You should work with a freelancer when you have a clear scope, and with an agency when you’re lacking a clearly defined marketing strategy and your marketing requires a broad skillset.
In this blog post, we try to shed light on the differences between working with a digital marketing agency and a freelancer. This post is not only for clients but also for freelancers and agencies to help them understand their position better.
We hope this blog post helps you to jump into the right types of partnerships and work better together regardless of which side of the table you are sitting on.
What is the problem you are trying to solve?
There are many types of problems in digital marketing that companies typically solve with freelancers or digital marketing agencies. Freelancers and digital marketing agencies can both help you solve these problems but the way they support you is a little bit different in both cases.
Launching a new product or service
There are many things to consider when launching a new product. You need different visuals to promote your product, define the target audience, plan campaigns, launch campaigns and manage them on different platforms. All these require special knowledge and keeping all the strings attached needs a lot of coordination.
Freelancers are best at handling specific tasks like doing product designs or Facebook campaigns. Agencies are good at planning where to spend budget and how to organise the launch of a new product or service.
Scaling the business
Scaling business and growing revenue is all about experimenting and trying new things to get more clients cheaper. Usually, this is an ongoing project which never ends.
For ongoing projects where you want to scale your business, it’s good to choose an agency if you are looking for long term and long-lasting results. With a freelancer, you can get quick wins but without consistent optimisation, they rarely carry long-lasting benefits.
Entering new market
Entering a new market requires a special understanding of the market. Go to market strategies are very different in different countries and sometimes even require modifications to your product or service offering.
Especially at the beginning of the journey if you want to quickly try something new in a new market, working with a freelancer is probably a very good idea as they can get things done fast. On the other hand, if you are committed to going to a new market and looking for a long term partnership it’s best to choose an agency to work with.
Scalable digital marketing service
Agencies often have an entire team of people working on different things in the project. Freelancers are usually working alone. If you need to scale the project you will have to find more freelancers. Agencies typically have more people they can bring in projects.
Long term strategic relationship
Relationships with both can be long term and strategic but often agencies try building long term relationships with their clients. Freelancers are happy to take shorter gigs. Freelancers also work with many clients and if they are not as committed to a relationship with any specific client as agencies are.
Client involvement
Typically agencies want to work on their own and don’t let clients get involved. Freelancers are more open to working together with clients. Agencies want to maximise their own revenue and they want to keep certain details hidden from the client.
One pair of helping hands or a full team of consultants
In a creative field such as marketing, the expression “two heads are better than one” rings very true, reflecting the intuition that people working in groups are more likely to come to a correct decision than they would if working alone.
When you work with a freelancer you typically work with an individual who is helping you achieve your goals with digital marketing. When working with an agency you have a full team of professionals with different types of skills and backgrounds. Sounds expensive? It’s not necessarily more expensive than hiring a freelancer if you keep the workload the same. At gaasly our growth partners come from different backgrounds, some more technical, some more design orientated and some with history in copywriting.
Why choose an agency over a freelancer?
Should I hire a digital marketing agency or a freelancer? What’s right for me? t’s not really about choosing an agency over a freelancer. They solve different problems. If you need a logo, hire a freelancer. If you need a brand, hire an agency.
Gaasly – best of both worlds
We are a different type of agency. We try to combine the best features from the way traditional agencies and freelancers work.
| gaasly | Traditional agency | Freelancer | |
| Focus on execution | X | x | |
| Strategic vision | X | x | |
| Flexible contract | X | x | |
| Performance driven | X | x | |
| Scalable service model | X | x | |
| Close collaboration | X | x |
Summary
It’s not always clear what is the best solution for different situations but typically freelancers do what you tell them to do and agencies tell you what to do. We at Gaasly try to mix these, we consult you on how to reach your goals with digital marketing and then help you actually get those it done. Contact us.