Madelyn Gardner

Wondering how to take your marketing performance from good to great? The answer may be teaming up with a professional partner. 

It might seem a bit odd to hire a marketing agency to assist with your work when you already have a team of experts on staff doing a great job. We get it! But think of a marketing partner like a personal trainer at the gym. You can work out on your own and make progress. But many hire a trainer to develop a smarter plan, fix roadblocks, introduce new techniques and accelerate results. 

As an in-house marketer, you know your brand better than anyone. However, you spend every day extremely close to the organization, which can stunt creativity and results. An agency can provide specialized expertise, fresh ideas and strategic guidance that helps your team perform at a higher level. 

Want to discover how this collaboration could boost your marketing efforts? This guide will break down various times when it makes sense to hire a marketing agency to enhance your existing advertising. 

What Do Marketing Agencies Bring to the Table?

Marketers bear a lot of responsibility: You’re both an ambassador for your company and a force for continuity, recognition and results. Stakeholders look to you and your team for proof that what you’re doing is working. 

Rather than shoulder this responsibility on your own, a marketing agency can take on some of that work so you can focus on what’s most important (whatever that means to you and your brand). 

Marketing agencies bring deep industry knowledge, hands-on experience and a track record of delivering projects on time and within budget. If you’re looking for extensive SEO work that your team doesn’t have the capacity or understanding to do, an SEO content marketing agency can help! Or, perhaps you need email marketing, but you largely focus on technical content writing. An external agency can provide the bandwidth and know-how to get the job done. 

More brains also equal better results. Working with another team — or a new team — can provide additional perspectives on strategy and branding. When you have additional people with more capacity, you can all come together to do the best work possible, rather than running around in circles, trying to do the same type of projects you’ve always done. 

At Brafton, we generally help marketers who are lacking some combination of:

  • Time: They’re already busy with what’s on their plate and can’t add new projects.
  • Team: They’re a small department (or don’t have a department), or they want to do more than they’re capable of right now with their existing team.
  • Talent: They have people, but they’re specialized in other areas. For example, they’re good at email, but they need to launch a PPC program.
  • Tools: They don’t have access to the technology that helps them scale up or optimize, whether that’s analytics platforms, SEO tools or something else. They might not have these tools due to budget (they’re expensive platforms), knowledge (they’re complicated platforms) or something else.

7 Reasons You Might Want To Work With a Marketing Agency

Every organization is unique, requiring different types of campaigns and marketing strategies. That said, there are still concrete reasons why in-house marketers might benefit from a partnership with an agency. 

Go through this list to determine if this is the right move for your company:

1. Keeping Up

Does your marketing team consist of either just you or a small-but-mighty crew? It can be hard to keep up with all the tasks you want to accomplish when you have limited resources. Maybe you write one blog per month but would prefer to do one per week, or you have an email program but not enough content volume to support it. 

Working with an agency can provide you with extended professional capabilities without adding headcount. Get project managers, content writers, strategists, designers and SEO specialists with one partnership rather than having to hire a bunch of freelancers or additional talent. 

2. Scaling Up

Perhaps you’ve got a great workflow and ROI, but you’re stuck in a growth rut and want to do more. When working with a smaller team, you might be maxing out schedules with no extra capacity. Let’s say you’re blogging regularly, but want to add expert insights to your resources. Or, you’re posting consistently on LinkedIn, but now want your CEO to start doing leadership posting as well. 

Without additional bandwidth, putting more on your plate is nearly impossible (especially when you’re holding yourself to a high standard and focusing on quality over quantity). To scale effectively, you generally need extra hands. This is especially true as new technology consistently forces you to learn additional software and processes. In fact, 75% of marketers have adopted AI, according to Salesforce, but still use it at its most basic level. 

An agency can help you deliver more work that’s on-brand and consistent with your voice and tone, giving you the push to grow and create more. Plus, this team can help get you up to speed on the latest-and-greatest tools and how to use them effectively. 

3. Expanding

Maybe you’re well-versed in some areas, but less knowledgeable in others. Maybe you specialize in email marketing but are a bit lost when it comes to PPC. Or, on the flip side, PPC experts may have a harder time creating engaging copy that’s optimized for SEO.

It can be challenging to branch out into other types of advertising when you’re already competent in your niche. This is where marketing agencies can help. These third-party teams have dozens of skilled professionals with a range of interests, specializations and abilities, delivering key competencies your current organization could benefit from.

This helps you expand your activities without having to hire, onboard and train additional employees or freelancers. Plus, marketing agencies get to know how you do things, so they can act as an extension of your brand rather than a replacement. 

4. Auditing and analyzing

You spend a lot of time up close and personal with your organization’s content, but sometimes this can add blinders to KPIs and methods for improvement. A third party can give you fresh perspectives on what you’re doing right, what you’re doing wrong, where your gaps are and how to fill them.

For example, let’s say you’ve been running a PPC program for about a year, and have generated some leads, but are wondering if it’s really as optimized as it can be. Or, perhaps you’ve been blogging for a long time but aren’t sure which topics generate the most interest.

A marketing agency can be a fresh set of eyes for your efforts, pinpointing trends, gathering valuable information and turning those insights into actionable tasks. 

5. Offloading

When you’re running a one-person show (or a few-person show), countless projects require your attention — and you can’t do it all, even if you try. Instead, you’re forced to prioritize the most valuable campaigns or content creation to generate the most leads. But what if you had more bandwidth to do the projects that truly excite you?

Instead of thinking of an agency as a team that would come in and take the fun tasks from you, consider how you could have that partnership take on the projects that you’d rather someone else do. By offloading time-consuming or otherwise “un-fun” work, you’re left with more time to focus on the things you actually want to, whether that be blogs, short-form video creation or newsletters. 

6. Enhancing 

Is your content creation at 99%, and you’re ready to push it to the final degree? All you might need is to have an extra set of creative hands to help you get there. With a range of specialized skills and marketing expertise beyond your existing team, you can ensure everything you put out is leading the pack, providing data-driven insights and engaging your target audience. 

7. Innovating

Sometimes, the best you can do is simply get the work done, and that’s OK! But what if you had professionals who understood your brand like the back of their hand to come up with creative ideas that move the needle forward? This is especially relevant as 61% of marketers believe that marketing is experiencing its biggest disruption in 20 years due to AI, pushing professionals to be as original and inventive as possible. 

Been stuck on a concept for a while, struggling to find the right format for your webpage or unsure of the best method for your next campaign? Don’t sweat it! Having an outsider’s perspective, using their creativity to get the ball rolling, can be a lifesaver. 

Choosing an Agency That Has Your Back

The right agency partnership shouldn’t feel like outsourcing. It should feel like gaining an extension of your team. The best agencies complement your strengths, fill skill gaps and help you achieve goals faster, all while respecting your brand voice, processes and expertise. 

As you search for the right partner, keep these tips in mind:

  • Look for relevant experience: Seek out agencies that have worked with organizations of a similar size, industry or marketing maturity level.
  • Assess their specialties: Make sure their strengths align with your needs, whether that’s content marketing, SEO, PPC, social media or email. 
  • Evaluate communication styles: A great agency should provide regular updates, clear reporting and responsive communication. 
  • Ask about processes: Understanding how they manage projects, timelines and approvals can help ensure a smooth working relationship. 

At the end of the day, working with a marketing agency is about amplifying your in-house expertise, not replacing it. With the right partner, you can gain additional bandwidth, specialized knowledge and fresh perspectives to help your team drive stronger results.