“Why should I hire out my marketing to another company? Won’t spending money on a marketing agency end up costing me money instead of making me money?”
The short answer is yes; it will cost your business money because you have to pay someone to handle your marketing efforts. However, your return on investment with that marketing will more than cover the cost of hiring a good marketing agency to handle the marketing for your business. Hiring a marketing agency isn’t a loss for your business, but a bad agency could be.
Pro: Marketing, when done right, does not cost money
The world’s most successful companies will spend millions on advertising and marketing efforts in an attempt to help boost their sales, drive traffic to their website, and create brand awareness. It’s easy to look at companies like Google or Apple and think to yourself that a big company like that can afford to spend that kind of money because they make so much.
I’m going to let you in on a little secret. If it cost them money that they did not see a return on, they would not spend the money. Marketing, when done right, will not cost your business money. Marketing is very different from most of your other business expenses. Your marketing efforts should be helping you earn more money by increasing your sales, getting more customers, or furthering your business goals toward money-making endeavors.
Pro: Marketing is not an expense; it’s an investment
When it comes to business expenses, you will pay for many things just for keeping the lights on in your business. You may have to have a team handy to deal with bookkeeping, administrative tasks, and customer service. You may have to order office supplies and pay for the rental space that you are working from. These are all expenses that it costs for you to run your business. Marketing is not an expense in your business but rather an investment tool to help your business grow.
Think about marketing like enrolling in a course. By the end of the course, assuming it was a good one, you come out with more knowledge on the subject than when you entered the course. You have learned a valuable skill that you can apply to your business to help you make more money or do something better. That course was an investment for your business because it will help you do something better or more efficiently.
Marketing is the same type of investment. When you start, you may not be getting the exposure or traffic that you desire. Still, by investing money into a marketing agency, you will end up with more traffic to your product or website, more customers, and be proactively working toward your business goals. You are investing your money into a marketing agency with the hopes of getting a return on your investment, not like office supplies, which are required for your business to function.
Con: Working with the wrong agency will cause your business to lose money
There is one instance in which marketing CAN cost you money. Not all marketing professionals are created equal. Many of them come at a premium, but you will never see a return on your investment. Hiring the wrong marketing agency for your business will cost you money because you won’t be getting the desired results for the money you will spend.
A good marketing agency should help you increase your sales or money earning potential over time, which will eventually lead to you making more money than what you are paying that marketing agency. At the beginning or initial setup, you may not be making precisely what your marketing agency is charging, but you should be working toward that number or surpassing that as time goes on.
Con: Bad marketing can ruin your company’s image
We have all seen a bad ad or commercial that caused us to rethink how we felt or the things we knew about a company. A campaign that goes south or doesn’t send the right message to your customers can ruin your company’s image. By presenting the company’s CEO in the wrong light or sharing the wrong kind of information with your consumers, you could end up ruining your company’s image. This is why it’s important to have a marketing agency that knows what they’re doing in your corner. They can help prevent you from making those kinds of bad decisions and help you present your company in its best light.
Working with the wrong marketing agency for your business can cost you money. However, working with the right marketing agency can help you get a return on that investment and help you reach your business goals. If your current marketing agency isn’t doing that for you, it might be time to make a switch!