Digital Agency vs. In-House:
What’s Right For Your Brand? 

New challenges, opportunities and demands are constantly presenting themselves. Regardless of a brand’s size or level of maturity in the market, capturing and holding the attention of clients (both existing & potential) is becoming increasingly difficult. Crafting engaging designs and effective communications can often require a specialist skill set that can only come from experience and a deep understanding of the industry. Let’s dive a little deeper now to help you figure out whether an Agency or In-House team could work best for you. 

Resource Management & HR

Our winner: Agency

If you’ve gone through the hiring process before, we probably don’t need to do much convincing here. It can be painfully slow and consumes a ridiculous amount of resources. Great Designers and Marketing professionals are in high demand, and even if you find a great candidate you’ll still need to complete extensive on-boarding and close monitoring during the early stages of their employment. 

Digital Agency staff are typically self-starters and don’t require micro-management. They have the skills and are well versed in following briefs. When working with an agency, time spent managing resources and priorities can be reduced. Agency staff are ready when you are and can cater to the fluctuations in demand. 

Flexibility & Time Constraints

Our winner: In-house

There’s no point pretending that you’re the sole focus of a Digital Agency. While a good Agency should provide a high level of customer service and attention, there’s a certain level of flexibility that In-House can provide that’s just not possible using other methods. Running an In-House team means you have complete control over project scope, adjustments, timelines and priorities. 

Brand Consistency and Identity

Our winner: In-house (photo finish)

This was seriously close in our opinion (not exactly a unanimous decision here at the office either). Carefully crafting a team of Designers and Markets over several months or years means you can indoctrinate them into the ways of your brand – Its essence, vision, mission and styling guidelines. This can lead to high levels of consistency in branding elements and communications. 

Digital Agencies like to consider themselves as ‘Brand Chameleons’ and take great pride in quickly understanding and applying a brand’s core values and identity. Agencies may need a little extra detail in initial briefings, but as the relationship develops this should reduce. As a side note: if your business struggling with identity or consistency issues, Agencies can work with you to bring your brand personality to the forefront. 

Cash, Money, Bread, Coin, $$$$$

Winner: Agency

You get what you pay for, right? Well, it’s not always that simple. It’s not just a direct comparison between an employee (or team of employees) wages vs. the cost of engaging an Agency. Managing these projects internally can also have a high level of ‘operational’ costs such as software licensing, equipment and physical office space. 

With an Agency, the cost and rates are agreed upon. Agency staff will have the tools and resources available to get the job done so you don’t have to worry about it. 

Scalability

Winner: Agency

It’s a great feeling to build a team of professionals, all committed to one goal, advancing your business. But in reality, that can take months or years to come to fruition. Working with an Agency means you can scale services based on your business needs. In addition, Agencies will typically have specialist staff across key disciplines and can allocate resources accordingly. Need a digital designer this month? No problem. Launching a Marketing plan and you need the copy just right? Done. 

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Extra benefits of working with a Digital (Design / Marketing) Agency

• Significantly lower overheads and administration costs 
• Avoid lengthy hiring and onboarding processes 
• Regular project updates instead of constant management 

• Proven track record in professional design setting 
• Engaging a team with varied but complementary skill sets 
• Scalability 
• Costs and fees based on services provided rather than wages 
• HR, staffing and resourcing managed by the agency 

Some more benefits of keeping it In-house

• Complete focus on your business, no competing demands 
• Internal team ‘comradery’, can lead to more effective internal communication 
• Higher level of control over ‘processes’ 

• Can produce quicker ‘turn-around’ times for drafts and tasks 
• In-person meetings can be organised quickly (although online meetings have become a normal part of professional life) 
• Unlimited changes to scope of work 
• Higher level of oversight/input 
• Complete control over who you hire 

Still sitting on the fence?

That might be the universe telling you you’re not ready to commit to one method. Don’t worry, you’re in good company. Many businesses use a hybrid approach, particularly in Design and Marketing. This approach often sees a core team of staff members managing the ‘day-to-day’ operations, and larger projects or tasks that require specialist knowledge are outsourced to an Agency. 

That’s all from us for now…

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but from experience these are definitely some key points to keep in mind when deciding what’s right for your business. Something that we consider a negative of one approach may actually have a positive effect in some situations. If you have something to add, or just want to discuss your needs with one of our team members we’d love to hear from you! Get in touch with us below, leave a comment and check out more on our socials.