If you don’t put your brand there for customers and clients to find you, your business will suffer.

That’s why marketing needs to be a priority. Once you’ve embraced this idea, the question then comes to whether or not you should invest in using a marketing firm or try to handle it all yourself with DIY marketing. Weighing the pros and cons of each will help determine which will be more beneficial in the long run.

DIY Marketing

 

Pros

You’re intimately familiar with your products and services, which means you have a passion that’s hard to mimic by another entity. This can help save time you’d spend trying to get a marketing firm up to speed on your products.

There’s also the factor of your budget. Doing your own marketing means not having the extra expensive that comes with bringing in another company. Plus, there’s a plethora of free and affordable tools online available to help you do everything from social media to running email marketing campaigns.

Cons

Playing double duty between running a business and running your own marketing poses some conflict. You don’t want to neglect your core responsibilities while you try to manage your internal marketing. Nor do you want your days to get longer to try and accommodate all the extra work. Plus, if you want to your marketing to be effective, you’ll need additional time to research tactics and or take marketing classes.

When considering your budget, you’ll also want to factor how much of your salaried hours are being put toward marketing, how your company may not thrive while neglecting some core functions, and any costs you’ll accrue on marketing tools and research.

Hiring a Marketing Firm

 

Pros

While you may be intimately familiar with your products, a marketing firm will look at your company from the viewpoint of a consumer that isn’t very familiar with your products or services.  This perspective will help the firm formulate a marketing plan that you may not have hit upon due to your closeness to your company. Let them think outside of the box for you.

Marketing is their passion. You want consumers to trust your business because it’s your expertise, so it makes sense that you would want to go with a company that is focused on the task you need. They know the world of marketing inside and out. Their familiarity with the different types of campaigns that are successful will help you get on the right track quicker, meaning your advertising dollars will have a better ROI than if you just tried to do it on your own.

While there are tools available to you online, there are so many of them that you may not know which ones are best for your business. You don’t have to worry about that with a marketing firm.  If they’re worth their salt, they’ll have preferred providers and will help you interpret the marketing reports to show you what’s working and what’s not.

A marketing firm will be able to view how well a marketing campaign is and find ways to keep making it better. They might be able to see trends that you would have missed if you were invested in DIY marketing instead. For you, the trend may seem very favorable and doing as great as it can, but they may see where it has gone slightly wrong to fix it to make it that much better.

Cons

One of the hardest parts of hiring a marketing firm is the time it takes to find the right one. There may be the worry that you won’t find a marketing firm that makes their fees worthwhile. Of course, there are always some companies that don’t live up to their hype. That means that you need to find a reputable firm the first time around to save time and money.

While the costs and time are an issue, it’s hard to find the same value in a DIY approach that you’ll get with a professional marketing firm. Take advantage of an expert rather than struggling to hit on the right marketing trend by trial and error. In the long run, you’ll be saving your company time and money while boosting your brand’s spread.

If time and money are some of your major concerns, we at N2Q can help with that as well. We offer our services on a month-to-month basis. This means if you’re not seeing results, you can cut us loose. That’s why we only offer services that we believe will help you attain your goals and get that coveted ROI. If you’re ready to talk about your marketing, give us a call today. We’ll even buy the coffee – one more cost you don’t have to worry about.