The Benefits of Hiring a Marketing Agency are Huge for 2024
The digital revolution began years ago. If you are not involved with digital marketing, you are missing out, but your competitors may not be.
What if you could hire a professional content manager? Sure, the salary would be $120000. But what if you could generate better content faster and better than the best content manager? What if you could do that at half the cost? Would you do it? Look into hiring a marketing agency. Do you do your books?
Here are some common questions we got in 2024:
- “How can I improve my rankings on Google?”
- “Can you write about how not to lose your position on Google after an update?”
- “What should I do about the GA4? (Google Analytics 4)”
When was the last time you reviewed your demand waterfall? How about your sales processes? Are leads and sales predictable?
The table below will show what happens if you apply marketing strategies to the top and middle of the funnel. What does your demand funnel look like? What are your conversion rates?
Do you have too much on your plate to get done? Are you up-to-date on the latest digital trends and marketing technology? How about getting a new perspective on things? We can show you how to hire a marketing firm that fits your needs and requirements you may have missed.
I hear this all the time, and we need this, we need that. The digital landscape is changing quickly, and the war on digital talent is just starting. Sure, you will hear AI will occasionally replace SEO specialists, or we generate our content from AI. Sure, you do. If you do, how is that going?
Whether running a 20-person marketing department, a small business, or a single business owner, you can save time, improve your marketing spend return, and drive more leads and sales.
How? Find a good digital marketing partner with a track record to help increase your digital presence and watch your business grow. Good digital marketing companies are hard to find.
With over 21 years in the marketing agency world, you don’t need a digital marketing agency based in your hometown. A full-service digital marketing agency like Matrix offers both online and traditional marketing. They offer an outsourcing marketing service.
These marketing agencies can help create digital marketing campaigns and improve user experience, SEO, PPC, and social media. Look for a data-driven digital marketing agency that shows you results over time. These are result-driven marketing agencies.
AI-Agentic System for Content Marketing
AI-Agentic systems like OrchestraAI for content marketing are advanced, autonomous technologies designed to execute content strategies with minimal human intervention.
Like most marketing agency’s marketplaces, marketing services range from:
- A full-service marketing agency
- Niche players
- Freelancers
There are benefits to outsourcing marketing agencies and the cost of hiring one. Are the agencies worth it?
While hiring a social media marketing agency benefits, the disadvantages of using specialist marketing agencies might hurt in the long run.
You will get answers to the following questions:
- What are the benefits of engaging with a marketing agency?
- Why hire a digital marketing agency?
- Why should I outsource marketing?
Selecting a digital marketing agency that can help you grow or cut costs is important. How would you like your user search keyword to have your webpage pop up at the top of Google search results?
Do this test for me. Put yourself in the shoes of your best customer. What would they enter in the search bar if you searched for what you offer?
Below are two great SEO and content examples for your company and marketing efforts.
Here, we can see the benefits of partnering with a marketing agency.
How did you find this post? See just some of our results.
Marketing is increasingly responsible for more and more. Teams feel strapped with limited resources and tight budgets, and inadequate training is available.
If you keep your entire marketing team in-house, you could spend your entire budget on payroll and still not have all the necessary skill sets.
On the other hand, if you outsource all of your marketing, quality and control become concerns. All industries struggle with this dilemma, which every company, manager, and employee should weigh carefully.
Here’s an example of holistic, integrated marketing strategies in an omnichannel or multichannel environment.
Better Search Ranking
Better Search Ranking in 90 days
SEO is extremely important for companies to rank well in search engines because it is the primary way that people find information online.
Companies and organizations outsource their marketing for the following reasons:
- They have an internal team of 1 – 3 and need ongoing support to lead you in the right direction.
- They lack an internal team and need to outsource everything because they don’t have the time or resources to accomplish it themselves.
- They need help in certain marketing areas, such as content marketing, SEO, website design, social media, marketing technology, or improving their lead conversions.
However, there is a real crisis happening in the marketing industry.
In 2022, the United States needed 265,000 more people with marketing skills. Marketing is essential for any company that wants to grow.
Small businesses may not have the resources for a full-time marketing hire. However, they still need these skills, which range from branding, social media, and digital marketing to SEO and website development.
Given how critical marketing skills are across sectors, I was surprised that the U.S. has a national shortage of people with marketing skills.
Hiring in-house marketers or a marketing agency requires research and analysis. If you’re on the fence, keep reading my eight reasons to consider outsourcing some or all of your marketing activities and programs.
1. When Hiring a Digital Marketing Agency, You Get More Than Just Marketing Expertise
What if you could have predictable revenue growth? An effective marketing system that generated and nurtured sales leads?
Outsourcing some of your marketing gives you talent, proven strategies, shared experiences, and access to advanced marketing technology.
You can seamlessly synchronize the end-to-end customer experience and touch each buying cycle stage with agile, timely, and relevant marketing campaigns.
The marketing skills gap is very real. According to Oracle, 75% of marketers say their lack of skills impacts revenue somehow, and 74% say it’s contributing to a misalignment between the marketing and sales teams.
The game is changing, and marketers need to master the new rules. An agency helps you bridge this gap and provides a team of diverse people with the education and relevant experience.
In a startup or small business, the head of marketing wears many hats. And they can’t do it all, nor should they. Hire a good marketing agency, and you can access versatile professionals with proven backgrounds in business strategy, marketing, content marketing, communications, business strategy, graphic design, web design, internet marketing, and SEO.
With a senior-level partner under one roof that can provide you with a uniquely holistic approach that allows you to launch multidisciplinary campaigns with one highly qualified agency completely accountable for development through deployment.
2. You Want To Be Nimble and Manage Costs
Hiring a digital marketing agency costs much less than hiring a full-time marketing executive.
You get an entire team of marketing experts and can expect cheaper ad and software costs, among other costs. Hiring a marketing company takes the burden off you and increases your ROI.
Few companies appear to possess a strong internal marketing leader succession plan. According to a Russell Reynolds Associates (RRA) report, 72% of CMO appointments in Q1 and Q2 were external hires, and in the technology industry, 89% were external appointments.
Outsourcing marketing teams is very common among startups and small businesses. This practice is especially beneficial for product-based businesses.
It’s good since forming a marketing team with talents and the same level of competence as those who work for marketing agencies can cost well over six figures per year, which is the price that most smaller companies cannot pay. Additionally, venture capital firms want to keep funded companies agile and reduce the burden of layoffs during uncertain times.
Marketing agency costs are much lower, and their rate is usually much smaller than one executive salary. For this price, startups get an experienced team of marketing experts, which is a high value.
The fixed cost is huge. People, systems, and facilities account for the largest internal marketing budget. A bad hire can easily cost a company over $200,000 (Calculate it here).
By comparison, digital marketing agency resources do not need a full-time salary, benefits, or overhead. When you hire a good marketing agency, that team should provide a wide range of strategic, tactical, and technology skills.
Outsourcing saves money on salaries and overhead, but the outsourcing partner can also save you money in direct purchases on marketing programs (e.g., printing, media buys, advertising, etc.). By leveraging its suppliers, a good outsourcing partner can save a company 10 – 30% in its overall marketing spending.
You do not have to pay a marketer’s full-time salary.
Salaries for marketing professionals can be expensive, and they’re increasing yearly. From 2016 to 2017, the average salary of a Director of Marketing increased by 17%, and the average salary of a Content Strategist increased by 40%.
3. You Get Access to the Latest Marketing Technology
Let’s face it: Marketing technology is expensive when you add everything included in a marketing and sales stack (often called MARTECH). This cost can easily range from $800 to over $10,000 monthly.
The benefits of using a marketing agency with marketing technology are powerful for your lead generation.
Marketing departments are often technology-deprived or use incompatible marketing technologies. While companies have access to over 10,000 marketing technologies, how do they know which ones to use?
Marketing organizations are often at the bottom of the IT department’s priority list, so there might be a lack of support and guidance. I have seen marketing technology take up 65% of the IT budget.
Marketing tools increase efficiency, productivity, and performance. There are tools you can find for free or at little cost, but they are often limited to producing results. But performance-driven agencies give you access to premium-level services, software, and analytical data reports.
Also, advanced marketing automation tools do not provide marketing services. They require a professional to set up the technology, tune the system, interpret marketing data, and make smart decisions to achieve results.
4. Your Existing Staff Becomes More Efficient with Outsourcing Marketing
And in May 2022, here are the results. We tweaked a few things.
The image above shows the results you can get too.
Some companies avoid hiring in-house marketers, social media personnel, content writers, and SEO experts by having existing employees take over.
Dumping the marketing burden onto existing employees (who may or may not be skilled in the area) increases the likelihood of burnout and reduces productivity in the long run. Your marketing efforts will also lack consistency and effectiveness even if they have all the necessary training.
If you outsource some of your marketing needs, you maintain momentum with critical projects that will never fall by the wayside, drop down the priority list, or become forgotten.
Employees who leave the company will most likely take the project assets (in the form of tribal knowledge). When you outsource your marketing activities, you have one centralized team as your partner.
5. When Hiring a Marketing Agency, You Don’t Need to Train Them
Finding, acquiring, training, and supporting direct hires is expensive. In addition to requiring long and sometimes expensive training, entry-level marketing personnel usually do not get attached to their first position within the company.
When they gain more industry experience, most experts look for another position, often in different companies.
It is also important to know that, with the rise of digital marketing, there is a lack of qualified and experienced marketing staff. Hence, marketing sector employees often get many good offers from other enterprises.
High employee turnover rates can negatively affect a company’s business since hiring and training new experts requires additional time and funds.
According to the Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM) new Human Capital Benchmarking Report, the average cost-per-hire is $4,129, while the average time it takes to fill a position is 42 days.
The marketing leader’s job is to produce results, including driving quality sales leads, increasing website traffic, and building followers and subscribers. Yet, they often lack the skills, technologies, and strategies to do this.
In its report, B2B CMOs Must Evolve or Move On, Forrester Research stated that 96% of marketing leaders believe the breadth of skills required to succeed in marketing has increased, and 44% say they can’t find the right combination of people and skills in the job market.
Performance-driven agencies, like Matrix Marketing Group, provide a unique, holistic approach that allows clients to launch multidisciplinary campaigns with one highly qualified contact.
Your dedicated resource is accountable for a strategy through deployment. You don’t have to train your existing staff members because your agency has the needed depth and breadth of skills.
6. You Can Easily Scale Your Marketing Efforts
When the economy tightens, companies tend to cut costs. Marketing is often the first to go because it is seen as a discretionary expense—a big mistake. And when times are good, marketing often gets more funding, which contradicts the CEO’s responsibilities.
However, reducing and expanding the marketing budget is expensive. In the short term, reducing or canceling marketing activities incurs costs. In the long term, attrition, staffing, industry, and company knowledge costs can be expensive.
Under a traditional in-house operation, the only way you can increase the output of your marketing team is to hire more employees.
Marketing agencies like Matrix Marketing Group already have cross-functional professionals on the core team, senior management with some top agencies, design firms, or leading companies worldwide.
7. Stay Current on the Latest Marketing Trends Without a Learning Curve
Marketing is changing quickly; in fact, it has changed more in the past five years than it ever has. Don’t believe me? Each year, Google changes its search algorithm around 500 – 600 times.
Google rolls out major algorithmic updates (such as Google Panda and Penguin) that significantly affect search results. Can you tell me what impact that has had on your website ranking? Did you see what the latest update did with your website?
What in-house marketer has time to read the latest social media, SEO, technology, content marketing, and branding news? They are usually so buried in day-to-day tasks that there is no room to grow, change, and evolve.
The majority of reputable digital marketing agencies take education very seriously. I invest 5-7 hours weekly to stay abreast of the changing marketing ecosystem and the latest trends, tools, technologies, and strategies to serve our clients better.
According to the report above from Capgemini, only 4% of companies align their training efforts with their digital strategy.
8. You Benefit From an Outside Perspective
It’s easy for in-house Marketers to lose sight of the big picture. They tend to be immersed in day-to-day activities and wear many hats, so they can’t see the forest for the trees.
Employees may find it difficult to express new ideas or raise concerns for fear of losing their jobs, but we’ve seen amazing results by collaborating with marketing team members.
Sometimes, you can get too close to your business and not see your marketing strategies, programs, or materials from your audience’s perspective. Even though you may know your business inside and out by living and breathing it daily, your perspective is still one-sided.
To market successfully to your current audience and capture new markets, you must step out of your shoes and into your target markets or customers.
A group outside your company supporting your needs helps give you the customer’s perspective, not just your company’s.
Whether planning, copywriting, or designing, the right outsourced team will have experience with various marketing and communication strategies, techniques, and tools. You can rely on their lessons over the years to find the correct solution for your business challenge.
9. Increased Revenue and Benefits of Employing a Marketing Agency
–- When you have a marketing agency on your team, it will be able to increase your revenue by helping you come up with more innovative ways of going to market.
Once a site’s SEO rankings start improving, this can lead to more traffic and increased sales. The reason is that the more people visit a site, the higher the chances they will be interested in what is being sold or marketed online and then buy it.
As a marketing agency sales rep, I can explain to you why we can increase your revenue with AI digital marketing:
- AI can help you better understand your target market. By analyzing large amounts of customer data, AI can identify patterns and trends that would be difficult or impossible for humans to see. This information is used to create more targeted and effective marketing campaigns.
- AI can help you to automate your marketing tasks. This can free up your time and resources so that you can focus on other aspects of your business. For example, AI is used to automatically generate personalized email campaigns, manage social media accounts, and optimize your website for search engines.
- AI can help you to create more engaging and effective marketing content. AI-powered tools can are used to generate personalized product recommendations, write engaging blog posts, and create eye-catching images and videos. This type of content is more likely to capture the attention of potential customers and encourage them to take action.
- AI can help you to measure the results of your marketing campaigns more accurately. By tracking and analyzing key performance indicators (KPIs), AI can help you to see which campaigns are working well and which ones need improvement. This information can then be used to optimize your campaigns for maximum results.
Overall, AI digital marketing can help you to increase your revenue by:
- Attracting more visitors to your website
- Converting more visitors into leads and customers
- Increasing the average order value of your customers
- Reducing the cost of your marketing campaigns
If you are looking for a way to increase your revenue, I encourage you to consider using AI digital marketing. We can help you develop and implement a customized AI digital marketing strategy that will meet your specific needs and goals.
Here are some specific examples of how AI digital marketing can be used to increase revenue:
- A retail company can use AI to personalize its product recommendations for each customer. This can lead to more impulse purchases and a higher average order value.
- A travel company can use AI to target its advertising campaigns to potential customers who have recently searched for flights or hotels to a particular destination. This can lead to more bookings and increased revenue.
- A SaaS company can use AI to identify leads most likely to convert into paying customers. This can help the company to focus its sales efforts on the most promising leads and increase its conversion rate.
Overall, AI digital marketing is a powerful tool for increasing revenue for businesses of all sizes.
A marketing agency will have the experience and knowledge to help your company grow.
Sales will increase once customers feel they have been given enough information about products and services to make an informed decision.
11. Knowledge of Marketing Channels
The marketing channels used for your business will depend on your industry and what is being sold or marketed. A marketing agency will learn about these things quickly and know how to use them for your benefit.
Marketing channels are how you communicate with and reach your target audience. There are many different marketing channels available, including:
- Search engine optimization (SEO) involves optimizing your website and content so that they rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).
- Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising: Creating ads at the top of SERPs when people search for relevant keywords.
- Social media marketing: Using social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to connect with potential customers and promote your products or services.
- Content marketing: Creating and distributing high-quality content, such as blog posts, articles, and infographics, to attract and engage potential customers.
- Email marketing: Sending email newsletters and promotions to subscribers.
- Affiliate marketing: Partnering with other businesses to promote their products or services in exchange for a commission on sales.
To expand your reach and increase sales, you need to use a combination of relevant marketing channels to your target audience. For example, if you sell B2B products, you may want to focus on SEO and PPC advertising. If you sell consumer products, you may want to focus on social media marketing and content marketing.
Here are some tips for developing a solid marketing channel strategy:
- Identify your target audience. Who are you trying to reach? What are their needs and wants? What marketing channels do they use?
- Research your competitors. What marketing channels are your competitors using? What are they doing well? What could they be doing better?
- Set your goals. What do you want to achieve with your marketing channels strategy? Do you want to increase brand awareness, generate leads, or drive sales?
- Choose the right marketing channels. Not all marketing channels are created equal. Choose the most relevant channels to your target audience and will help you achieve your goals. You will see results in 30 days or less by hiring an agency.
- Create a content calendar. This will help you plan and schedule content across all your marketing channels.
- Track and measure your results. It’s important to track and measure the results of your marketing campaigns so that you can see what’s working and what’s not.
Here are some examples of how businesses can use different marketing channels to expand their reach and increase sales:
- A clothing company can use SEO to optimize its website and content to rank higher in SERPs for relevant keywords like “women’s dresses” or “men’s shoes.” This can help the company reach more potential customers who are already searching for its products.
- A software company can use PPC advertising to create ads that appear at the top of SERPs when people search for relevant keywords like “customer relationship management (CRM) software” or “enterprise resource planning (ERP) software.” This can help the company reach potential customers who are already interested in the type of software it sells.
- A social media marketing agency can use social media marketing to connect with potential customers and promote its services on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. The agency can create and share engaging content, run social media contests, and use social media advertising to reach a wider audience.
- A content marketing agency can use content marketing to create and distribute high-quality content, such as blog posts, articles, and infographics, on its website and other online platforms. The agency can also promote its content on social media and through email marketing.
- An e-commerce company can use email marketing to send email newsletters and promotions to subscribers. The company can segment its subscribers based on their interests and purchase history to send them more targeted and relevant emails.
- A travel company can use affiliate marketing to partner with other businesses, such as travel blogs and review websites, to promote its travel packages. In exchange for a commission on sales, the travel company can offer its affiliate partners special discounts and promotions.
By using a combination of marketing channels that are relevant to your target audience, you can expand your reach and increase sales for your business.
Examples of Outsourced Marketing Campaigns
When considering hiring a marketing agency, ensure they walk the talk.
Here is an example of an outsourced marketing content campaign. In the campaign’s first month, we may only write one blog post that attracts 20 new social media followers and generates ten leads.
In the second month, we may publish two more blog posts, add two content offers, attract 40 new followers, and increase our search engine ranking for eight keywords, generating 20 leads.
By the sixth month, we may have published 30 blog posts, created ten content offers, had 200 followers, and been ranked on page one of Google for five keywords, generating 100 leads.
The compound effect of creating those assets over time didn’t just double the leads in the second month; they generated 10x the results in only a few short months, so you can see the value.
Here’s another example of an outsourced Facebook Ad campaign. Most people think that creating Facebook ads is a very basic process.
They know who they want to talk to and what they want to say. Based on that knowledge, they create an ad, choose an audience (thinking Facebook will figure it out), and let the ad run. They believe the cost is what it is and can’t do anything about it.
If we create only one ad version and put the word third-wave coffee roasters only in the post text, we could miss out on the best ad we ever made.
To help find the best ads, Matrix creates several versions of an ad, altering where the text appears and the image in each version.
Specifically, for one ad, Matrix creates three lines of text (A, B, C), where A is the post text, B is the headline, and C is the description. Then, in Power Editor, we duplicate the post and switch two placements (for example, A, C, B).
We continue this way until we have created every text placement combination, six different versions. Each ad in the set has the same text, but the text placement is different. By hiring a marketing agency, your sales results will start climbing, depending on your product mix, within 45 days.
Next, Matrix tests four different visuals with the six text versions, bringing the ad set up to 24 different ads. We’ll also do another version of the text (lines D, E, F) and combine those six variations with the four images.
When we are done, the ad set contains 48 ads, including two versions of the text (ABC and DEF) and four images.
We are often asked how Matrix Marketing Group knows what text to write. Matrix recommends thinking about what will get someone to click or watch a video.
We want enough text to add value but not so much that your audience doesn’t want to click. We also ensure that we don’t say the same thing in three different ways.
For the visual, Matrix recommends using video instead of still images because we’ve noticed that the cost per impression of images has increased compared to videos.
Matrix Marketing Group created a 10-second video featuring four still images and free music from Facebook, reducing the cost per lead by about $0.25. So if we can use a video in ads, even if it’s just a basic slideshow, do it.
Also, when we choose images (or videos), consider why people care about your product and use images that convey what’s important to your audience.
The visual can be anything if it looks nice and conveys your message. In some cases, you can even use stock images.
Sound simple, right? I think you get my point.
Conclusion Benefits of using a marketing agency
Companies of all sizes use outsourcing to help grow their business and stay nimble. Outsourcing some or all of your marketing gives you flexibility, access to trained professionals, and advanced marketing technology.
When you hire a marketing agency, you don’t assume you are getting senior-level marketing professionals with a wide range of skill sets. When picking a marketing agency, some companies worry about product knowledge and try to find vertical industry firms.
Your employees should have product/service knowledge to provide guidance. I call this core vs. context. Your marketing agency should give you an outside viewpoint on where to find your market, how to talk to it, and help you build your brand.
The ideal situation is to have at least one point person working internally who can collaborate with the marketing agency to help them understand your brand voice, key messages, content, and demographics.
A performance-based agency will have many ideas to contribute based on trends, statistical data, and competitive analysis. Still, we find the best results come from working with a dedicated staff within our client’s company.
We’re listening.
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General FAQ’s
What is digital marketing outsourcing?
Digital marketing outsourcing involves hiring and subcontracting digital marketing services like website design, search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, social media management, sales funnels, paid search advertising, and marketing technology.
What services does a digital marketing agency?
Freelancers, consultants, and marketing agencies provide digital marketing services, and a digital marketing agency, like Matrix Marketing Group, a hybrid agency, is different from a traditional marketing agency. A digital marketing agency typically focuses on results-based marketing, here, measurable marketing and ROI can easily be measured.
Why do people hire a digital marketing outsourcing agency?
Here are eight ways you know it’s time to hire a marketing agency:
1. Sales are Stagnant with Weak Sales Pipelines
2. Marketing is Not Getting Done
3. You Don’t Enjoy Marketing
4. You Don’t Have Digital Marketing Skills
5. The Sales Team is not Getting High-Qualified ((MQLs)
6. Your Marketing Results Are Not Predictable
7. You Do Not Have a Marketing Attribution Model
8. You’d Like to Outsource Your Complete Digital Marketing Services but Lack the Budget
What are digital marketing services?
A digital marketing agency provides digital marketing services that include website design, paid search (PPC campaigns), SEO services, marketing content, branding, SEM, social media marketing, video, marketing analytics, and marketing technology that produces results.