free and affordable options to choose from.
While this approach does take time as you need to learn something new from scratch, it can be worthwhile to gain knowledge and learn a new skill that can benefit your business. With the right mind and tools, you can control your overall business as well as how you market it at the same time.
Expensive
There are many affordable marketing agencies that you can find out there, but there’re mostly “affordable” by bigger companies. For smaller or fresh new businesses, getting a Grade-A agency to work for you is near impossible. Not only that, you need to fund the agency for them to achieve an effective marketing strategy.
It feels counterproductive to spend many of your hard-earned money to just hire an agency that may not even guarantee success for your business. It's better to seek for alternatives that would not risk you financially and focusing your funds on your main business.
Time Management
Aside from spending your money for their services, hiring an agency also requires you to work with them. Working together is done to understand the business and how to market to your audience. It may be productive to do so, but the problem is that it takes too much of your time.
As a business, time is of the essence to focus on your primary work, bringing in customers and stimulate more sales. If too much time is spent on the marketing agency, this can badly affect your business and you won’t be able to bring any returns.
External Support
Not hiring an agency can be tough if you have difficulties working on the marketing on your own, but the truth is that you’re not alone. There are people out there who are willing to help you in your endeavours by sharing their knowledge, teaching from their experience and giving helpful advice.
You can even build your own marketing team in-house, comprising of marketing experts, college graduates and experienced friends that are willing to help, not just for a pay but also to expand your business into a thriving one. Instead of searching for help elsewhere, why not start from those closest to you?
Different Views
Working together with an agency is crucial to understand how the business operates and how to market to the target demographic. But it doesn’t mean that both parties would come to a consensus. The agency may suggest a strategy that had worked with other businesses and apply it to yours, but would it though?
No one knows your business more than you do. You’re right to doubt an agency’s methods, especially if they’re simply adopting previous approaches. If they don’t wish to take more time in learning your business’ ins and outs, then it’s best to not accept their offer and take matters into your own hands.
Low Priority
There are some agencies that would be happy to work with you, but know that it’s very likely they accept because they need clients. Marketing agencies can’t survive with only one client and they need enough funds for their work members and their operations.
And because they have a lot of clients to juggle with, it’s very likely that your company would be put in the back burner. Unless you’re a big company, they would not put too much effort into your business and may use your funds to work on their primary client’s marketing. This is sadly a reality for some agencies and definitely not worth your time and money.