Your marketing needs work. You know that much. What’s less obvious is who should do it.
Do you hire a marketing manager? Bring in an agency? Work with a consultant? Give the job to the person in the office who “knows Instagram”?
That last option happens more often than anyone likes to admit.
The right answer depends on what’s missing. So before you compare prices or book introductory calls, work out what you actually need someone to take responsibility for.
When a full-time hire makes sense
A marketing manager can get close to your business. They’re there for the day-to-day decisions, the sales conversations, the awkward questions and the things that change on a Tuesday afternoon.
That’s valuable if you have enough ongoing work for them, a clear role and the budget to support them.
But be realistic about the job description. If you need one person to set strategy, build a website, write every post, run paid ads, manage your CRM, design brochures, film videos and report on results, you’re describing a department.
There are talented all-rounders out there. They still only have one pair of hands.
When an agency makes sense
An agency can bring several specialists together. That may be exactly what you need for a large website project, a substantial advertising programme or a steady volume of creative work.
The question is whether you’re ready to brief and manage that work.
If nobody inside your business can say which customers you want, what a good enquiry looks like or how success will be measured, an agency may end up delivering plenty of activity without solving the underlying problem.
That isn’t necessarily the agency’s fault. Someone still needs to join the pieces together.
When a consultant makes sense
A consultant is useful when you need experienced marketing thinking and action, but you’re not ready for a full-time senior hire.
That could mean reviewing what’s working, setting priorities, improving a particular part of the customer journey, managing specialists or helping your existing team do better work.
The arrangement should be clear. Some consultants advise and leave you to implement. Others get involved in delivery. Ask what they will personally do, what they’ll bring in other people to do, and how decisions will be made.
That’s how I work at Digital Dan. I look at the whole journey, help you decide where to focus, and can support the work needed to make it happen. If a project needs specialist design, development or production, I can bring in the right help.
Ask these questions before choosing
Rather than starting with “Which option is cheapest?”, ask:
- What work needs doing every week?
- What decisions are we struggling to make?
- Do we need one specialist skill or someone to connect several areas?
- Who will own the results internally?
- What can we realistically afford for the next six to twelve months?
You might need an employee. You might need an agency. You might need a consultant for a period before hiring either.
And you might discover that the first thing you need is a clearer plan.
That’s less exciting than immediately recruiting a marketing unicorn. It’s usually a better place to start.
