Have you been burned by marketing before—left questioning whether it’s worth the cost or if results can even be measured? If so, you’re not alone. Many business leaders have shared this exact frustration after lackluster experiences with marketers or agencies. It’s understandable to feel skeptical when promises fall short and ROI feels like an abstract concept.
But here’s the thing: marketing is not a cost center. When executed correctly, marketing is one of the most strategic investments your business can make. It’s not about flashy campaigns or vague promises; it’s about measurable, sustainable growth. The right approach ensures that the revenue or lift in your business far outpaces the initial investment. And while there’s no “silver bullet” solution, consistent returns are absolutely possible when marketing is done right.
For example, consider this quick case study of one of our clients, a local retail business, with a goal of bringing in ~15 new customers/month through social media. The qualitative piece any agency will tell you is, "By focusing on consistent, high-quality content tailored to your audience, each post can generated remarkable results. " But here's what real quantifiable numbers look like when those fluffy words are put into practice the right way:
The target is 15 new customers. We found that their website converts at a 20% rate and their physical store converts at 90% rate. They also have a 96% retention rate.
On average, their posts drove ~60 clicks to their website in a month and brought ~40 customers to their physical store. Based on new account creation, we were able to see that social media efforts were bringing in an ~20 new people each month, resulting in 120% goal achievement.
Taking this a step further to show revenue: With an average order value of $75 online and $60 in-store, social media was contributing over $3k per month in the first quarter of implementation. With knowledge of their upfront investment in marketing, they were able to calculate their ROI. The more efficient and effective a marketing strategy is, the better the ROI.
If you're craving for clarity and measurable results, like this business now has, you’re in good company.Many leaders wrestle with these challenges, but it doesn’t have to remain a pain point. Marketing is a critical driver of business success, especially in today’s fast-paced digital landscape. Yet, business leaders often find themselves staring at a tough decision: Should we hire an in-house marketer or partner with a marketing agency?
This question isn’t just about preference—it’s about making a strategic choice that aligns with your business goals. While both options come with their pros and cons, there’s one undeniable truth: The success of your marketing efforts hinges on choosing the right resources and starting the right way.
Below, we break down the differences, so you can approach this decision with confidence, backed by data and proven insights.
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The Cost Equation for In House vs. Agency Marketing
One of the biggest factors executives consider is cost. But here’s the kicker—money spent doesn’t always equal money well-spent. Savvy business leaders understand that any investment builds over time. That’s why assessing your marketing investment over a three-year horizon is critical for ensuring sustainable growth. Below, we outline the 2 main options businesses have to choose from for their marketing initiatives, with a surprising third option that delivers the best of both worlds.
Option 1: Hiring an In-House Marketer
Hiring and managing an in-house marketing team gives you full control over your strategy and execution. However, it comes with significant costs and risks:
High Expense: Over three years, a single experienced hire costs your business over $280,000 in base salary alone, while entry-level hires at a standard $60k salary are a $180k investment (~$200k with bonus, raise, and benefit considerations). Add additional talent or specialists, and the cost quickly approaches $800,000 or more in salaries alone.
Skill Gaps: Even the best hire cannot cover every skill set required for a comprehensive marketing strategy, leaving vulnerabilities in expertise. This usually leads to needing additional hires.
Turnover Risks: Cost of rehiring, onboarding, and lost productivity with mis-hires can balloon to over $100,000+ per incident because replacing any hire costs up to 150% of their salary.
Option 2: Partnering with a Traditional Marketing Agency
Collaborating with traditional agencies provides businesses with access to seasoned professionals and proven frameworks that often surpass the resources of an in-house team.
More Cost Effective: With traditional agencies' commitments over three years can easily be $200,000-$400,000 on monthly retainers, regardless of return or adaptability to shifting market needs.
Deeper Industry Expertise: Gain access to seasoned marketing professionals who bring industry expertise, established workflows, and convenience, which can help streamline marketing efforts on a larger scale. No training and very little ramp-up are often required.
Quicker ROI: A good agency starts producing measurable results within 3–6 months, easily outpacing the ramp-up period for most in-house hires.
Considerations as potential costs:
Standardized and Proven Approaches: Many agencies rely on templated strategies or plans that have brought success to their other clients. This is part of the benefit of working with an agency, but also a point to consider. Some agencies lack the customization required to truly resonate with your unique market. If you are looking for a good agency partner, be sure they are able and willing to customize their expertise to fit your business's goals.
Prioritization and Dilution Risk: While this is a common issues agencies try to solve for, some are better at it than others. When agencies stretch their teams thin, clients can feel that impact. This is by no means a guarantee when working with an agency, but choose your partners carefully and ask the hard questions. Fit and expectation setting are key.
Option 3: Partnering with BOM—The Best of Both Worlds
BOM offers the Best of Marketing with a strategic alternative that combines the strongest benefits of in-house teams and traditional agencies—with a relentlessly focus on clients and without multi-year retainers.
Here’s a window into our strategy that aims to provide the best value for your business:
Transparency with Workloads: Agencies like ours only charge for the work delivered. You’re not overpaying for downtime or paying out employee benefits. Simply put, we do not use retainers because they lack transparency and accountability. All of our work starts with a Strategy and Playbook to ensure we create marketing that is as efficient, effective, and sustainable as possible for your unique business. These packages range from $20,000-$30,000. Ongoing implementation looks different for every client because we tailor plans to their precise needs.
Clear ROI: Our priority is our clients' goals, because we want their marketing to behave like an investment, not a cost center. What drives their business is what drives our team. We relentlessly align all marketing to their business goals for maximum impact.
We understand our clients want results. So we prioritize immediate progress. For example, we deliver a complete, bespoke Strategy & Playbook for your marketing within the first 2 months of working with us. If you choose to have us implement that strategy, we start at the beginning of month 3 and tailor implementation to show progress within the first quarter.
During implementation and optimization we clearly connect the dots for all clients so they see how each marketing investment (time or money) tracks to a business goal. Consider the example we start with at the beginning of this article. We mentioned the client had visibility to their ROI, but here's what that actually looked like:
$30k Strategy + Playbook investment
$50/hr for content creator, creating 12 assets in 6 hours (or less). I.e. $300/month or $3,600/year for budgeting purposes.
If their posts continue to generate ~20 new clients each month (240 in a year), here's the math:
$3k/month in sales or $36k/year for just the first purchase
$2k is the average spend per customer each year so each new person is actually worth $2k/year.
With 240 new people in a year bringing in ~$2k, their return is $480,000! or 13x their investment!
In full transparency, they had an ad budget of $1k per month focused on demand generation. With this additional ~$12k in yearly expenses, the return is 10x on their investment!
The math says it all!
Invested Member of Your Team: We work with your cross-functional team members and we actively support and engage with your business goals that matter to your team. Whether it's on sites, joining team meetings, sharing updates, collecting content and ideas, or just aligning all team members' digital presences, we are available and transparent for all parts of clients' teams.
With BOM, you get the strategic alignment of in-house marketing, the scalability of an agency, and an investment model designed to optimize returns.
Expertise and Productivity for an Agency vs. In House Marketers
Not all marketers or agencies have the same expertise. That’s why understanding your exact needs is critical. Sometimes you need a strategist, sometimes you need a generalist, and other times you need a tactical expert. Partnering with someone who knows how to help you get the right people at the right time is a huge advantage.
The Depth of Expertise Matters
Agencies that specialize in strategy (like ours) excel at creating marketing specifically for your target audience, that finds the white space opportunity within your industry, and provides a full ecosystem recommendation. We relentlessly align all your marketing to business goals. Whether you want us to build your entire marketing strategy, or just focus on your content strategy, we know that all marketing must be efficient, effective, and sustainable.
With marketing professionals who’ve crafted and implemented hundreds of successful strategies for brands across all industries, you gain specialized knowledge that’s nearly impossible to replicate with a single hire.
Meanwhile, you may find that an in-house marketer brings niche insights into your specific industry or audience. Their internal alignment with your goals and processes can make them better collaborators—once they’re properly trained and equipped with the strategy.
Time to Results
An in-house hire could take 6 months of onboarding, training, and trial-and-error to begin generating value.
Agencies typically need 1–2 months to onboard and deliver impactful work, followed by measurable results in 3–6 months.
The Business of Marketing requires 2 weeks of onboarding followed by only 2 months to create a Marketing and Content Strategy + Playbook that will deliver.
Which sounds like a better investment for your business?
Tools and Resources
Agencies are equipped with advanced tools and relationships for website builds, SEO, social media management, content creation, advertising, analytics, and more—without you needing to foot the bill for subscriptions or trainings. Hiring in-house often means purchasing and learning these tools independently, adding another layer of cost and complexity.
The Hybrid Solution You’re Not Considering
Here’s a thought—why not have the best of both worlds?
For businesses on the fence, starting with an agency to define your strategy is often the smartest move. An agency can identify what’s working, what’s not, and craft the most effective and efficient foundational plans to drive your marketing success.
Once strategy is in place, our agency is an expert at seamlessly helping you transition into hiring an in-house marketer for implementation and a closer touchpoint. This way, you avoid costly mistakes like unclear roles and misguided investments. You don’t just hire someone; you hire smart.
This approach also addresses ROI concerns—start with guaranteed results, then build internal capacity for long-term growth.
Pro Tip: Did you know 100% of business owners say ROI is a priority for marketing, but only 20% know how to hire the right marketers? Solve this disconnect by strategizing before you hire.
The Business of Marketing is a firm that supports our clients with all these choices. We will help you create job descriptions, find the right hire, and train them quickly on the strategies we've built. We do what's best for our clients 100% of the time.
Key Comparisons at a Glance
Metric | Hiring The Business of Marketing | Hiring any Other Agency | Hiring In-House |
Cost | Transparent pricing, pay for work delivered | Required Retainer Fees | Salary + onboarding + training costs |
Ramp-Up Time | Onboarding 2 weeks, results start within 1-2 months, measurable goals within 3-6 months | 1-2 months of onboarding, work starts 2-3 months, Measurable goals in 4–9 months | ~6 months is the earliest to see value |
Expertise | Access to a team of specialists who prioritize individual client needs | Access to a team of specialists | Limited to one person’s knowledge |
Risk | Flexibility to pause or shift strategies | Flexibility entirely depends on the structure of the retainer | High ($100k+ in lost opportunities if wrong) |
Tools Included | State-of-the-art, used by industry pros at no extra cost | State-of-the-art, used by industry pros at no extra cost - but always ask! | Must be purchased and learned independently |
What about Hiring Freelance Marketers?
Freelance marketers often provide a cost-effective solution for businesses looking to manage specific tasks or projects. Their flexibility allows targeted work with fewer overhead expenses. Freelancers can also provide highly specialized skills, and their one-on-one collaboration creates an opportunity for personalized attention and faster communication. However, relying solely on freelancers can pose challenges, such as limited scalability and potential gaps in availability, particularly during busy periods or when managing larger campaigns.
On the other hand, marketing agencies bring a wealth of resources and a team of diverse talents under one roof. Agencies excel in managing complex, multi-channel campaigns that require vast expertise and strategic planning. While they often come with higher costs due to organizational overhead and service packages, their infrastructure ensures consistent delivery and the ability to meet tight deadlines. Additionally, agencies often provide valuable insights based on industry trends and comprehensive data analytics, offering a broader perspective on growth opportunities.
We've created a solution that combines the best of freelance marketers with the best of marketing agencies in The Business of Marketing. Our job is to save our clients time and money. So, we created a system that gives you the best of both worlds.
Evaluating what aligns with your company's priorities will help ensure your marketing efforts are both cost-efficient and impactful.
The Right First Step for Marketing Team Hires
One thing is clear—every marketing hire, whether internal or external, hinges on having the right strategy as its foundation. A misstep at this stage can create long-term problems that reverberate across your business goals.
At The Business of Marketing, we specialize in helping businesses like yours take this critical first step. Our proven strategies are tailored to deliver ROI and ensure you make smarter hiring or partnership decisions.
Every business deserves marketing that drives action and results.
Start yours with strategy.
Your ROI starts now. Click here to speak with an expert.
Questions to Ask a Marketing Agency Before You Partner, or Questions to Ask Your Current Marketing Company
To ensure you make the best choice, start by asking the right questions. The answers will help you gauge their expertise, alignment with your goals, and ability to deliver measurable results.
Here are some essential questions to ask a marketing agency or marketing company before moving forward:
Do you believe specialization is important? Why or why not? How does that experience benefit our goals?
Understanding their expertise ensures they're familiar with your landscape and can create customized strategies. As a caution, do not fall prey to the trap of needing an industry specialist! Sometimes that is essential for execution, but be careful not to let biases overrun your strategy.
How do you measure success, and what benchmarks will you use to track progress?
This question sets the foundation for transparency and accountability with clear ROI- oriented deliverables. You are looking to understand if they know how to align marketing to your business goals.
Can you provide case studies, testimonials, or examples of your work?
Their track record offers insight into their ability to replicate success. But be wary of an agency that only gives you examples within your industry. If you have growth goals, doing what everyone else is doing in your industry is not always the best path to success. Think strategically here.
What does your team structure look like, and who will be directly involved with our account?
Knowing who will manage your campaigns ensures you're in skilled hands with a dedicated team.
What kind of reporting and communication should we expect during the partnership?
Frequent, detailed updates are critical to evaluating performance and making informed decisions.
By addressing these questions with a potential marketing company, you position your business for a smart, strategic investment. At The Business of Marketing, we're confident in helping you get all the answers you need.
Get the clarity you deserve by scheduling your Free Marketing Strategy Call today or Apply to Work with Us if you know you're ready to start.
Let's ensure your next partnership is built to deliver results.
Determine if you need an In-house vs. an Agency
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