Who is the best for your digital marketing? ????

When it comes to digital marketing, most brands or businesses choose between two options – carrying out this activity in house, or enlisting the help of an agency to do it for them. 

Both come with their own strengths and weaknesses, and a lot can come down to things like budget, size of team, or long-term goals. In fact, flashback to the end of last year, and we wrote a blog all about the pros and cons of using an agency vs going DIY. 

Now, however, a new study has found that an increasing number of businesses are taking control of their digital marketing activity in house – and not always seeing the benefits they expected. 

The stats 

The report, conducted by Mailjet with the Data and Marketing Association (DMA), found that “expectations around in-housing are falling short” – with 47% of businesses hoping that the move to in house would boost productivity, and 38% expecting enhanced creativity as a result. 

In fact, the study found that the trend for going in house actually came with a drop in these areas –  a 15% drop in productivity, and an 11% drop in creativity, to be precise. 

When looking at the reasoning, one of the big challenges, when it came to facilitating in house marketing success, was a limited budget (at 41%), as well as the adoption of new technology (35%) – both of which could prove a hindrance when it came to implementing new digital marketing campaigns. 

The agency effect 

Naturally, this article got us thinking here at GIANT Towers. As an agency, we may be a little bit biased about the benefits that can come from working with a team like ours, but we also know of, and work alongside, tons of amazing in house teams who know exactly what they’re doing when it comes to digital marketing campaigns.

But there are inevitably some benefits that come along with agencies. So, I asked some of our GIANTs what they thought the benefits of working with an agency were, and got some interesting results. 

One of our account managers pointed out that agencies are subject experts in their field, and as such, can give clients unbiased, third-party opinions on what the best course of action might be. 

Another of the team highlighted that as an agency, we cover the costs for things like the tools, software, and training that we need to do our jobs – as well as getting support from Google, which gives us access to dedicated team members and Betas of new releases before other people. 

Working within an agency setting also means we’re working with lots of different clients from lots of different sectors, meaning that we have to be versatile – another benefit pointed out by one of our execs. We’re also working within a team of people who may have worked on different campaigns, or used different tools to us, so knowledge sharing can help to throw up new ideas or processes that we may not have thought of before. Plus, as an agency, you can also hold each other accountable if things don’t quite go to plan.

The GIANT way

At Sleeping Giant Media, we work off a standard 60 day notice period with our clients, which means that there is always that motivation to go above and beyond and make sure we’re keeping them happy. After all, if we don’t, they’re going to get rid of us. And we don’t want that. 

Our company ethos is all about delighting our clients by empowering our people, which involves us investing in things like tools, technology and training. All of these, when we put them into action, benefit our clients – and help to make sure that our approaches and campaigns are as good as they can be. 

Have you worked with agencies, or found that in house activity has been better quality? We’d love to hear about it! Drop us a comment below!