When you need marketing assistance for your business, you’ll need to decide whether to hire a large team like a marketing agency or an individual expert like a marketing consultant. It can be tough to know whether you should hire one type of marketing expert or another, especially if you have a limited marketing budget to spend on this assistance.
Let’s break down the pros and cons of both marketing agencies and marketing consultants. By the end, you’ll know which of these two marketing experts to hire for your needs.
What is a Marketing Agency?
A marketing agency put simply, is a group of marketing experts who work together to provide marketing services for clients like your business. Marketing agencies are essentially small businesses that do marketing work for other businesses rather than making their own products.
Think of marketing agencies as advertising companies. Depending on their focuses, marketing agencies may:
- Create online or in-person ads, like Google PPC/pay-per-click ads
- Create online content like blog posts or social media posts
- Prioritize SEO on your brand website so it ranks more highly on Google and more
Some marketing agencies are more generalized, while others may specialize in one or more areas.
Quagrowth Marketing, a Klaviyo email marketing agency, is one example of a specialized marketing agency. Quagrowth Marketing offers a variety of marketing services but specializes in using Klaviyo, both to understand what marketing emails resonate most effectively with your target audience and to create high-quality, high-converting emails that bolster business revenue.
Regardless, however, marketing agencies are groups of people you hire to perform certain marketing services for your business.
What is a Marketing Consultant?
A marketing consultant, in contrast, is a marketing expert who works by themselves in most cases. You may hire a marketing consultant who provides their personal expertise or knowledge of digital or in-person marketing to bolster your brand’s marketing efforts.
Depending on what they offer, you can work with a marketing consultant remotely, in which case you’ll speak to them using videoconferencing software. Or you may invite a marketing consultant to come to your business, sit in on team meetings, and even work with your in-house marketing team to revamp or edit their efforts.
Marketing consultants, since they are one-person teams, don’t usually create content for you. But they may advise an existing marketing team and help lead them to success.
Marketing Agency Pros
Marketing agencies have many major benefits you can take advantage of, including:
- Marketing agencies can be cheaper than hiring a full in-house team of full-time employees, especially if you only need marketing help temporarily
- Marketing agencies can perform a wide range of tasks, effectively carrying out all of your marketing needs by themselves without any labor required on your part
- Good marketing agencies can provide excellent value for money if they’re experienced, as they have already mastered processes and methodologies for delivering quality content fast
Marketing Agency Cons
But marketing agencies do have some potential downsides to keep in mind, such as:
- Marketing agencies can also be expensive, especially compared to a single consultant
- Marketing agencies can be inefficient, as they may have to meet with you regularly in order to determine what’s best for your brand and your overall marketing goals
- Marketing agencies usually require you to commit for longer time frames, which can be disadvantageous if you only need a little bit of marketing help or if you only need assistance with one small aspect of your marketing strategy
Marketing Consultant Pros
Marketing consultants also have lots of advantages, including:
- Marketing consultants are the subject matter experts. If you need help in one specific area of your marketing campaign, like SEO or social media marketing, a dedicated marketing consultant could be the way to go
- Marketing consultants can provide ancillary “soft” services, like managing internal issues, training your team members, so they perform well once they leave, and providing you with additional points of contact for future marketing benefits
- Marketing consultants are usually cheaper than agencies since you only have to hire one person instead of a group of people
Marketing Consultant Cons
That said, marketing consultants do have several potential downsides, like:
- Marketing consultants can be limited if you need help with multiple areas of your marketing campaigns
- Marketing consultants don’t usually execute marketing strategies but rather provide you with advice on creating those strategies in the first place
- Marketing consultants may not be the best for large-scale, massive marketing campaigns
Wrap Up
In the end, both marketing agencies and marketing consultants can offer important benefits to your brand. Consider your budget and unique needs carefully before contracting with one or the other, however. The right marketing agency or consultant can help you increase business revenue without draining your brand’s coffers.
