Digital Marketing Agency or In-house Team?

Digital Marketing Agency vs In-house team — Which is the better choice for your business?

Is a Digital Marketing Agency really always the best solution for businesses? Does setting up an in-house team actually save money compared with hiring a Digital Marketing Agency? What should your business truly be aiming for? Don't worry — with this article, Markdao believes you'll find the best direction for your business.

In this article, Markdao will cover the definition of a Digital Marketing Agency, what an in-house team is, and the strengths and weaknesses of each model.

What is a Digital Marketing Agency?

A Digital Marketing Agency's mission is to maximize the potential of a brand or business, helping the business sell its products/services to its customers. Depending on the services offered, agencies may be responsible for setting a marketing strategy, conducting market research, attracting more potential customers, or increasing revenue.

No single person can be good at every area of Marketing, but a Digital Marketing Agency can — because it is a collection of Marketing specialists with different strengths, such as Email Marketing, SEO, and so on. As a result, agencies can meet the needs of all kinds of different clients.

What services can Digital Marketing Agencies provide?

• Marketing

• Online Marketing

• Social Media Planning

• SEO

• Video

• Web design

• Graphic design

• Video

• ...

Digital Marketing Agency: What is an in-house team?

Compared with a Digital Marketing Agency, an in-house team isn't all that different — the only distinction is that in-house staff are company employees rather than third-party hires. Some businesses prefer to build a Marketing team inside the company for easier direction and management of the work. In-house marketers perform exactly the same tasks as an agency — setting marketing strategy, researching potential customers — with the aim of fully unlocking the business's potential.

In reality, in-house marketers have a great many tasks to perform and face considerable stress. There is a lot of work, and the headcount may not be enough to handle it.

Comparing the differences between a Digital Marketing Agency and an in-house team

What differences does a Digital Marketing Agency have compared with an in-house team, and what are they? Markdao now compares the following factors: Skills, Creativity, Flexibility, and Cost.

SKILLS

When it comes to an in-house team, the business has to pay marketers to nurture its brand. One difficulty for businesses is that they can't find a marketer who excels at everything.

As for a Digital Marketing Agency, you don't have to worry about skills — you get a team of experts strong in different areas.

So what is the best solution?

It depends entirely on your business. Specifically, if your business can hire several Marketing experts at once and always has work for them, an in-house team is the better choice. But if your business needs to execute a comprehensive marketing campaign spanning many areas — traditional Marketing, online Marketing, SEO, and more — in a short time frame, then a Digital Marketing Agency should probably be your choice.

CREATIVITY

On creativity, an in-house team has the advantage of knowing your business's identity inside out, so its creative work fits your project well. However, the downside is that in-house teams usually work on a single project, so in-house marketers can't keep producing fresh creativity.

A Digital Marketing Agency is different: they have broader experience because they work on many kinds of projects with many different clients, so they can come up with original ideas and keep generating new ones. That said, experts worry that if many businesses in the same industry hire the same agency, each business's distinct identity may not be preserved.

So depending on the specifics of your project or campaign, you should make the appropriate choice.

FLEXIBILITY

One strength of an in-house team versus an agency is that you can manage them easily and get deliverables as fast as possible, since the in-house marketers are right there in your company. But precisely because of this mindset, businesses tend to assign far too many tasks per day, leaving marketers feeling overwhelmed. That's when they fall back on the timeline and decide for themselves which tasks to prioritize and which to do later.

When you hire an agency, the usual problem is that deliverables tend to arrive later, because Digital Marketing Agencies have many clients with many different projects, which means you have to wait. This is a common situation when hiring an agency, but don't worry too much — professional agencies usually know how to schedule projects to keep up with deadlines as well as to safeguard the quality of their work.

COST

This is probably what most people care about — some businesses even make the decision based on cost alone. So how do the costs compare?

It's an undeniable reality that building and maintaining a marketing team in-house is very expensive. First, an expert marketer's salary ranges from 30–60 million VND/month — not to mention if you need a whole team of specialists. Or the business can hire marketers at lower salaries, but then you have to train them, which takes far more time. On top of that, you need to provide working conditions for these employees: workspace (desks, chairs, computers — not to mention the software they need...).

With Digital Marketing Agencies, the cost of each service you need is clear and transparent. What's more, when negotiating, you can even get a discount on the services you use. But given everything Markdao has just laid out, you can also understand why the cost gap between an in-house team and an agency is so wide.

We hope this article helps you weigh up and make the choice that fits your business's current needs. Whether it's a Digital Marketing Agency or an in-house team, Markdao wishes you every satisfaction with your choice.

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