Freelance vs. Digital Marketing Agency: what to choose?

Every business owner is faced with the question of how to tell the world about their product, because today it is very important for the company to be “heard of”, otherwise your competitors will simply eat you up. The founder of Microsoft Corporation, Bill Gates, often said:

If you are not on the Internet, you do not exist.

He was a very intelligent man, and every year his expression becomes more and more relevant. So, trying to find a worthy assistant to make their business popular and their income higher, businessmen have to choose between two options: freelancers and agencies. In this article, we will analyze the pros and cons of each and try to help you with the choice.

6 questions before looking for a promotion specialist

There are a number of questions you should ask yourself or discuss with your business partners before you start looking for a contractor.

• What is the purpose of searching for a specialist, and what tasks should he cover?
• What specific results should the business get after attracting a new person? Clear CRIs are needed.
• If you already have a team, can one of them take on additional promotion responsibilities? If not, how and who will control the contractor?
• How did your competitors solve or are they solving the same business problems you faced? Analyzing the experience of others is the first step to achieving your goal.
• What budget are you ready to allocate for the performance of the works and would it be appropriate to increase it in case of force majeure situations?
• What are the deadlines for completing existing tasks? It is important to outline deadlines, otherwise you can wait a long time for implementation.

Having all the answers, it will be much easier and faster to choose a specialist. Moreover, the start of cooperation will be easier for you and for the chosen freelancer or agency, because the more clearly the task is set, the more effective its implementation will be.

Pros and cons of working with freelancers

Ukrainian freelancing is rich in all kinds of specialists who can provide both individual point services and offer complex solutions. You will find web designers, copywriters, programmers, SMM specialists, setups in the Network targeted and advertising in Google, SEO promotion and many others. However, such cooperation has its nuances, which we will analyze in detail.

Advantages of working with freelancers

1. The main attractive factor is budget savings.

The price of the services of a freelancer is usually much lower than that of a website promotion agency. In addition, the customer has the opportunity to influence this price in such a way that it primarily suits him.

It is easiest to find specialists on the freelance exchange, because there are a lot of people willing to perform the task for the budget that you set for this service. The businessman only needs to filter the offers, conduct several conversations with potential candidates and choose the one who inspires the most confidence. You can also turn to a freelancer on the recommendation of friends, but here it can be more difficult to save the budget and get a service at your own price, rather than the price offered by the freelancer.

2. The next plus is the flexibility of freelancers.

They quickly make changes, often work even at night, if there is a need to fulfill an urgent order that is needed “for yesterday”. If you are lucky enough to find an honest and responsible specialist, then all requirements will always be fulfilled on time and with quality, and comments about the work will be accepted as calmly and adequately as possible. Keep this freelancer’s contacts safe and don’t give them to anyone.

From my own experience agency WEDEX we can note that the freelancer’s involvement in the project is usually higher, and this has a good effect on the work as a whole. He is interested in the development of the client’s project, because it guarantees him a constant flow of tasks and income.

3. The third important advantage: freelancers are, as a rule, highly specialized specialists with extensive experience in their field.

They are able to faithfully and efficiently perform certain parts of the work in your project. For example, if your marketing strategy includes promoting on Instagram, working with opinion leaders, targeting, creating creative useful content, links, stories – then an experienced SMM freelance specialist will perfectly cover these tasks.

Disadvantages of working with freelancers

1. The first disadvantage of working with freelancers is that they rarely buy and use paid software to improve their work.

The reason is very simple – the income from the work most often does not even cover these costs for subscriptions. Meanwhile, the presence of licensed software is a guarantee of the purity of the activity, a guarantee of the constant functionality of the programs without unexpected failures and deletions of work, regular updates that allow the specialist to perform his tasks really well. Experienced specialists also use paid powerful analytical tools such as SimilarWeb, Semrush, Ahrefs, Serpstat, SE Ranking and others for effective work.

2. Lack of a comprehensive solution to business problems.

Yes, in a narrow niche, a freelancer can show a good result, but still, if you need to do a large pool of tasks, then a big question arises about expertise. A “man-orchestra” physically cannot be an equally strong expert in different areas. So, if you have a medium or large business and a brand that has a structure, stages, processes, and you want to complete all your tasks with complete quality, take a closer look at the services of a digital marketing agency.

We wrote above those Ukrainian freelancers can offer complex solutions. To avoid dissonance, let’s explain: in fact, most freelancers are agencies in one way or another. This is a widespread experience both in Ukraine and abroad. It works as follows: an agency on freelance exchanges leaves reviews about its willingness to perform tasks on behalf of 10-15 individual freelancers, and thus receives more orders than posting reviews on its own behalf.

3. The third disadvantage is that when working with a freelancer, it is impossible to be sure that the task will be completed with quality and within the agreed time.

But not all of them are like that – there are specialists who are very scrupulous about the performance of their tasks, pay attention to their personal brand and the feedback that the client will leave after cooperation. However, deadlines are also affected by the presence of other projects at work – often freelancers manage several projects at the same time, which can negatively affect the concentration of attention on your task.

4. The next disadvantage is that many freelancers offer cooperation without a contract or agreement.

This means that, unfortunately, the executor may not complete the task at all and disappear from communication at any time, if he forgets about the agreements, does not want to or for some reason is physically unable to continue cooperation. The business owner should remember that you should choose a freelancer if you yourself are an expert in this niche or at least understand the basics, and you just need one more performer. Otherwise, it is better not to try to save on a specialist, so as not to waste time and money on eliminating the consequences of dishonest work.

When choosing a freelancer for your project, be very careful, constantly communicate with the executor, try to learn as much as possible about his work principles and attitude towards the projects he previously had. It is not easy to find a professional in your field among freelancers, however, once you find one, you will be sure that part of the tasks on the project will definitely be completed with quality.

Pros and cons of working with a digital marketing agency

Today there are many offers on the market comprehensive promotion brand on the Internet from marketing agencies. Of course, there are pros and cons, just like when working with a freelancer.

Advantages of working with an agency

1. A wide range of quality services is the main advantage that a freelancer cannot offer.

When you contact the agency, you will be offered pre-developed options for promoting the brand or a separate site, which will include a list of necessary actions. Of course, you will receive a personal offer from the specialized agency after discussing the details of your project.

For example, a business owner can choose comprehensive promotion of a brand on the Internet, which will be worked on by a whole team of specialists: a marketer will write or adjust an existing strategy, a designer will make a site that will be published on the Internet by a programmer, and an advertising and SEO specialist will promote, an SMM manager will deal with social networks companies You will get the highest quality and fastest promotion at the end, because it can only be given by a well-coordinated team of narrow-profile specialists who have been working together for a long time and understand when and who should do what for the result.

However, in addition to the comprehensive approach, you can also choose the necessary point services, which will be performed by an agency specialist. Example, site audit, search promotion, Google advertising settings, etc.

2. The presence of a team of specialists working on the project guarantees that the work will not come to a dead end.

A freelancer is usually focused only on his experience, and in the case when there is a team, the number of opinions on solving the project issues that arise increases. Many specialists – more hypotheses and options for resolving situations in the best way for the client.

For example, taking into account the experience and the opportunity to get advice from colleagues, a designer in an agency creates such creatives for advertising that accurately hit the target and capture the attention of users, prompting them to take the desired action (switch to the page, subscription, etc.).

Also, when working with an agency, your project will definitely not be paused due to illness, unexpected departure or other personal problems of the performer – here they will simply find a replacement among the team and continue working at the same pace. The human factor is almost eliminated.

3. The third advantage is compliance with clear rules for the performance of work thanks to the Agreement.

A digital marketing agency always works formally with its clients. The contract gives a great advantage to both parties, because their interests are protected by law in case of misunderstandings. Clearly defined deadlines provide a guarantee that the project will be completed on time and there will be no questions regarding delays in execution, number of edits, price, and other nuances.

4. All specialists in one place.

The need to separately look for specialists in different fields disappears by itself. In the case of working with a freelancer, you need to devote a lot of additional time to finding and selecting each team member for your project.

5. An important plus is adaptability due to experience.

The agency has many specialists whose experience is developed and converted into relevant and effective strategies. The team working on your project has the opportunity to change and adapt the promotion strategy at any time, there are almost no niche restrictions.

Comment from the owner and founder of the WEDEX agency, Oleksii Sidei:

Seo specialist of agencies promote many more sites and due to this see more chips of competitors, understand more quickly what exactly has changed after the next Google updates, analyze more information, and, accordingly, promote sites better.

6. Receiving reports and the ability for the client to have full control over the processes.

As a rule, agencies regularly submit interim reports, showing the client each stage of work. This makes it possible to immediately adjust the strategy in the right direction if, according to the customer, something is not going right. The “plan-fact” format is beneficial to both parties and minimizes the possibility of drastic changes when the project is almost complete.

Disadvantages of working with a marketing agency

1. The main disadvantage is always considered to be the higher cost of agency services. But this issue is controversial.

If you have a startup or a very limited budget for promotion, then of course it will be more comfortable to work with a freelancer. However, when the business is already afloat and there is neither the opportunity nor the desire to take risks, it is worth allocating a little more money for promotion and getting a guarantee of results and services from experienced specialists working in the agency.

Choose to work with such an agency, where the proposal for the client is formed as transparently and clearly as possible, what you pay for and where the budget goes.

This is what Oleksii Sidei, the founder of the WEDEX agency, says about it:

There are direct and indirect production costs.

For example, direct costs include the bonus of a team of SEO specialists, a project manager, and copywriters working on the project.

Indirect costs – office rent and maintenance, marketing agency, financial department, staff training courses and many others. Accordingly, the freelancer does not have most of the indirect costs, which is why he can sell his services cheaper.

If you look at the price of individual works comprehensively and take into account the fact that freelancers sometimes unjustifiably overestimate the cost of their services up to the price of an agency, then this point can even be rejected.

2. Processing of appeals and amendments may take longer.

This happens due to the presence of narrow specialists who are responsible for each stage of working with the client. For example, the manager is responsible for communication, who, in turn, conveys the client’s wishes regarding corrections to the relevant specialist of the company. It is difficult to call these delays critical.

3. The client may be refused services.

Marketing agencies have their own policies and principles of work, so they are not always ready to cooperate with any niche. Sometimes there are situations that agencies refuse to work with the promotion of certain sites or topics. This point usually becomes clear during the first conversation, so the client can simply look for another agency.

Although working with an agency may require a little more budget, at the beginning of cooperation there is time to agree on all the nuances of the project, to sign the Agreement, but at the end, the client will receive a guaranteed high-quality promotion of his brand and website in the stipulated time.

To summarize

It is your choice to turn to a professional agency or individual freelancers for help. Of course, when searching, don’t forget to look at case studies and reviews from previous customers, but also pay attention to what people are buying from people. It is worth choosing someone with whom it is comfortable to communicate, to work on both a financial and an emotional level.

Cooperation will be long-lasting and pleasant if business partners feel each other and sincerely wish for prosperity. Then the performer has the inspiration and desire to really help the project grow, and not just work off the payment. And the business owner will not hold on to every penny, but, observing great results, will generously reward promotion specialists.

Olha Tyshchenko

Editor

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