From engaging with customers to help maintain a positive reputation, marketing is responsible for building relationships, growing your business and boosting sales. If you’re not making a strong investment in marketing your company, you neglect the opportunity to reach your business’s full potential.
But when it comes time to hire marketing support, many business owners need help with the decision to hire a full-time marketing role or opt for a freelance position. While both positions have their benefits, they are also both costly investments to make in your marketing efforts.
Here are some considerations when making the decision of whether to hire a freelance or full-time marketer. Plus, as an added bonus, we’ll give you a valuable tip on how to free up cash flow so you have more funds to invest in marketing.
Why marketing is important for businesses
If you’re just starting out or haven’t yet ventured into the world of marketing, you might not realize how your business can benefit from consistent, high-quality marketing efforts. Consistent and regular marketing efforts can help you increase brand awareness and sales and gather information about your target customers to serve them better. As you consider increasing your marketing efforts, it can be helpful to differentiate between traditional and digital marketing efforts and how they play a role in your business.
Traditional marketing includes anything that is non-digital, like direct mail, print advertisements, billboards or posters and events, to name a few. These tactics are crucial to connecting with your local customers, establishing credibility and improving your brand awareness.
Digital marketing, on the other hand, can help you gather valuable insights into your customers and track your marketing’s effectiveness. Strategies like social media, blog posts, digital ads and search engine optimization allow you to target potential customers based on their online behavior, giving you a premium opportunity to introduce your brand to a new audience. Technology and AI has taken marketing to a whole new level. When ready, explore the crosswalks between digital marketing and things like omni-channel marketing. As you evaluate marketing options, consider long-term goals as ideally you can partner with a marketer that can get you where you want to go and beyond. The attitude of just hiring what you can afford at the time can be costly, especially with marketing.
The secret to successful marketing is to tactfully combine traditional marketing efforts with digital marketing to both increase your brand awareness and better understand your target customer. When you start to invest in these strategies, you’ll notice your business grow, and you’ll increase engagement with customers.
Pros and cons of hiring a full-time marketer
PROS
- Brand expert: When you hire a full-time marketer, you’re adding a person to your team that will be solely dedicated to your marketing efforts. They’ll learn your company’s voice and become an expert in your brand.
- Consistency: The key to marketing is consistency. Having a full-time marketer gives you a consistent and stable person who can establish campaigns for days, weeks and months in advance.
- Valuable resource for marketing verticals: Most marketers have skills across several marketing areas like social media, email marketing, event planning and more. By hiring a dedicated marketing team member, you’ll have one team member that can handle it all.
CONS
- Full-time employees can be expensive: When you add a full-time employee to your team, you’ll likely have to offer benefits, provide equipment and offer a competitive salary. These costs are usually more than just hiring a freelance marketer.
- You will have to manage an employee on a daily basis: Some business owners have no desire to manage an employee or train them.
- Finding a replacement can put you back at square one if they leave the company: While more stable than a freelancer, if your full-time marketer leaves the company, you’ll have to rehire and retrain a new employee, which can disrupt your ongoing marketing efforts.
Pros and cons of hiring a freelance marketer
PROS
- More flexibility: If your business is more seasonal, or you don’t want to make the commitment to hiring a full-time marketer, a freelance marketer can help you fill the gaps on an as-needed basis.
- Less investment: Since you’ll only hire a freelance marketer for the work you need to complete, you’ll likely save money without offering benefits and equipment and can pay by the hour or on retainer.
- Hire for a specific need vs. a generalist: Hiring a freelance marketer gives you the option to pick a specific skill or area you need help in, like social media or email marketing.
CONS
- You won’t get full-time dedicated support: A freelancer will only likely only work part-time or hourly for you, leaving you without full-time marketing support.
- There is usually a ramp-up period to get a freelancer or agency onboarded and familiar with your company: Freelancers won’t have the same knowledge of your company as an internal hire. You’ll need to familiarize them with your business.
- You will be sharing their time with other clients: Your freelance hire will likely be taking on other clients, which can limit the attention and focus they’re able to provide your business.
What to consider when making your decision
Adding marketing support to your team is a big decision! Before you choose between a freelance marketer or a full-time marketing role, make sure you consider the following things:
#1. Budget
How much are you willing to spend to get marketing help? Both freelance and full-time marketing hires require an investment from your business, so it’s important to understand how much you have to spend before you start the hiring process. As you evaluate the budget, consider the projected return and future goals as you may have to shell out more than you want to get some momentum. Furthermore, you’ll want to pay the employee or freelancer a rate that makes them want to stay with you. Replacing an individual can cost time and money.
#2. Marketing goals
What are you looking to achieve? Do you want to get more customers in your store? Or expand your customer database? Think about what type of goals you have set for your business and how marketing can help you get there.
#3. Demand
A lot of business owners forget to ask themselves, “am I ready to grow my business?” If you grow too fast or at the wrong time, you could risk running out of inventory or failing to keep up with demand. Plus, with more money going toward marketing, cash flow may be tight. Inventory financing can help business owners have more cash to allocate toward marketing while allowing them to stock enough inventory. If you’re thinking of getting funding for your inventory, Kickfurther can help. Our funding platform allows business owners to be in control while accessing the funds they need with no immediate repayment. We can help you fund up to 100% of inventory, with no immediate repayments. Activate growth mode when you partner with Kickfurther.
Tips for making your hire
Whether you decide to hire a full-time employee or opt to go the freelance route, you want to find someone that fits your team and your vision. The right hire can make all the difference, so ensure you spend the time interviewing and searching for the perfect fit. Take time to review their previous work projects and understand how their skills translate to the goals you have.
Closing thoughts
If you’re worried about how increased marketing will affect your business, Kickfurther can help ease your stress and put you in control with inventory funding. You can get funding for up to 100% of your inventory without taking on debt or giving up equity. Take advantage of our platform to get funding for inventory and free up cash flow to invest in marketing and operations to maximize growth potential.
