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Agency or freelancer: how do you assemble your dream team?
Choosing a freelancer, agency, or a full-time employee?
The average customer journey is digitalizing at a rapid pace. Marketing budgets are increasingly shifting to online, and the opportunities to interact with your prospects and customers in a hybrid way are growing every day.
Within this reality, assembling the right dream team is crucial, but at the same time, very challenging. A war for digital talent is raging. The labor market is becoming a smaller hunting ground, and keeping talent within your own ranks is almost impossible.
From this perspective, if you decide not to rely entirely on in-house employees but still want a high-quality online marketing approach, you can opt for outsourcing. You can choose one or more freelancers, collaborate with an agency, or, of course, combine both. As a company, you choose the option that best fits your culture and projects. Each choice comes with pros and cons. We prefer to focus on the positive 🙂
Why you might choose an agency:
Broad expertise
A freelancer is often hired for one specific specialty in which they are truly top-notch (e.g., SEO, copywriting, SEA, WordPress, etc.), and they continually specialize in that area.
However, if you’re looking for a partner with multiple digital skills, you’ll quickly encounter limitations with a freelancer. Hiring several individual freelancers requires a lot of coordination, which costs time and ultimately a lot of money. An agency, on the other hand, consists of a team of people with complementary skills, making it ideal for those who want to be assured about all aspects of online marketing.
Sustainable long-term relationship
When a freelancer is unavailable, there’s no one to replace them. An agency has more manpower and can better handle absences and vacations. This ensures that online marketing follow-up remains consistently guaranteed.
Flexible switching and scaling
A freelancer can bend over backward, but they still only have two hands. If multiple urgent tasks or requests come in at the same time, the freelancer will always have to make a choice.
An agency can quickly adapt to ensure the same level of follow-up during peak moments. As a client, you don’t have to wait in the proverbial line; you can count on continuous follow-up and fast responses. Moreover, an agency has more options to scale when the scope of a project requires it.
“Just like your goals constantly evolve, so does technology. The specialists you hire today won’t have all the answers tomorrow. Moreover, one employee can no longer master all areas of expertise.”
Research and know-how
A freelancer continually upskills within their specific field. An agency allocates time and money for training and research, so its employees stay up to date on the latest trends across multiple areas. The “think tank” of an agency is a resource constantly being fed with new developments and knowledge, which benefits the client as well.
So, does that mean you shouldn’t open the door when a freelancer knocks next time? Certainly not! The broad expertise and power of an agency can perfectly complement the specific skills of a freelancer.
A company should feel comfortable with the way of working and decide for itself which freelancer-agency ratio is the most optimal for its online marketing.
How to choose an agency?
Have you decided to collaborate with an agency after reading the previous points? Great! But now you still need to choose which agency that will be.
It’s important to select an agency that is the best match for you. Therefore, it’s useful to keep in mind our 10 key considerations that will help you choose the perfect agency.
Why you might choose a freelancer:
High level of flexibility
Freelancers work independently, which provides a high degree of flexibility. This allows you to hire them on a per-project basis, and you can decide when the collaboration ends. You only hire a freelancer for the period you need them. If the work turns out to be more than expected, you can easily extend the period.
Simpler administration
The paperwork is also smoother when working with a freelancer. When you hire a full-time employee, a lot of administrative tasks naturally come with it, such as sickness benefits, severance pay, and much more. With a freelancer, you only need to issue an invoice, and you’re done!
A fresh perspective & insights
When freelancers see your project for the first time, they can easily spot mistakes or new opportunities that you might not notice yourself. In your own campaigns, you can quickly fall into a fixed mindset, but input from an external party can break that pattern. Additionally, freelancers have deep expertise in their field, allowing them to share the best insights on that subject with you.
Good news: Why you actually shouldn’t choose (1+1 = 3)
Freelancer, agency, or full-time online marketer—combining the benefits of these collaborations sounds too good to be true. However, Hybrid takes on this challenge through a TaaS approach. Curious how we do this?
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