Hire a marketer vs. bring in an external partner - Guide for 2025

The company is growing, and you feel it in your gut: "We need to do something about our marketing." The first thought for many is to hire someone. But is that really the smartest solution, or just the most obvious? There are some traps you should be aware of.

Introduction

You have reached a point where your gut feeling, or perhaps the numbers, tell you that it is no longer enough to "just" be good at what you do. The world needs to know about it. So, what do you do?

For many companies with 20, 50, or 150 employees, the standard reaction is to think: "We need a marketer!"

That sounds logical. A dedicated person in-house. Someone who knows the "company." Someone who can handle "all the digital stuff."

The problem? This "all the digital stuff" person does not exist. And the hunt for this mythical unicorn often leads to one of two costly traps.

Trap #1: The Sales Manager Becomes a (Bad and Expensive) Marketer

Maybe you haven't hired anyone yet. Instead, the sales manager has been assigned marketing. "You who are so good with customers can surely write some content and fix a bit on the website?"

Let's be honest: This is a terrible idea.

Not because your sales manager is bad, but because you are paying a sales expert a high salary to spend time on a field they do not master. Every hour the sales manager spends fiddling with an ad or pondering over an image for social media is an hour taken away from what they are actually supposed to do: talk to customers and close deals.

The hidden costs pile up. You pay for inefficiency, mediocre results, and, worst of all, lost sales revenue.

Trap #2: You Hire a "Jack of All Trades" Who Gets Overwhelmed

Okay, so you hire a dedicated "digital marketer." You find someone who seems sharp, knows social media, and appears eager. Finally!

But then the everyday work begins.

This one person suddenly needs to be:

• A strategist who understands the business goals.

• A content producer who can write, film, and take photos.

• An SEO specialist who can crack the Google code.

• An advertising expert who can pull the right levers in Meta and Google Ads.

• A web developer who can fix technical issues on the website.

• An analyst who can interpret data and prove ROI.

Do you see the problem? No single person can master all this. The result is always the same: The employee becomes a jack of all trades who gets completely overwhelmed by tasks. They may become good at one thing (often what they already knew), while the other critical areas are neglected.

You end up paying a full annual salary, let's say 800,000 kroner, which quickly becomes over a million with all social costs, for a person who at best does a quarter of the job needed.

A Better Model: "You Know the Store, We Know the Craft."

So what is the alternative? To bring in an external partner.

Now you might be thinking: "But they don’t know us, our culture, our people."

That is the biggest misconception. We usually say it like this: You know the company, we know marketing. Together, it becomes unbeatable.

Our job is not to take over your identity. Our job is to understand it, and then translate it into cohesive communication and marketing that works.

When you work with a marketing collective like us, you are not hiring one overworked person. You gain access to an entire team: a strategist, a copywriter, a photographer, an advertising specialist, a designer. Everyone is an expert in their field.

We know which channels make sense for exactly you. Just as importantly: we know which ones you can safely ignore, so you don’t waste money. We know how to build a website that communicates with an advertising campaign, which in turn is based on content that reflects the strategy.

Everything is interconnected.

But Won't You Just Be an External Vendor?

No. We insist on being an integrated partner. We do this through regular monthly strategy meetings where we are completely transparent: This is what we have done, this are the results, and this is where we aim to go. We become part of your processes and are quickly accessible through a dedicated contact person who has the whole team behind them.

We promise to always give our honest recommendations. In return, we expect you to be just as direct with us. That is the only way to succeed.

The Elephant in the Room: "You Just Want to Sell"

Now you might be sitting there thinking: “Yes, yes, of course, you say that. You are an agency that wants to sell your services.”

And you are absolutely right. We thrive on helping companies like yours.

But here is the honest truth: We have no interest in selling to anyone we cannot deliver real results for. A bad partnership, where expectations are not met or the chemistry is off, is a disaster. You waste money, and we end up with a failed project and a bad reputation. No one wins.

For us, it is not about finding customers, but about finding the right partners. Those we can create exceptional results with. We are looking for companies that are proud of what they do and are willing to share who they are with the world. Companies that are ready for an honest, direct, and close collaboration to create something genuinely unique.

If that thought energizes you, we are probably a good match. If not, that’s perfectly fine.

Summary

Hiring the wrong person in marketing is an expensive trap, whether you choose a "jack of all trades" who needs to do everything or let the sales manager do a job they are not suited for.

We have seen far too many people get burned by this and waste hundreds of thousands. Marketing should be an investment, not a frustrating expense. The solution is rarely one person, but access to a complete team of specialists where everything connects.

Do you recognize yourself in this? Let’s have a completely non-binding chat to discuss the smartest way forward for you.