How Much Does Hiring a Marketing Agency Cost

Many questions arise when considering whether to hire a marketing agency and how much it will cost is always in the lineup. Yet, the cost of hiring a marketing agency varies based on what you wish to achieve. If you need video content, production costs rise. Want to focus on ad management? There will be an associated fee, and that fee will depend on goals, needs, and value. 

There was a time when JCI Marketing was deliverable-based, and pricing was relatively simple to understand. Then, I realized that the cost wasn’t commensurate with the value we bring to the table. The exact cost we charge depends on the customer’s goals. While we have a few prepackaged plans, the specifics will depend on and boil down to a few factors. 

A Caveat: Deliverables and the Cost of Hiring a Marketing Agency

Most clients immediately look to deliverables as a core metric for the cost of marketing. However, the price also includes much more than just content. The strategy and plan for content creation, distribution, and use come into play. Interviews, market research, and data analytics affect the cost structure. If you need more advanced campaign tracking or help setting inbound strategies or are simply unsure where to start with an inbound strategy, the right agency is key. 

After all, the strategy and work that goes into a plan for 16 blogs per month radically differs from a plan for four blogs per month. And what about length? What happens if one blog takes a turn into a white paper, but another is shorter? Where do you draw the line and still be able to maintain a consistent flow of content?

So, it isn’t even only also about bout deliverables but value and how that value supports your goals. Together, that impacts your total cost.  

Ad Management and Marketing Agency Costs

Ad management takes time and energy, but with Smart Campaigns on Google growing more popular, brands can keep ads in check in many ways. The simplest is to launch a campaign for a targeted keyword group and check it about once per week. Of course, complexity increases in tandem with the size and scope of your campaigns. Running 10 ads with a set budget? Expect to pay more. 

Another option is to focus your ads on a single channel, such as LinkedIn ads in the B2B logistics space. Rather than aimlessly trying to catch anyone, focus in on a core group, retrieving based on account lists, site visitors, and email engagement. So how exactly does an agency bill for ads?

The answer is usually one of three models:

• A flat fee to manage ads in a given spend range, such as $2500 to manage between $1000 and $10000 worth of ad spend per month. 
• A percent of ad spend, such as 10% of your ad spend, $100 per $1000 in paid ads. 
• An embedded cost, covered by effectively subsidizing the cost of ads with other services from the agency. You don’t see a line item cost, but it is present somewhere. 

JCI Marketing blends these models into one with customized ad solutions based on needs, however, we prioritize our newest package model that always includes some ad spend to support results. That could be via retargeting, brand awareness, or even follower ads. The options are limitless, but it is only one part of the picture. 

Marketing Agency Pricing and Consulting

Part of the value in hiring an agency comes from the time you spend with the team. You are on the right track if the agency serves as an endless source of inspiration and ideas. You are getting ideas and options, but that can come with a huge caveat….are you paying for hourly consulting? 

No one wants to feel like they’re on a time budget when discussing their marketing goals, so JCI Marketing doesn’t operate in that manner. We build in valuable B2B marketing consulting time into everything we do, and we recognize that sometimes, a quick ask that’s answered the next business day is really the best way to get an outside view. And hey, no timers are running on our end of the interaction when working with established clients. 

Design and Marketing Costs

Design forms a huge share of the costs of marketing, and it is due to the time commitment an agency may have with in-house designers, freelancers, or experts in visual content production. Writing content can feel like the biggest driver, but changes the size of mere pixels can have a drastic impact on whether your sales collateral works or simply feels off.

As an example, let’s assume we’re creating a white paper for a client. The cost is impacted by interview time, copywriting, image licenses, creation of data charts and graphs and the overall design of the white paper.

For a standard-length white paper of approximately 3000 words, you’d be looking at near $1000 for the copywriting and perhaps another $1500-$2000 for design, depending on the level of complexity.  Now, AI does help with copywriting costs, but it still doesn’t hold a candle to the creativity needed to decide what to include and consider that information in the context of a final design.

Let’s further complicate the example by saying that the interview time and copywriting together form the base price of $750, but you have 10 custom graphics needed for the white paper based on data shared with our team. In that case, the final cost could end up being $2750. But again, it’s all subject to interpretation, and then, if you need additional revisions outside of the scope of work for that white paper, you may incur further costs. 

Design costs will inherently come into play anytime you think about content or assets that have more value than your typical blog. For instance, case studies, infographics, e-books and one-pagers for sales collateral have a higher price point. 

Reporting, Data and Business Intelligence as Drivers of Costs When Working With an Agency

Another cost associated with hiring a marketing agency is made up of reporting and data analytics. There are plenty of tools on the market for SEO, email analytics, site traffic and every other dimension imaginable, but those tools are usually built with an expert view in mind. 

For example, HubSpot charges several thousand dollars in onboarding, and that cost comes from the training that HubSpot teams put into teaching you how to use the software. 

That’s totally fine, but if your agency has built its own reports or knows how to navigate HubSpot on your behalf, sometimes you can avoid those extra costs, and in many cases, an agency can guide you on what software you really need to achieve your goals.

As another example, SEMrush is one of the biggest SEO tools in the world, and the dataset is second to none. Researching a single keyword sounds simple, but you must know what you’re looking at in terms of search volume, difficulty, competition, intent, and value. You’ll also need to recognize what keywords tend to appear as semantic variations and be willing to go down the rabbit hole of analysis to see what your competitors for that same keyword are doing. 

Finding a single, solitary keyword won’t cut it, and you need to know how to run multiple reports and queries quickly inside of SEMrush to avoid delaying your content further. Plus, you may even need to consider whether your site currently ranks for the keyword and whether it’s time for a content refresh. In so doing, you will need a marketing strategy built on data, such as the JCI Marketing BI Dashboards. Of course, there are plenty of training resources on how to do that, but do you have the time available to learn what takes many moons to master? 

Let’s cut to the chase. JCI Marketing is a Semrush-Certified and HubSpot Inbound-Certified partner.

The answer leads into what you get when hiring a marketing agency, time back in your day, and that benefit is why you’ll pay for an agency that’s an expert in those tools to help you succeed. 

But that’s only one side of the cost for marketing tools. 

Even if you have the time to learn all the facets of how to use one of the reporting tools, it’s easy to misinterpret the data. In other cases, particularly for sites of higher complexity and size, the most insightful tools can contain hundreds of pages of data on what to address. Working an agency helps you cut through the noise, and that’s precisely why JCI Marketing built a custom marketing business intelligence dashboard for our clients. 

Press Release Distribution and the Costs of a Marketing Partner

Much like how your agency cost depends on what all the agency needs to succeed, your marketing costs will also vary based on whether you’re sending out press releases. Press releases, as far as written content goes, have one of the highest costs per word than any other medium. 

Yet, the channel you choose for distribution can be as varied as the colors of the rainbow, depending on your goals, so an agency will typically charge their distribution cost plus production plus a profit margin. But just as an agency may have certain analytics tools that can serve the purposes of HubSpot or bigger platforms on the market, the same can apply to press releases. 

Here’s an example. Distributing a press release via PRNewswire is typically more than $700. Such a price is also usually associated with a maximum of 400 words, and that excludes the cost of creating the content. Want to get more material into your release? Be ready to shell out more money based on the length. 

Another platform charges around $30; and for some, the distribution cost can soar into the thousands. But it’s always a give and take. 

So why does working with a marketing agency for PR matter in this part of the conversation?

Some distribution channels may also offer discounts to high-volume purchasers, such as an agency paying for 30 press releases at once as part of a promotion. Ergo, you may get a press release sent out unto the world at a lower distribution cost simply because the agency is doing so as a value-add for your partnership. 

It’s all about whether your agency knows the tricks to better gauging the clicks to your site from those press releases. And in so doing, maybe your planned distributor for your next press release isn’t the right one. 

On-Site Visits and the Cost of Hiring a Marketing Agency

Few agencies in the B2B space offer on-site visits, and that’s to be expected with clients across the country and globe. However, certain services, such as professional video production, simply require an on-site visit. Those visits have value, and you can iron out/discuss strategy or direction much faster in person than possible via email, texts, and digital meetings. 

Furthermore, a quality agency must understand your business to make the most of this time, and before we get into that side of things, let’s take a look at video production and its impact on the cost of an agency partnership. 

One final benefit of an on-site visit is the relationship between the agency and the client grows immensely more valuable. Rather than regaling yourself to a person behind a computer screen, you get to know us on a deeper level. You learn and see our core values in action, gain an opportunity to brainstorm with a good old fashioned white board and more. 

And in my personal opinion, nothing is more important or enjoyable than the feeling of interacting with clients in person. After all, wouldn’t you rather really know who you’re working with in the real world?

Professional Video Production and Hiring a Marketing Agency in Logistics

No AI can meet or exceed the capabilities of an on-site video shoot. That much is simple. Even if you have the best AI tools on the planet, you’ll still be limited to the quality of your camera, the space on your devices, and your ability to judge lighting, storylines, and content while recording. 

A professional video shoot involves a host of activities that take place before, during and after a video shoot. Your agency will work together with you to identify the topic of the videos, scripts (if necessary), and provide real-time direction. It really is something to behold. 

And that is where JCI Marketing can stand out in a crowded B2B marketing space. You see, we specialize in working with logistics and supply chain clients and our on-site team has the experience and wherewithal to know what questions to ask and how to direct videos with a logistics view in mind. Even if you went out and hired a professional videographer, there’s no guarantee that they will know how to navigate the conversation around logistics. 

That’s a core point where we excel. Take this example. We visited a client on-site for a video shoot that scaled far beyond the initial plan of six to eight videos of less a minute each. At the end of the first day, we not only had enough material for triple the videos (thanks to quick thinking in asking follow–up questions to people appearing on video), but also a fully recorded webinar for use. 

That’s a literal mountain of content compared to what you may have been faced with if you only had a simple script and a team that was going to record a specific set of videos without the ability to think about the conversation as a logistics expert. 

The work of video production also continues after the fact, considering different design elements for the finished videos and incorporating other elements, such as b-roll footage, if applicable. 

JCI Marketing Core Packages