Digital Marketing Agencies vs Freelancers
Image by DCStudio on Freepik Media Production Home Brand Marketing Marketing Search Engine Optimization Email Marketing Websites Digital Marketing X Digital Marketing Agencies vs Freelancers Choosing Between Marketing Agencies And Freelancers It’s a heated tug of war between the two, and it’s become a big question for general businesses that seek to hire marketing services, should I hire an agency and pay the heightened prices or just hire a freelancer? Well, that’s what I want to help you with. In this article I’m going to break down the pros and cons of hiring either a marketing agency or a freelancer. The big difference between a marketing agency and a freelancer is nothing more their pricing structure. The prices of an agency come with accountability, assurance, and security, but a freelancer is more flexible in terms of prices but does not come with the accountability of an entire business. A business cannot disappear into nowhere, but a freelancer can. An Agency has staff to pay, premises, taxes, etc and you always know where to find them. Hiring a freelancer is more safer when done through an agency that hosts and provides service seekers with freelancers, who then add a markup on their system. Which means though the freelancer may come at an affordable rate, the agency that hosts the freelancer will add a service fee, and usually these service fees are found in the rates you would pay the freelancer. But if you opt to cut out the middle-man and hire freelancers randomly, then you have a bigger risk of losing your investment without any form of accountability. Ultimately, agencies are trustworthy because they are actual businesses, with traceable record, service history, and references. Whether you are hiring a marketing agency or hiring a freelancer, you’d still need the security that comes with an agency. Advantages Of Marketing Agencies They work faster because they are a team working systematically, each team member playing a separate role. You should expect quicker turnaround times with a marketing agency than with a freelancer (at least most of the time). Marketing Agencies offer value for money, meaning they hire experts and qualified practitioners and are able to hire freelancers on a collaboration basis. So you are sure to expect expert services from a Marketing Agency. You can hire a marketing agency locally and work on a hybrid setup. With a marketing agency you are able to select from a pool of available agencies in your local area that you are able to easily drive to and have regular meetings. Interaction always gives you a clearer idea of what to expect from the people you are hiring. Marketing agencies provide reporting, for example, time stamps, performance data, etc, the reason they are able to do this is that they host a team, each playing a separate role, and each is expected to account for their work and as a result they perform well with high goals to meet. Disadvantages Of A Marketing Agency Marketing Agencies come at a high cost. Service prices are high, and what makes this a disadvantage is that they have very little choice in changing this due to the running of their business. A business has more costs than an individual freelancer, employees to pay, rentals, etc. Marketing agencies are not as bendable as individual freelancers in terms of their policies and rules. It’s much easier to work with a freelancer if you are someone who is particular with how things must be done. Some marketing agencies may come with rigid policies and place more value-added cost on changing their policies. Some of these policies are subject to the constitution of the country in which the marketing agency is operating and may not be able to assist you differently Advantages Of A Freelancer A freelancer can be a specialist of anything, especially someone who is not hosted by a freelance agency, so you have more like an errand master. Freelancers are usually multiskilled and can assist in many ways at low cost. As mentioned, freelancers can be much more affordable than marketing agencies and this is an advantage when you find a reliable freelancer. Previous Post How Can We Assist You? Give Us A Call
Does Paid Advertising Work In South Africa?
Media Production Home Brand Marketing Marketing Search Engine Optimization Email Marketing Websites Digital Marketing X Can Paid Advertising Scale My Business In South Africa 2023? Does Paid Advertising Work In South Africa? Over the 8 years I’ve provided marketing and advertising services to businesses of different sizes in South Africa, and over this period I’ve recorded many incidents whereby business owners and budget teams come to me with a very discouraged perspective to paid advertising. They practically reach livid stages having invested thousands to hundreds of thousands into paid advertising with minimal ROI. Because of this, they lose trust or confidence in online advertising, which is even more costly. In this article, you will learn what are the things you need to look out for when hiring an advertising agency to manage your paid advertising. A lot of the companies I’ve worked with skipped very important stages of the hiring process before signing advertising deals with agencies, as a result, they lost fortunes to search engines and social media platforms without any sustainable publicity or traceable ROI. Online advertising works, there is no doubt about it! As a business owner you have to fix your mind on this fact, that most of your prospective, I mean over 70% of your new customers are online and they estimate remains constant. No matter how much you sell, you still have a massive chunk of sales that are not yet closed. This is not speculative, it’s actually statistical, in 2022, post the covid pandemic, more than 2 thirds of the world’s population is adapted to processing things online, whether it’s applying for permits, shopping for clothing, or groceries, the internet is the go-to place to get things done in the most convenient manner. So, no matter what the experience you’ve had with advertising agencies, the fact still remains, online advertising is the best option for advertising. So what’s wrong then? Why is it with so much money put to it, I still don’t make any sales? The answer is very simple, and I’ll be very blunt about it, the person/agency you hire to manage your advertising will determine the outcome. If you hire well, you sell well. With the explosion of digital marketing, many people have become freelancers and others have started marketing agencies, even the unskilled and unlearned have the courage to sell marketing and advertising services online. It’s not yet established what the proper way is to find an authentic marketing agency because all this may be fairly new at this stage, so I don’t blame businesses for hiring incorrectly. So, here goes: 1. Contactable References If there is someone who cannot lie to you it’s my previous customers. An unhappy customer will always have very few mutters concerning our services. The confidence of what my previous customer is saying about our services is what you look out for. Also listen for authenticity, in as much as unhappy customer having very little to say, fake reviews are full of it. One of the identifiers for fake or solicited feedback is a lot of good statements. Authentic positive feedback is usually highlights of a main KPI that has made them happy. 2. Request data for previous work. I’ve always believed in providing my prospective with data, but at the same time, I’m very protective of my existing clients. I wouldn’t want to give out my client’s data to a stranger, neither to a competitor who could possibly be phishing for information. So as you request for previous work, understand that an advertising agency can only provide you with pictorial data of the work they’ve done and this is private and confidential information. That being said, its important to know when to ask for the data, you must be happy with all other publicly available verifiers before requesting for sensitive information, because at this stage you are happy with the agency, and you are almost hiring them. This way, the agency is allowed to give you NDAs to sign for the disclosure of this information. 3. Verify certification. This is a very reasonable proof of capability and capacity to deliver results. Someone doing the work in the organization must be trained and certified for the work. With free certifications available on various platforms, it’s a clear sign of lack of enthusiasm and excellence to find an agency with workers that are not certified and trained for the job. So, to know that this agency is passionate about what they are offering there must be eagerness to learn. 4. Request for goal-oriented strategy. This is very important, find out what strategy they are selling you. There is absolutely no ways that I can price a service if I cannot explain what I will be doing and what you should expect out of it. DO NOT GO FOR THE CHEAPEST, go for the most profitable, and how do you know this is profitable? It’s strategy! A marketing agency sells strategy more than anything else, if that is not the case with the agency you are hiring then you in for un-predictable results. How Can We Assist You? Give Us A Call
