Learn the differences between working with marketing agencies vs. freelancers when it comes to digital marketing services. Here’s your complete comparison.
Quality digital marketing can be the difference between a successful business and one that folds within a few years of founding. The right tactics connect you to your customers, help you develop clear messaging and develop the right cadence for reaching your customers at the right time.
So once you’ve decided you need digital marketing expertise, you face the decision between marketing agencies vs. freelancers.
We help you understand the benefits of each, providing a clear breakdown, so you can kickstart your marketing strategy and reach your target audience.
A Comparison of Marketing Agencies vs. Freelancers
First, here’s a look at what a marketing agency is and what a freelancer is.
What is a Marketing Agency?
A marketing agency is an organization that often includes many professionals with diverse expertise. Within an agency, you might find the following areas of expertise.
- Branding
- Market research
- Graphic design
- Website design
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Content marketing
- Paid ads (i.e., Google search ads, display ads, social media ads, etc.)
- Social media
- Reputation management
These professionals work together to provide a holistic approach to your marketing strategy. Normally, you work with an account manager as your point of contact at the agency. They help manage the relationship and communicate with the various experts on their team to make managing your marketing easy.
What is a Freelancer?
A freelancer is a single individual with expertise in digital marketing. They might have prior experience in various marketing roles and be using their freelance career to maximize those skills in various ways.
Freelancers also often have a network of other freelancers who help them complete the various aspects of your marketing. So if they don’t have the design skills necessary to fully manage your marketing program, they’ll subcontract that part of the work out to another professional.
You would be working with an entirely self-employed individual who might have competing priorities as they answer to a variety of clients and their needs. When another client’s needs grow or change, you might not get the same response times from the freelancer, who is working hard to balance everything, but is a team of one.
Pros and Cons of Marketing Agencies
Now that you know what a marketing agency is and what a freelancer is, you’re ready to evaluate the pros and cons of hiring each to manage your digital marketing. Here’s an in-depth look at the pros and cons you might experience when working with each.
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Digital Marketing Agency Pros
- Diverse skillsets: Digital marketing agencies handle the hiring for you. They bring on the best designers, strategists and content professionals to offer a diverse skillset to clients. These professionals often have many years of experience, meaning you don’t need to repeat yourself or worry about the message getting degraded as it goes from your account manager to each skilled professional. And because these professionals are skilled in their field, you don’t need to come to the agency with everything figured out. They’ll ask questions and help you dig into your strategy to find what works best based on many factors.
- Digital tools and resources: Because agencies work with many clients, they have greater resources than the average freelancer. Those resources often buy you advanced tools and the best technology to manage your marketing needs. That’s not to say a freelancer won’t have the technology, but it might be more limited as they are spreading the cost across a couple of clients instead of dozens. Some examples of tools you might get when working with a digital marketing agency include social media management platforms with deep insights, automation programs that take your marketing to the next level and analytics software that helps you tweak your strategy to perfection.
- Scalability: A major challenge growing companies face when working with a freelancer is that they can only work with the professional for so long until they outgrow them. Being limited to one professional handling all your marketing could mean that you can’t run major campaigns for a few months out of the year, such as in the case of a business with seasonality. That’s because one professional simply can’t handle that much work at once.
- Connections and industry knowledge: When hiring a marketing agency, you can search for one that has expertise in your industry. That means they’ve done in-depth research into the challenges and nuances your company faces. Managers within the agency also likely have connections in the industry to offer insights you won’t find with agencies outside the industry or freelancers.
Digital Marketing Agency Cons
- Complex contracts: Normally, working with a digital marketing agency means putting a lengthy contract in place that outlines the specifics of how you’ll work together and the scope. Ultimately, this is in your best interest as it can protect you and make it clear what the agency has agreed to do for you. But it also means you can’t start your marketing right away as these contracts take some time.
- Longer turnaround times: Because you work with an account manager who filters the work down to the right professional, it can mean longer turnaround times as you wait for those materials to come back. Depending on the work you need to do, that can be challenging.
Digital Marketing Freelancer Pros
- Flexibility: You can work with a freelancer however it works best for you. That means you can work on a project-by-project basis or hire them for a flat fee each month to collaborate on certain projects. This can be cost-effective as you get your business up and running.
- Faster turnaround times: When you work directly with the professional who will be doing the work, that can mean that you get faster turnaround times. You won’t be playing telephone with various members of the team, which can benefit you greatly based on timeframes.
- Get started fast: While a freelancer will likely still have a contract and want to outline the scope of work, there are fewer layers to getting started with them, meaning you might be able to have the contract signed within a week instead of several weeks or even a month like a digital marketing agency might require.
- Cost: Freelancers are often less expensive than working with an agency. But you get what you pay for in most situations and end up doing more waiting for campaigns to start and missing opportunities as you wait for your freelancer.
Digital Marketing Freelancer Cons
- Limited resources: Freelancers might not be able to take on complex projects or grow with your agency because they are a one-person show.
- Inconsistent: At times, it might feel like you’re working with a completely different person than you hired. Response times lag compared to what you’re used to and work quality might look rushed when the freelancer is up against a deadline for another client. Deliverables might get delayed when a freelancer is swamped or they might have blackout weeks where they produce nothing for you due to vacation or illness since they don’t have backup to help in these situations.
- Confidentiality: While you can enter into a non-disclosure agreement with a freelancer, they might not fully understand it since most don’t have legal counsel. That means they might accidentally disclose confidential information or use what they know about your company to work with a competitor.
- Risk of subcontracting: While having your freelancer subcontract out some of your marketing work might not be a problem, it also could be a massive problem. It might mean you have less control over the end product and end up playing telephone with the actual person doing the work.
Finding a Quality Digital Marketing Agency
Quality is a massive factor when it comes to working with a digital marketing agency. If you hire just anyone, you might get stuck in a contract you’re unhappy with and lose precious time in reaching your customers.
New Light Digital is a proven marketing agency that can guide you toward reaching your goals and building out your digital marketing strategy. Our results with other clients speak for themselves:
- $44 million in trackable revenue
- 90% increase in ROAS
- 230% average yearly growth rate across clients
Schedule your free consultation now to make this your most successful year and start seeing impactful results.
Looking for a Results-Driven Marketing Agency?
Get measurable results within your budget.
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