As a creative marketing agency with 20+ years in the business, Crush has had the privilege of working on a wide variety of projects over the years.
With clients ranging from big-name, global corporations to small, local businesses here in Chesterfield, it’s interesting to see that, no matter who the client is, they each have their own individual needs and reasons for outsourcing their marketing to an agency like Crush.
Whether it be a rebrand, a website build, a social media graphic or a blog that needs writing, as a marketing agency Crush is able to deliver, but when most businesses have a marketing department, why are we still needed? In this blog, we’ll be delving into this question and exploring just why so many businesses, big and small, choose to outsource their marketing.
But first, what is a marketing agency?
A marketing agency is a business in which a team of people work to carry out the marketing needs of their clients. Just as the clients could be large or small businesses, so can marketing agencies. Some marketing agencies may have several offices across the country (or world), whilst others may operate on a smaller level of just 10-20 people in their team.
However, the variation amongst marketing agencies doesn’t stop there. They also vary in the types of services they offer, how they offer it and for what kind of industries they specialise in… so it’s no wonder that there are over 25,000 different marketing agencies currently operating in the UK.
To make it simpler, we’ve separated the main types of marketing agencies into just 4 categories:
- Creative Agencies
Deal with: Branding, photography, graphic design, videos, animation and website design.
- Marketing Agencies
Deal with: Strategy, campaign creation and management, brand development and PR.
- Advertising Agencies
Deal with: B2C communication, business growth and carrying the brand forward.
- Digital Agencies
Deal with: Digital analytics, conversion rates and lead generation.
However, it’s important to remember that the above categories are just a guide, as most agencies will do a bit of everything. For example, here at Crush, we do brand, design and digital.
So back to the main question at hand, what are the benefits of using a marketing agency?
1. Cost-efficiency
Whilst outsourcing your business’ marketing to an agency does require a cost, it often works out to be much cheaper than doing it yourself.
The average salary of a Marketing Manager in the UK is between £35,000-£40,000, although this number can vary depending on the type and size of the business. Taking this number as a rough estimate and adding extra costs of expanding the marketing department with roles such as Content Creators (£28k), Marketing Assistants (£25k) and Executives (£30k), as well as any recruitment fees, it suddenly becomes quite costly.
On the other hand, marketing agencies already have all these professionals within their team, without charging you the cost of all their salaries. Instead, agencies will charge businesses a set fee, so businesses can keep track of costs, time and results gained from those investments.
“The cost of an agency is usually straightforward […] as they bill you for the amount you agreed to pay. However, the costs of internal marketing resources are actually more complex and often hidden. You should never see the cost of an internal marketing resource as their salary alone.”
– Innovation Visual, UK Digital Marketing Consultancy
2. Expertise and perspective
Often, agencies will compile of a huge variation of professionals, all who may have other agency and in-house marketing experience. This enables businesses to gain a wide variety of expertise that they may otherwise not have been able to have, resulting in a better project output that is strategised, professional and creative.
For example, you may be an experienced marketing manager across various sectors, but when it comes to building a new website or undertaking a complete rebrand of a business, you may need guidance – this is where a marketing agency can offer unmatched expertise whilst still giving control to the in-house marketing team.
Another important aspect of marketing agencies is that they enable their clients to gain perspective. Often, working in-house can lead employees, and therefore marketing activities, to be quite insular and somewhat restricted. Whilst in-house marketers do know their business best, they can use this knowledge to liaise with and guide agencies, rather than doing it all themselves without valuable outside input.
3. Support
External marketing agencies provide an invaluable source of support to businesses. In commissioning a marketing agency to do elements of your marketing, in-house marketers are able to get on with needs deemed ‘more urgent’ by senior management or the business as a whole.
The marketing agency, on the other hand, whether it be designers, copywriters or developers can get on with the nit-picking of, for example, the website, graphic design, social media management or even email management. This leaves in-house teams confident that the job is being done.
It should also be important to remember that marketing agencies can provide support over several years – it needn’t be just for one job or project, especially if the in-house marketing team is relatively small or inexperienced. In this scenario, marketing agencies can act as a sounding board to a business’ problem, concern or query.
4. Time-efficiency
Often, businesses find that, by outsourcing their marketing, projects and tasks can get done faster. Whereas businesses can often struggle to be focusing on just one project at a time, agencies are there to do just that. Not only does this enable time (and cost) efficiency, but it also enriches the output of the task at hand. In the time it takes for a marketing team to plan, design and present (and then approve) one idea, an agency is able to create multiple options.
For example, let’s say the project is a rebrand. On one hand, you’ve got agencies that can often offer 3+ different options for direction, each thought out and presented to the client. If the client isn’t happy, they can simply direct the agency to go back and rethink. On the other hand, an in-house marketing team may only have time to present one idea at a time, amongst all their other work.
5. Access to professional tools
As marketing agencies don’t often have the same scale of expenses that a large business will have (especially if you’re a small agency like Crush!), they often dedicate their budget towards professional tools in design, social media and web development. Applications such as InDesign, Figma, Photoshop, Hootsuite and monday.com are expenses that most businesses will not have the budget for – but agencies will.
The outcome of this? Businesses can have access to these tools, creating a more professional and efficient output for a project, without the expense of a subscription.