Your team is bursting at the seams. Your business is implementing marketing tactics but isn’t guided by an overarching strategy. And writer Douglas Adams sums up your ability to get work out the door best with his famous quote, “I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”

You’re weighing your options—either hire more internal employees or find a marketing partner. And if you’re reading this, you’re likely looking for answers. So here are seven reasons to work with an agency.

1. You Need a Team of Marketing Experts

Marketing agencies are staffed with professionals who have a wealth of knowledge and experience in the industry. While you are the expert in your industry and your business, agencies are the experts in their field, bringing:

Experience

Agencies have existing processes and knowledge that make their teams more efficient, ultimately saving your team time and money. From developing go-to-market strategies, marketing campaigns and media plans, creating television and radio commercials, designing logos and brand guidelines, holding focus groups, and media pitching to the nitty gritty of resizing banner ads, making website updates, and researching hashtags, agencies know the ins and outs of advertising and can help you navigate each project with ease.

Talent

Agencies attract top talent, especially on the creative side. When you hire an agency, you hire the best graphic designers, copywriters, media planners and buyers, strategists, photographers and videographers, social media managers, public relations pros, content creators, project managers, and more without having to hire internally for each of these roles or trying to piecemeal a team of freelancers together. These teams also have experience working together and integrated processes already in place, cutting down on hours that a team of freelancers would otherwise quickly eat through in duplicating efforts.

Tools

Camera equipment, the Adobe suite, stock photography, studio space, project management, automation and scheduling, data and analytics—agencies have access to the necessary tools to get the job done in the most effective and powerful way (and fewer tools you have to worry about sourcing).

Partnerships

Existing partnerships are the key to getting things done in a timely manner (and sometimes saving on costs). Agencies have these partnerships in place with media vendors, print and procurement houses, producers, and more and are often informed first as additional opportunities, products, or technologies arise.

Access to Research and Trends

Agencies have access to current insights, research, and trends. Our agency utilizes 4A’s research tools and databases that lead our team in researching industry trends, client competition, recent award-winning creative, and audience demographic profiles. Our team also has the ability to read and attend 4A’s industry thought leadership through articles, webinars, and events in order to stay up-to-date on the latest in marketing and advertising.

Mintel is another tool our agency utilizes for market intelligence and insights. Whether our clients are looking for a competitive analysis, launching a new product, or expanding into new markets, our agency can access data that directly impacts our clients and the performance of their business.

2. You Want to Stay Ahead of Your Competition

Utilizing a SWOT analysis, an agency can help identify your business’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. When it comes to competitors in the marketplace, that’s a threat to your business. Agencies can keep an eye on the competition, as well as adjust your business’s strategy if needed, to ensure you stay ahead.

3. You Want Easy Access to Data and Analytics to Back Your Business Decisions

From an agency’s perspective, reporting and analytics is as important as the strategy, creative, and placement of a campaign. Without data on the backend to guide the improvement of future campaigns, you run the risk of poor performance, as those insights are needed in order to see what’s working and what’s not.

Our agency uses proprietary aggregate technology that displays data and analytics on both digital and out-of-home efforts called OHIQ—read more about the technology behind it and how it can help your brand here.

4. You’re Looking to Save on Costs

Hiring new employees comes at a cost—by the time you add in salaries, benefits, and other overhead costs, an agency fee may end up making more financial sense than hiring an in-house team. Plus, when you hire an agency, you’re not limited to only a few roles as you would be if you hired internally— you get a full team of experts.

5. You Want the Ability to Scale Quickly in the Future

Great marketing paired with a great product or service leads to growth, which is a double-edged sword. Growth means more hiring, ensuring you have the right positions in place, and potentially realizing a need to restructure a whole department. With an agency partner in place, scalability is easy and seamless, ready to expand as soon as your business decides it’s time.

6. You’re Looking for a Fresh Perspective

An outside perspective can lead to new ideas that elevate existing marketing efforts or uncover missed opportunities. Agencies bring creative solutions from other industries, ways to activate on existing trends, and analyses that someone in the day-to-day of the business may not be seeing.

7. You Want Continued Support

In-house employees take vacations, get sick, and take leaves of absence. While this happens at agencies as well (believe it or not, we do sometimes take vacations!), they’re structured to keep moving in the event of one of their team members being out of office, keeping efforts moving without interruption.

Is It Time to Work with an Agency?

Have your sales flatlined? Not getting the marketing results you want? Missing deadlines? These are all signs you might be ready to hire an agency. If you have specific questions to your line of business, we’re here to help.