When you're running a small business, doing your own marketing often makes perfect sense.
You know the business better than anyone. You know your customers, your products and the stories behind them. And with tools like Canva, website builders, scheduling platforms and AI, there's more you can create and manage yourself than ever before.
So no, reaching a certain point in business doesn't automatically mean you need to hand your marketing over to an agency. But there may come a point when doing everything yourself stops being the most practical option. Maybe marketing keeps getting pushed to the bottom of your to-do list. Perhaps you've reached the limits of what you know how to do. Or maybe you have plenty of individual pieces - a website, social media, ads, brochures - but no real overview of how they're supposed to work together.
That's usually when the question changes from Can I do this myself? to Should I still be doing all of this myself?
There is absolutely nothing wrong with DIY.
Let's start there.
If your marketing needs are relatively straightforward, you have the time and you enjoy doing it, managing things yourself can work perfectly well. Especially in the early stages of a business, doing your own marketing can even help you understand your brand and customers better. You hear the questions customers ask. You know which products people get excited about. You understand what happens behind the scenes. That knowledge is incredibly valuable when creating content and communicating your business.
And the tools available today make DIY marketing much more accessible. You can build a website, design social posts, write newsletters, edit videos and plan content without needing a specialist for every task. The question isn't whether you can do it. It's whether doing it yourself is still the best use of your time, and whether you're getting the result you need.
Sometimes you don't need “marketing help”. You need one particular skill.
You might be perfectly comfortable managing your own Instagram account but have no idea how to build a website. Or perhaps you can write the content but need someone to create the visual identity around it. In that case, you probably don't need to outsource your marketing. You need a specialist.
A designer, photographer, copywriter, web developer, SEO specialist or advertising specialist can fill a specific gap while you continue managing everything else yourself.
This can be a very practical setup for a small business: keep what works in-house and bring in expertise where it adds something.
A freelancer can add capacity without adding a full-time role.
Sometimes the issue isn't knowledge. It's time. You know what needs to happen, but you're simply not getting around to it. A freelancer can take ownership of a particular area or provide extra capacity when you need it, without becoming a permanent part of your team. That might mean someone managing your social media every month, writing a series of blogs, designing campaign materials or helping during a particularly busy period.
This works particularly well when the responsibilities are clear and the work doesn't require someone to be inside the business every day.
When does in-house make sense?
As a business grows, marketing can become a substantial ongoing job. There may be campaigns running continuously, content to create every day, internal teams that need marketing support, multiple locations or products to manage and constant communication between departments. At some point, having someone inside the organization can make much more sense than continually outsourcing individual tasks.
An in-house marketer is close to what is happening. They can move quickly, gather information internally and develop a deep understanding of the business over time. Of course, one person rarely specializes in everything. An in-house marketer may still work with external photographers, designers, developers or other specialists when needed.
Again: it doesn't have to be all or nothing.
And when might an agency or external marketing partner help?
Sometimes marketing has grown beyond one particular task. Your website needs updating. Social media needs managing. A campaign needs a concept and design. Someone should probably look at SEO. There are advertisements running. Sales needs a brochure. And ideally, all of those things should still look and sound like they belong to the same business. That's where working with an external marketing partner or agency can make sense. The advantage isn't simply having someone else do the marketing. It's having someone look across the different pieces, help determine priorities and bring in the right skills when they're needed.
For a smaller business, that can provide access to broader expertise without building an entire marketing department internally. But that doesn't automatically make an agency the right choice. If you only need one specific task completed, hiring a whole team to solve it may be unnecessary.
The amount of help should fit the problem you're trying to solve.
How do you know when it's time to get some help?
There isn't a magic revenue number or number of employees that suddenly means you need professional marketing support.
But there are some useful signs:
- Marketing only happens when somebody happens to have time.
- Important projects keep getting postponed because day-to-day work takes priority.
- Your website, social media and other materials no longer feel connected.
- You spend more time figuring out how to do something than actually doing it.
- You know something isn't working but don't know what to change.
- Your business has grown or changed, but your marketing hasn't really changed with it.
- A project requires expertise you simply don't have internally.
- You're paying for tools, advertising or platforms without really knowing what they're achieving.
- Marketing has become a significant part of someone's job without actually being their job.
None of these automatically mean hire an agency. They simply suggest it may be worth reconsidering your current setup.
Don't outsource the part nobody else can provide.
There is one important catch to outsourcing marketing: an external partner doesn't magically know everything happening inside your business. They don't overhear the question three customers asked this week. They don't automatically know a new employee has started, that a product has changed, that Operations is struggling with something or that customers suddenly seem interested in a particular service.
That information has to come from somewhere.
The strongest external collaborations usually still involve the business. You provide the knowledge, context, updates and expertise that only you have. The external partner helps translate that into strategy, campaigns, content, design or whatever else is needed.
Getting help with your marketing doesn't mean disconnecting yourself from it.
More tools don't always solve the problem.
There is now a tool for almost every part of marketing. AI can write a first draft. Canva can create a design. Scheduling software can publish your posts. Analytics platforms can produce dashboards full of numbers. They're useful. Sometimes extremely useful. But if you're struggling because you don't know what your message should be, who you're trying to reach or which project deserves priority, another subscription probably isn't going to solve it.
Tools can make execution faster. They can't automatically decide what makes sense for your business.
Sometimes the missing piece isn't another tool. It's time, expertise or simply another person looking at the bigger picture.
You can mix and match.
Your marketing setup doesn't need a neat label. You might manage social media yourself, work with a designer when needed and have someone externally maintain your website. You could have an in-house marketer who works with an agency on larger campaigns. Or perhaps an external marketing partner manages most things while your team supplies photos, updates and industry knowledge.
All of those can work.
And the setup can change.
What makes sense for a two-person business today may not make sense when there are fifteen people on the team. A specialist you need for a launch might not be someone you need every month. Marketing support should be allowed to grow and change with the business.
A quick reality check
If you're wondering whether it's time to get help, ask yourself:
- Which parts of our marketing are working well as they are?
- What keeps getting postponed?
- Where are we missing knowledge or experience?
- What are we spending a disproportionate amount of time on?
- Do our different marketing activities feel connected?
- Is there work we could easily continue doing ourselves?
- Do we need one specialist, extra capacity or someone to look at the bigger picture?
- Would external help actually solve the problem we're experiencing?
- Who inside the business will still provide information, feedback and direction?
You may discover that you don't need outside help at all.
Or you may realize you don't need to outsource everything, just the one part that's been holding everything else up.
Do what makes sense for your business.
There is no point at which a small business graduates from DIY marketing and is suddenly required to hire professionals. Sometimes doing it yourself is the smartest option. Sometimes bringing in one specialist is enough. Sometimes building an internal team makes sense. And sometimes having an external partner take a broader view can give you the support you're missing.
The important part is recognizing when your current setup is helping the business, and when you're holding onto it simply because that's how you've always done things.
You can do a lot yourself. That doesn't mean you have to do everything yourself.
Hope this helps. 🍒