This post is part of our Hiring series. Check out our previous posts here:
- Making your first marketing hire: The complete guide for Israeli B2B startups
- Should my first business hire be marketing or sales?
- The complete guide to building your first enterprise B2B marketing team
A recent conversation with a smart B2B scaleup CEO took me by surprise.
“I 100% prefer working with excellent agencies and service providers over building an in-house marketing team. I don’t see us hiring in-house marketers anytime soon.”
This was unexpected. Obviously, all of Blue Seedling’s clients have opted for the agency route, but the absolute confidence and enthusiasm this CEO expressed were unusual. Usually, the sentiment sounds more like a compromise – “We’d rather hire, but circumstances led us to you… for now.”
Naturally, I grilled the CEO about the reasons behind his strong preference for agencies. They all make perfect sense.
Why hiring a marketing agency should be your first choice
For many startup and scaleup CEOs, working with a marketing agency feels like a necessary contingency plan in the highly competitive world of hiring top-tier in-house marketing talent. But according to one B2B scaleup CEO, here’s why agencies may in fact give you the most bang for your buck:
⭐ 1 Flexibility High-growth tech companies are in constant flux, and so are their marketing needs. One day you’re all in on conferences, the other on content marketing. The ability to adapt, pivot, and, if necessary, part ways is much simpler with agencies than with in-house employees.
⭐ 2 Location Currently, the company’s core operations are in Israel, but their market is US enterprises. Should they hire marketers in the US or in Israel? Partnering with an agency (like Blue Seedling) which is remote, US-based, and adept at collaborating with Israeli tech companies, offers better location flexibility.
⭐ 3 No HR drama Yes, this CEO cares deeply about company culture and his team members. And he equally appreciates the no-drama, clear expectations relationship with an agency.
⭐ 4 “Rent vs. Buy” This is all about access to best-in-class talent. Let’s face it – the world’s top demand generation leader might not want to be a full-time employee at your early-stage, obscure Israeli DevOps startup. At least not yet. So you can compromise for mediocre employees… or go the agency route, and get access to best-in-class talent, who has experience working with dozens of other early-stage Israeli DevOps startups, and is genuinely excited about partnering with you. 💙
Increasingly, top marketers are opting for fractional, self-employed roles, or joining agencies and collectives. Savvy CEOs capitalize on this trend to their advantage, enjoying both top-tier talent and maximum flexibility.
The bottom line
We’re bullish about the benefits of going the agency route, but as with any hiring decision (especially in B2B at the startup or growth stage), it comes down to timing and budget. We’ve written before about the pros & cons of agency vs. in-house and how you should weigh your options. And when/if you decide to make the move to in-house, check out our full Hiring series for more tips on how to build a winning B2B marketing team.
At the end of the day, if your priorities are flexing your marketing initiatives across multiple channels, targeting a rich ICP far from your HQ, and securing world-class talent, you should ask yourself – would you rather buy the shabby cottage, or rent the grand castle?
