Hiring talent to help you get the most out of your marketing automation software is perhaps one of the most important decisions you'll make! Choosing to hire a large agency, small agency, or consultant or hiring in-house all have their pros and cons. The best option will depend on your business situation. Making the right decision starts with having clear goals. From there you'll be able to work your way to decide wether you should hire an agency, in-house, or both.
You may be asking should I use a large agency with a big team? Should I use a small one-man consultant? Or should I hire talent in-house?
If you are about to implement your marketing automation platform or you have been struggling to see results from your marketing automation platform, chances are you’ve thought about who you should hire to help you get the most out of your investment.
There are a a couple of options when deciding on the talent to tackle the backbone of your marketing and so it’s an important decision not to take lightly.
If you don’t choose correctly you risk wasting large amounts of your marketing budget, losing trust with the executive team and worst of all not getting results that grow the business.
Below I’ll go over the 3 main choices and highlight some pros and cons of each option and who might be the best fit each one.
All this goes without saying, the first step in knowing what direction you should go when hiring your marketing automation talent is clarity on your end outcome. I won’t dive into this too deeply but without clear goals you will not get the outcome you want. So before reading further do you know what business goals you are trying to accomplish with your marketing automation platform? If you don’t stop and go and figure that out.
Figured it out? Good. Feel free to continue reading.
Usual customers: Medium to Large size Companies
Price: $$$
Let's start with the most expensive option. Large agencies have deep expertise in the marketing automation platforms they use. In most cases they have seen thousands of different instances of Marketo, Eloqua, Hubspot, or whatever automation platform they are using. Typically these agencies have their own frameworks that they like and implement. These frameworks have the advantage of being battle-tested and have proven successful.
Larger agencies will typically have expertise that spans multiple systems. For example, they will have experts in Marketing Automation tools like Marketo, Eloqua, and Hubspot but they also usually have experts in Salesforce and other tools like LeanData, Chilipiper, Outreach etc…
The martech world has expanded beyond just marketing automation tools. So having experts for these other tools and having a partner that can see the entire tech stack and work with you from that high level view can be very helpful if you are using a lot of tools.
Another key benefit of larger firms is they will have their own tools that will help with various marketing automation tasks as well. This can help your team be more efficient with less resources.
If you have a robust tech stack with a lot of tools a large agency may be a good choice for you. While you will pay more for their services you will get access to a wide number of skills and deep expertise in the software allowing you to support and get the most out of a wide range of tools
Usual customers: Small to Medium size Companies
Price: $$
One-person consultants won’t typically have the breadth of expertise that a large agency will have but they will have real-world experience and can be a great fit for those looking for a more economical route while still getting an expert.
Consultants typically have been doing marketing automation for their career for atleast 5+ years and have achieved success doing so. They will typically be experts in a couple of tools and also have experience in a lot of the tools that butt up against your Marketing Automation platform like Chilipiper and LeanData for example.
These consultants will be cheaper than large in-house teams but will also be more personal. You are going to be dealing with the owner of the business in most cases. One Person consultants won’t have as many clients as the larger agencies which mean you will get more hands-on treatment. Small agencies typically focus on a niche specialization. They will be really good at certain tech tools.
If you are looking for an expert that is good at the tool that you need help with and you want to expand the use of your marketing team without breaking your marketing budget than a solo consultant or smaller agency is a good fit for you.
Typically teams that have none or 1 to 2 marketing automation in house hires will hire a small agency consultant to help either a) advise on the more strategic use of their tools or b) help provide an outside perspective to level up the current use of the marketing automation platform.
Usual customers: Small, Medium and Large size Companies
Price: $
Hiring someone in house is a great option. Anyone serious about their marketing automation tools should be ready to hire an in house talent to make sure you are properly utilizing your marketing automation tool.
When you hire in house you will benefit from having an expert that is solely focused on you and your business. They won’t have their time split between your project and a million other projects. This means you will gain some efficiencies.
The downside to in-house talent is that you won’t get someone that has experience with multiple different instances. In order for them to get that perspective, they will need to be active and aggressive in networking with others to find the best way to tackle martech projects.
Another potential drawback is it can be very easy for a marketing team to misuse their marketing automation resource in house for low level activities like email blasts and one off campaigns. Teams that misunderstand marketing automation typically do this and as a result are not able to get the main benefits of marketing automation, mainly having solid attribution, and creating compelling experiences that educate and delight your customers.
Often times when you hire in-house the in-house team is understaffed. They have to handle the daily projects and also are expected to solve complex technology challenges to meet the needs of the businesses.
Hiring in-house is a great option if you want a dedicated resource at a more affordable cost as they will usually be cheaper than hiring an outside consultant or agency. But in order to be successful here, you will need to have clear expectations of what you are asking of that person.
Do not expect to have this person handle all your day-to-day marketing activities as well as oversee the teach stack and make sure it meets the needs of the business.
Your in house hire is perhaps your most important hire to execute properly in order to ensure you continue to get the most out of your ever changing mar-tech stack.
We start with a no-commitment call about the challenges you are facing and where you want to go.
Lets Chat
