Marketing Agency or Freelancer: Which Is Right for You?

When you’re looking for marketing support, should you hire an agency or a freelancer? 

It’s a common question for organizations both large and small. Sometimes, it makes sense to work with a freelancer. Heck, we work with freelancers when we need specialty services! But today, we’re going to outline a few reasons to work with an agency. It’s all about access. Access to a broad knowledge base, robust experience, and a reliable, responsive team. 

Here are six benefits of working with a marketing agency:

1. Leverage Broad Experience & Expertise

When you hire a marketing agency, you have access (there’s that word again) to a vetted team of experienced professionals across a wide range of disciplines. 

You aren’t relying on the skills of a single person, such as one designer or copywriter—you have the brainpower of a multi-faceted team of marketing experts. More brains, more ideas, more talent. The bonus? You’ll benefit from well-rounded solutions that are informed by the agency’s many disciplines rather than only the primary discipline of one freelancer.

When you hire a marketing agency, you have access to a vetted team of experienced professionals across a wide range of disciplines.

You’ll also get added value from the agency’s proven approach. (More on this in #3, below.) An agency’s team works together regularly to successfully complete projects, so they’re ready to hit the ground running. They know the questions to ask to ensure successful outcomes, the approaches to recommend, and, perhaps most importantly, how to carry out and complete the project successfully. Seasoned marketing teams know how to get you where you want to be. You don’t need to hand-hold or go through a lot of pre-work—they’ve been there, done that, and they want to help you achieve your goals.

2. Save Time & Money

Working with a marketing agency can save you loads of time—and time equals money. CMW Media writes, “Running a business takes a lot of time and effort, and marketing is a full-time job on its own. By hiring a marketing agency, you can free up time to focus on other aspects of your business while the agency takes care of your marketing needs. An agency can also support internal team members, allowing them to divide responsibilities and focus on what they excel at while the agency takes on other aspects to support their efforts.”

Running a business takes a lot of time and effort, and marketing is a full-time job on its own. By hiring a marketing agency, you can free up time to focus on other aspects of your business while the agency takes care of your marketing needs. 

By working with an agency on a retainer or project basis, you’re letting experienced professionals handle the day-to-day work of driving your marketing initiatives or projects while you focus on your business. You’re still the decision-maker, but you’ve got a team moving your projects forward. Plus, you’ll enjoy access to the agency’s helpful tools and resources, such as design programs, subscriptions, photo libraries, project management tools, and more.

3. Benefit from a Holistic, Scalable Approach

Many freelancers specialize in one or two skills. With an agency, regardless of the skillset you’re looking for, you’ll likely benefit from the agency’s combined skillset and holistic approach, since it’s baked into the team’s work. This involves taking a big picture look at your organization and all of its parts as a whole. By considering every component of your organization, we can work together to develop a unified plan that informs all your marketing efforts. Rather than tackling each project individually, a comprehensive marketing plan provides the overarching strategy for every marketing effort. 

Not ready for a full marketing plan yet? Here’s good news. While an agency can help you develop a comprehensive marketing plan that will inform the development of all your communications, they can also tackle one project. And either way, you’ll benefit from the team’s holistic approach. They’ll take into account your audience, goals, and budget, and make specific recommendations to meet your needs. Essentially, an agency offers you the best of both worlds—they’re available to do everything under the sun, or to take on one project (and potentially expand from there).

4. Ensure a Cohesive, Consistent Brand Identity

A marketing agency can help you build a clear, cogent brand identity. Where a freelancer’s experience might be a bit siloed, an agency offers a full bench of professionals with wide-ranging expertise.

CMW Media writes, “A marketing agency can help you develop a strong brand identity and ensure that your messaging is consistent across all channels. This is especially important for businesses that want to establish themselves as thought leaders in their industry. With a strong brand identity, businesses can create a sense of trust and credibility with their target audience.”

If you work with multiple freelancers or firms, it can be harder to ensure that your communications are telling the same story. When you work with an agency, all your content will sing from the same sheet of music.

5. Get a Fresh Perspective

Working with a marketing agency can bring fresh ideas and new outlooks to your business. Let’s be honest, sometimes you can get stuck in your own way of doing things or sharing the same information about your company. “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it,” right? But what if you’re so close to it that you don’t know it’s broken—or just has a couple of cracks? 

An agency’s team brings a fresh perspective and might even be able to identify strengths and differentiators of your business that you haven’t thought of.