If you have a small business, then you’ve likely wondered whether hiring a digital marketing company is worth the expense.

And it’s a very valid question - with all the instructional articles and videos out there, it technically is something you can DIY…

But is it worth it?

In this article, we’re going to look at the 3 major forms of digital marketing and show you which ones you should DIY and which are better served by calling in the big guns.

First up…

Pay-Per-Click Campaigns

The granddaddy of digital marketing, pay-per-click (or PPC), is essentially all about Google’s advertising program. You identify keywords, and then pay a set price each time someone clicks your listing on search results for that keyword.

The only problem - other people want to advertise for the same keyword, which drives the price higher and higher.

For this one, there’s almost no comparison - a professional service will almost certainly give you better returns on your marketing spend than DIY. That’s because they:

●     Know how to identify underused keywords and correctly value keyword price

●     Are familiar with Google’s advertising algorithms and how to take advantage of them

●     Use A/B testing and other techniques for better performance

●     Have powerful automation software to tweak your campaign for optimal results

And in terms of the time you need to devote to learning the in’s and out’s of PPC and then executing a campaign, a talented PPC firm will give you a much lower opportunity cost with higher ROI - a win-win situation.

But is that also true about…

Social Media Advertising

Yes… and no.

You see, you can do social media advertising on your own simply by creating a steady stream of content to attract and engage your followers, which doesn’t cost you a penny.

And it’s absolutely something you should be doing as a normal part of running your business’s online presence. Heck, even something as small as posting the occasional photo on Instagram is a form of advertising and has value.

However, with all that said, if you want to enter the realm of paid Facebook or Twitter advertising, then digital marketing firms are still the correct choice over DIY, mainly for the same reasons listed above - a good firm should know what they’re doing and their efforts should return more than the price for their services.

So, social media advertising is a split decision. And now we come to…

Email Marketing

The general idea about email marketing is that you develop a list of contacts and send them emails. Those emails could range from newsletters reminding followers that your business is out there to complex email campaigns designed to lead a potential client to a buying decision.

In both cases, it is quite possible to handle email marketing on your own. There are plenty of free and low-cost software solutions to assist in email marketing management and some are very powerful, meaning that with the right time investment, your email campaigns can be successful.

At the same time, the big question is whether you’ll get the same returns with DIY as you would with professional email marketing…

And unfortunately, the answer is… probably not.

Just like with PPC and social media advertising, a well-constructed email marketing campaign by a professional firm and talented copywriter will likely have a higher ROI than your DIY efforts.

After all, it’s their job to be better than you at marketing - it’s what they do.