If a banana taped to the wall at Basel can sell for $150,000, maybe the relationship between art as aesthetic versus commodity is blurring.
Sure, your in-house Instagram posts won’t end up in a London festival (though it’s not impossible?), but the costs may well still creep up as if they did. The money involved also scales incredibly quickly if you want to put out services consistently. This budgeting issue applies to copywriting as well, or video editing and animation. Even scheduling the time to post and engage effectively can be a drain on a busy enterprise.
The obvious solution would be to take on these projects yourself, right? Well, I hope you have a few hours on hand per project. It might seem like a good time for the first two, but the midnight oil only burns for so long—you’ll see.
Here lie the crossroads: The hidden costs of hiring an in-house marketing team or taking projects on by yourself are like the hidden costs for a cheap plane ticket. You might make it there in one piece, but you’ll be cutting every corner twice to square the circle of time, energy, and resources. Marketing is tough—you may simply need to pick which battles you can take on with your current budget.
This blog will discuss the hidden costs of building an in-house design team and why outsourcing might be your best bet. After all, it’s what I do when life gets hectic!
It Costs Your Time
So you’ve hired a copywriter and a graphic designer to start—great! No more trawling LinkedIn and Buzzfeed for post inspiration, and Canva will stop looking at you like it owes you mafia money. Time to breathe, right? Right?
Uh oh.
You see, someone still has to direct that team. Your employees require a constant pipeline of client information and details on tone and intent, not to mention guidance as the project progresses and final edit notes prior to approval. Furthermore, you’re more accountable for time than you were when you were working for yourself! A team that experiences blockages while you’re unavailable means time you’re paying for as productivity lags.
When it comes to hiring an in-house team, the time you save in one department may just move right into managerial hours.
It Costs Actual Dollars to Pay People
Most people don’t want to be paid in “experience”– sorry to break it to you. So here’s a quick rundown on the average cost to build a marketing team.
Teamwork Isn’t Cheap
Where visuals succeed, the associated copy could fall flat on its face. Likewise, a fantastic blog may never get clicks without an effective header. Having synergy in your creative team requires expertise at each step—a cost that can quickly scale as you hire multiple capable bodies.
You want your content to succeed no matter how or where it is deployed. Having a multitude of content streams means bringing on board a variety of talents. Here, strategic hiring may help as you find folks who are hopefully creative in multiple areas. But beware—they may begin to understand their value within your workflow and leverage you for wages that are higher than you can afford.
“What’s Next?”
If you’re a marketer like me, you know this scenario: Your clients love your service! They’re asking if they can get more, like video or podcasting services. With your current team of writers and designers, you are unable to offer that.
As a client begins to understand the value of the marketing you are doing and wants to expand their branded content scope, they will look for comprehensive services that you may not offer. While you have built a relationship with them so far, that is no guarantee that you will be a part of their success going forward. To keep those clients, you may find yourself in a position where you have to choose between keeping present clients and keeping your staffing budgets in check. It’s not an easy place to be!
If you’re looking to grow your company, marketing is essential.
If you can comfortably scale your services with only a couple of bodies and a bucket of elbow grease, more power to you! But for those projects that simply eat up too much time or for those ambitious clients who are stretching your resources to the snapping point, hiring out-of-house is often the best choice.
If you’re curious what that process looks like or are amped to get started on offloading some of your tasks to full-time professionals, we can definitely have a chat. After all, teamwork makes the dream work!