As your organisation grows, you’ll inevitably need more people in specialist positions to help support that growth. Marketing should be a key function in any successful business, and knowing how to resource it properly, including investing in the right people, processes and technology, is critical.
There are three common ways to meet the resourcing needs of a growing business: hire internally, appoint an agency, or use freelancers. In this blog, we explain why implementing a hybrid marketing staffing model is a safe bet.
Choosing the right talent model
In the current landscape, businesses are finding it difficult to hire and retain appropriately skilled and experienced marketing talent. Between high wages, psychosocial hazards, changing employment legislation, and remote working complexities, managing people and their performance is taking a toll on leaders.
Additionally, marketing is such a broad discipline that trying to find one or even two people to fulfil an entire marketing department’s needs is near impossible. If you think about it, the marketing umbrella may cover anything from marketing administration and management right through to Google Ads, SEO, advertising, social media, website development, graphic design, copywriting, partner marketing, event marketing, branding, internal communications… the list goes on. Inevitably, your new marketing recruit will either spend most of their time in meetings and administration or focus on the area that they’re most competent in, leaving the rest to be put on hold or forgotten completely.
So what next? Business leaders are increasingly turning to a hybrid model: hire or promote an internal resource, such as a marketing coordinator, to manage internal stakeholders and on-the-ground tasks, and outsource specialised marketing services to an agency. Here’s why it works:
Macro view
When you hire an agency, you gain access to a team that offers a macro perspective on your business, rather than just focusing on individual tasks. Unlike freelancers or internal project managers, who are typically brought in to execute specific projects, digital agencies take a broader approach. They think strategically about your brand and bring fresh ideas that extend beyond the immediate scope of work. This holistic view fosters creativity, lateral thinking, and innovation. Instead of relying on the business leader to provide a complete vision and communicate it down the chain, agencies collaborate to help shape and communicate that vision, both internally and externally, ensuring your business is future-facing, agile, and leveraging the latest tools and technology.
Expanded skills
One of the reasons that businesses end up with a string of freelancers is that hiring managers quickly realise that their freelancer is a specialist in one field only. It’s very hard to find a freelancer or marketer with a broad range of focused skills, which means you might have to go looking for more than one staff member. For example, if you have an in-house graphic designer, you can’t expect or rely on them to also become your photographer, videographer, copywriter or social media specialist. You’re going to need a team of people for that. Explaining your vision over again and again and working with more than one person to complete a project is time-consuming for senior leaders.
When you engage a digital agency to work with your internal marketer or leader, you get access to a team of experienced specialists with a wide range of skills who can hit the ground running. You won’t need to repeat your vision and they’ll work together efficiently and autonomously to drive results for your business.
Predictable quality of work
It’s often harder to vet freelancers and job candidates when compared with agencies that should have a significant digital footprint and proven track record. Always look at online reviews, portfolios and case studies, as well as asking references, so that you can get an understanding of how the agency might work for your organisation. The best agencies maintain clear communication and consistency, ensuring you’re never left chasing deadlines or worrying about the quality of work delivered.
Lower financial investment and risk
Engaging an agency on a fixed or project-based contract is almost always a more cost-effective and lower-risk option compared to bringing on a full-time staff member, especially in uncertain economic times. When you hire a full-time employee, you’re not just paying their salary — you’re paying for payroll, income and fringe benefits taxes, superannuation, training, annual and personal leave, travel and work expenses, equipment, uniforms, and more. This can significantly increase your organisation’s risk profile, especially when recruiting senior and executive staff.
In an unpredictable economic environment, hiring full-time staff comes with risks, such as the potential need for layoffs if the business slows down. With an agency, you can easily scale your needs up or down depending on the project, which makes budgeting and planning more flexible.
Reduced management requirements
Many business leaders prefer working with a digital agency, where they have one point of contact because hiring, training and managing a team of staff in-house can be exhausting. Team leadership requires time for mentoring, conducting regular one-to-ones and performance reviews, overseeing training and development, and often taking on additional work when the staff member is sick or goes on leave. When you work with an agency, your marketing doesn’t stop when your staff member is away. Additionally, your face-to-face time with your agency account manager can be as little as one hour a month, allowing you to focus on what matters most in your business.
Your IP stays in the company
Unfortunately, given the transient and often remote nature of the way marketing employees now work, job hopping after as little as 18 months is becoming common. This presents challenges for businesses in terms of losing intellectual property, managing information and records, and having the ability to access and update company platforms and files as the years go on. At LEP Digital, it’s not uncommon for us to meet new clients who can’t provide us with access to their company’s social media accounts as they were established by an employee who no longer works for the company. It’s often the same for websites and digital assets when an ex-employee has moved on or a freelancer has shut shop and taken the passwords with them. Our first month spent with a new client often involves unravelling the past web of passwords, assets and files held by various contractors or employees and centralising everything to ensure your business takes back full control.
Consistent and cohesive marketing
Over time, when cycling through independent contractors, organisations often realise that their marketing has a degree of inconsistency and may not be as cohesive as it could be. This is because every freelancer will naturally have a different take on the work, and will not be privy to what the other parties are doing or the organisational goals set by the leadership team.
Organisations with in-house marketing resources are not immune to the issue of staff working in silos, particularly in medium-large orgs, orgs with a large geographical footprint, or in orgs with remote workforces.
One of the best things about using a full-service digital marketing agency like LEP Digital is that you have just one point of contact, but the whole team will collaborate closely to ensure that everything is cohesive, consistent and streamlined over time. This leads to far better results because everyone is working together for success.
Let us show you how we work
At LEP Digital, we offer a boutique agency partnership with a vested interest in your organisation’s long-term success. Our clients stay with us far longer than the industry average, and we are the most awarded and recognised agency in our region.
Our goal is to make your job easier by supporting you or your marketer to make more strategic decisions based on data, and deliver outstanding results for your business. If you’d like to work with us, please say hello.
