How Much Does It Cost To Hire A Marketing Agency in Calgary?

We’re sorry to be like every other blog about costs and say it depends, but with marketing services, it truly does depend on what your goals are and what you need the marketing agency to do. Rather than try to break down costs when there are so many variables, we thought we would instead share with you where hiring a marketing company in Calgary can save you money and what factors contribute to the cost you’ll be quoted when hiring an agency to help you with your marketing.

So, first things first, what ways can a marketing agency save you money? Here are some you may not have previously thought of.

1. Optimize Ad Spend – This is a big one. If you’re currently running Google or Facebook Ads without updated expertise, chances are, you’re overspending. There have been many updates and changes made to both platforms and how ads are run, and as you would expect, how you buy your ads has changed because of it. The marketing agency you choose can help you to optimize your ad spend and may even suggest adjusting budgets accordingly. The agency will also keep a very close eye on your results and costs to ensure they adjust to any trends that come up. 

2. Better/More Conversions – When campaigns are optimized using up to date expertise, they will typically convert more leads for your business. More leads doesn;t always equate to more revenue though, so the quality of your leads will also be tested and vetted. Campaigns can be adjusted to attract the right types of prospects so you’re getting well qualified leads that net a higher customer value. Even a few additional, high quality conversions can dramatically increase your ROI on hiring a marketing agency. 

3. Reduced Overhead – Hiring an internal team to manage your marketing efforts can get costly pretty quickly. Then there’s the additional people management, hiring processes and much more. When you hire an agency, you pay one fee to access all of their expertise without having to spend on salaries, expenses and managing the team. When you look at the cost versus the reward, the return always favours outsourcing the work until you’ve grown to the right size to sustain a full scale marketing team.

4. Save On Expensive Tools – Marketing is easier, faster and more effective when you have the right tools. While there are free versions of many marketing tools, the functionalities are often limited and it takes a significant amount of time to learn how to use them to their fullest. Most agencies will have purchased these tools and have experience using them with different types of clients. Not only do you save on having to buy these tools yourself, but also get the added benefit of getting the most out of the tools from those who thoroughly understand them. 

5. Your Time – This is very likely going to be the biggest gain when hiring an agency, but also the hardest to put a price on. Most successful entrepreneurs have put in long hours wearing every hat in their business in order to manage costs. Assessing what your time is worth can be a challenge when you’re so used to not putting a value on your time. When hiring an agency, you’ll need to invest time upfront, but in the long run, you gain more time either for yourself (invaluable) or to invest in growing and strengthening your company, which will show in huge returns over time. 

As you can see, there are some very direct ways that an agency can help you to spend less on marketing and save on in-house labour for marketing related tasks. Hiring a marketing agency is not just a liability cost. It can be offset by savings in various areas, as well as freeing up time for you and to reinvest in sales, customers and growing your business.

When you are looking to hire a marketing agency in Calgary to help you make the most of your budget, achieve your goals and free up time, there are certain factors that will affect the cost of your projects and ongoing fees. These include:

Brand – Consider how established your brand is. If your marketing company has to create a logo, establish brand guidelines, craft your core messaging and any of these other core details, you’ll be looking at higher costs because these elements must be in place for any marketing project to happen. If you don’t have these elements, don’t worry, the agency you choose can help you to create them, but it’s good to know upfront that there will be additional costs to make them happen. 

Your Involvement – The amount you (or someone on your team) will be involved in marketing projects can affect their overall cost. And this actually goes both ways, higher and lower. If someone from your company is able to supply quality photography, design or content, or you have these assets already, you’re going to save on costs. Not only will you not need to pay for these items to be crafted, but the whole project(s) will also tend to run smoother and more on time when the required assets are already available versus having to set up and schedule them. 

Your level of involvement in the process can also increase the costs of getting your marketing tasks done in some cases as well. It’s worth noting that if you commit to you and/or your team providing assets or regular content and you do not adhere to the scheduled deadlines, costs will begin to increase. Project lags, lost time in market and additional expenses can rack up. The same goes for being hyper involved in any stage of the process, as conflicting visions or uncertainties can also cause expensive delays. 

Before committing to a project, be sure you are fully aware of the requirements and be honest with yourself if you can meet them. If not, it will actually cost you less in the long run to have the agency handle them for you. And don’t forget, you vetted the experts you have hired, so it’s worthwhile to trust their expertise and not waste time overmanaging any aspect of the project. 

Goals – in some cases, your goals can also affect the cost of hiring a marketing agency. If you have a large number of customer types or different campaigns to run, you’re likely to see higher costs. When you have a narrower scope, costs tend to run lower. The hard costs associated with advertising, for example, may not change, but the amount of time required to manage multiple campaigns will increase. 

When you are looking to hire a marketing agency, the first step should be to consider what business goals you want them to help you achieve, how you will measure success and what resources you currently have available. All of this information will be critical to the agency when they are learning how they can impact your business and providing you pricing quotes.

To understand how the team at Digital Monk Marketing can help you to reach the goals you have, and how we can offset the cost of hiring us, reach out for a consultation today!