Business marketing is one of the most crucial things to get right in order to grow your business.

Following our previous blog post, talking all things marketing tactics we wanted to outline the importance of getting your marketing right, starting with the very first step- freelancer or agency?

Due to the ongoing effects of COVID-19 there has been may layoffs and unstable job positions. This has led people to start freelancing which has now resulted in an increased number of freelancers who are completing in the market.

Freelancers price their services differently with many factors affecting this decision, for example in third world countries the price of living is lower so the cost of their service will be lower.  Rates just depend on how low the freelancer is willing to go. This makes it easy to choose the wrong freelancer, for perhaps cheaper. But the quality is not always guaranteed.

The pros of hiring freelancers

Works from anywhere

Freelancers have the flexibility to work from anywhere. While this is a good thing in some lights, it also means that they could disappear and leave you out to dry.

Lower costs 

When purchasing products or services such as marketing, cost is a factor that is mostly considered. Freelancers are much cheaper than marketing agencies. However, individual freelancers may have only one specific skillset, so you may have to work with multiple freelancers and this may turn out to be more costly.

Cannot scale

Freelancers are typically temporary and cannot scale. say you triple the business that you have currently and hire multiple freelancers to help you. They usually won’t be able to help you straight away and you’ll make the mistake of hiring other freelancers/ switching to an agency or even end up postponing engagement with new business.

Flexible

Usually they are quite flexible with their time, meaning they don’t always work a 9-5 schedule. This may result in missing each other during the day, leading you to communicate outside of your work schedule.

The pros of hiring a digital marketing agency

Standardised rates

When working with an agency, rates are more standardised. This makes it easier to plan for your budget. When working with a freelancer, prices for different projects can differ. To use resources effectively, harnessing a teams power is both cost effective and convenient.

Large Body of skills

Agencies have a huge amount of skill because they employ a whole range of people with different specialities to take on different tasks. With an agency, there is a whole team working together which you get access to.

Accountability

Agencies will assign a lead to oversee each client and the project which means that anything you receive is checked thoroughly. This allows for guarantee of quality and consistent output.

Enterprise-level resources and tools

Agencies have enterprise- level recourses which can be used to help. Due to them servicing more than one client, costs are taken out as an investment meaning you don’t need to pay full price for enterprise-level benefits.

The true cost of marketing: 

To put this into perspective;

Susan is a freelance writer and charges €50 for a 1000-word article that she writes. Susan is looking to make €1000 a week and work for 15 hours. She needs to write 20, 1000 word articles in her 15 hours, for 45 minutes each. Due to this limited time, quality of Susan’s work may be compromised.

Paying less for a content strategy, blog post, web development is a cheap investment if it works but its also a huge risk if it doesn’t. It could be a huge waste of time, money and energy that could have been avoided from the start.

You may encounter freelancers that are very good, however you may hire not so good freelancers which cause you stress and inconvenience.

Unfortunately, for most businesses hiring a freelancer and “hoping” it works out is not going to work. It’s not a good risk to take if you’ll save money now but then spend more resources later that you can’t get back because you’ve hired the wrong freelancer. In saying this, it’s also important to choose the right agency/developer for your business’ specific needs. 

Start your marketing off the right way and save yourself time, money and stress. We can help you with all of your marketing needs. Book A Free 30 Minute Discovery Call to see how we can help, no strings attached.