Marketing Agency vs. Marketing Consultant

Hiring a marketing consultant might seem like the ideal solution when deciding how to support your marketing team. If you’re struggling to choose between hiring a marketing agency and adding more in-house resources, working with a marketing consultant makes a lot of sense.

Pros and Cons of Hiring a Marketing Consultant

A marketing consultant is usually a highly-experienced marketer with in-depth knowledge of their field. Consultants tend to be more senior and experienced than the person whom an agency would assign to your account. And while hiring a senior consultant full-time would be way too expensive, getting him/her part-time can work within your budget.

Consultants who work independently and have intentionally not set up as agencies are often highly selective about who they work with, as they have a limited amount of time.

The risk with getting a marketing consultant is that if they get busier with more lucrative projects, it’s possible that your project becomes a second priority and gets put on the back-burner. The consultant might simply not always be available, or your project might not always be the highest priority for them.

Pros and Cons of Working With a Marketing Agency

The benefits of working with an agency are that you’re still getting access to top-level consultants who are leading the agency, but then you also have a deeper bench that you can access.

What this means for you, is that on top of the guidance of the top-level experts in the agency, you’re getting more people with in-depth understanding in their specific fields – Social Media Marketing or YouTube Ads, PPC, or Content Marketing. This allows for greater stability and continuity when working with an agency vs. a marketing consultant.

For this reason, it might be a good idea to consider consultant engagements that are relatively short and very focused on clear deliverables.

Here are the 3 questions to ask when assessing an agency if you are looking for a digital marketing partner.