Ah, the dilemma of hiring a freelancer or an agency.

Who should handle my marketing for me? The last thing you want to think about when it comes to managing the day-to-day operations of your firm.

In light of this, the response is crucial.

Working with a freelancer or an agency is an exciting phase in the development of your company. You want someone who has a thorough understanding of your company, your goals, and how to turn your dreams into reality.

Let’s set the scene…

You can easily handle sales, business development, marketing, and pretty much anything else in the early stages of your company. But as soon as your business starts to prosper and grow, you’ll probably find that other things are vying for your time and attention.

You’ll probably enlist assistance at this time.

The choice of whether to work with a freelancer or an agency when it comes to marketing is a conundrum for many developing firms. By outlining the advantages and disadvantages of each choice, we may assist make that choice simpler.

Let’s get right to it!

Freelancers & Agencies: what are they?

Before we continue, let’s take a minute to define agencies and freelancers, so we know exactly what we’re dealing with.

Freelancers:

Independent, self-employed employees are known as freelancers. Instead than being a part of an organization, they are the organization. A freelancer may specialize in one area of marketing or have a generalized understanding of several (in which case you may need the services of several).

Agencies:

Agencies are a group of dedicated specialists. Depending on their size, they may have entire sub-teams dedicated to individual areas of marketing, and they will likely have dedicated account managers for each of their clients.

So, which is best for your business?

Let’s start by talking about skills.

When it comes to agencies, a huge benefit is the breadth of skill sets you have at your disposal.

As a business owner, you may be aware of broad marketing best practices, but you might not be well-versed in SEO, content planning, or email marketing. You might not even be aware of what budget to set or how to get the most of it.

An agency, however, gives you immediate access to a group of individuals who most likely have each of those specialties.

You’ll have a content team that can produce scroll-stopping material and images for your advertisements, as well as an account manager who specializes in the day-to-day management of campaigns. You’ll have access to the collective experience and know-how of the entire agency, as well as the advice of experts on specific platforms on how to use them most effectively and advertise your product.

The situation for independent contractors is a little different. A freelancer can be a generalist, which means they have some knowledge of all specialties, or they might specialize in one particular field.

When it comes to site design, user experience, or Google Ads and campaign management, your selected one might be at the top of their game, but in the areas where they’re not quite as sure, they don’t have another team member to step in.

Therefore, we believe that agencies are the best choice if you’re seeking for a full-service marketing strategy for your company from a skill perspective.

Services

The foundation of a freelancer’s business is their reputation, therefore offering top-notch service is almost certainly a given. Because they want you to refer them to your friends who own businesses, you wind up being the ideal marketing platform for freelancers.

However, there can be an issue because independent contractors operate from home and report to no one in particular, so they might suddenly disappear. Some business owners may be concerned about this lack of contact because they have no means of knowing when a task has been finished or how far along it is.

Digital marketing agencies will offer a high level of service, conduct meetings to monitor the development of each organization, and have a predetermined framework in place. Companies like Google offer premium support to agencies. As a Google Partner, The Good Marketer has access to new features and increased support from specialized account agents at Google, allowing us to perform better.

Agencies have far more knowledge and experience from several fields. As an agency, The Good Marketer is immensely proud of its diversity. We think it can help a global company like Hall & Partners since there are usually between 2 and 5 people working on the account, which means you get the benefit of many different perspectives and areas of expertise looking at the account rather than just one.

A company like The Good Marketer has tried and true procedures in place, from best practices-compliant account setup to a 6-step approval process that helps to prevent errors and difficulties. These procedures were developed over a long period of time with input from our team members and clients.

An agency’s reputation is important to the business; however, the individuals working for the agency may not have the same sense of personal investment as a freelancer.

Communication

Since expectations may be established at the initial meeting and project deadlines can be established, freelancers tend to be more adaptable. Freelancers can get in touch with you more casually using social media or messaging services.

Since freelancers might be located anywhere, contact may be a little more difficult, especially if they are not in the same time zone as you.

Digital marketing companies will have predetermined ways of getting in touch with their clientele. The account manager assigned to your company will schedule weekly, bimonthly, or monthly calls to keep you updated and let you know how your company is doing.

Calls and reports for a large majority of agencies will have extra costs or will be taken out of the time allocated for your business.

Price

In the conventional sense, freelancers often do not request a salary but rather money per project or hour worked. They experience much fewer interruptions and diversions than office workers, which results in typically higher productivity.

Digital businesses will offer top-notch work for a convenient payment schedule.

Depending on the required task, it could be preferable and more economical to employ a freelancer directly.

Summary

You should think about where you are in your journey and whether you could fully utilize all the specialized services an agency has to offer before selecting between a freelancer and an agency.

When you are just starting your project, individual freelancers are a terrific option, but larger projects that span several different industries are better handled by agencies.

It all depends on the scope, requirements, and of course, money of your project. Both solutions have benefits and drawbacks.