Founders ask me this a lot: when should I pay someone to do my marketing? Bring someone in too early and you burn money you didn't have to spare. Leave it too late and you quietly hand your competitors a head start. Here's how to tell where you are.
Signs you can keep doing it yourself
- You're pre-launch with barely any budget. Early on, your own scrappy effort is worth more than a hire, and nobody sells the thing like the person who built it. Do it yourself.
- You've got the time and you don't mind it. If marketing fits around everything else and you quite enjoy it, keep hold of it. It's yours to hand over later.
- The product and the message are still moving. Until you know who it's for and what makes them care, an outside hire is guessing right alongside you, at your expense. Work that out first.
Signs it's time to get help
- Marketing keeps sliding to the bottom of the list. If it only happens when everything else is done, it never happens.
- You're the one everything waits on. The product needs you, support needs you, and marketing sits in the queue behind both. Something has to give, and it shouldn't be the thing that brings people in.
- Money's going out with no plan behind it. Boosting the odd post and hoping is not a plan. If you're spending, spend against one.
- Growth is flat and you can't see why. When you can't spot what's wrong, someone who stares at this all day usually can, quickly.
- A launch is coming and there's no plan. A launch is too expensive to wing.
What kind of help
Three options, and they suit different stages:
- An agency gives you a team on a retainer. Good when you've got budget and need scale, overkill and pricey when you're small.
- A full-time hire makes sense once marketing is a permanent, full-time job, and once you can afford one properly.
- A freelancer sits in the middle: senior experience, flexible, hands-on, and no salary, pension or desk. Good for a small team that needs the work done and a bit of direction, but not a whole department yet. That's the gap I fill.
Don't hire before you've got something to grow. Once marketing is the thing quietly holding you back, though, the right help usually pays for itself faster than you'd think. Not sure where you sit? Tell me where you're stuck and I'll give you a straight answer, even if it's that you'll get there down the line, but should save your money for now.