Marketing Agency or Freelancer – Who Should You Hire for Your Accounting Firm?

Learn the Pros and Cons of Hiring an Agency vs. Hiring a Freelancer for Your Accounting Firm’s Website

So you’ve started your own accounting firm.

Maybe you just got your CPA and you want to set up your own shop.

Or maybe you’ve done the corporate rat-race for too long and you decided to set out on your own.

Congratulations!

But there are a lot of accounting firms out there, and most people think they’re all alike. How do you distinguish yourself from the pack?

Well, one thing’s for sure: you need a website. Most small businesses do. In fact, among those small businesses that still don’t have a website, about a third said they planned to build one soon. 

Of course, not just any website, but an attractive website that stands out from the competition. A website that is carefully optimized to attract qualified leads that are likely to convert.

As a small business owner, once you’ve decided to build a website for your business, the question naturally arises, who should I trust to build my website?

Unless you are already a proficient marketer and website designer, you have two options:

Option 1: You can hire an agency.

Option 2: You can hire an individual freelancer to take care of your website set-up, maintenance, and content development.

The following is a list of the pros and cons of hiring an agency or a freelancer for your small organization’s website.

The Agency

Agency Pros

• Website development is complex. From graphic design and content creation to UX considerations and optimization for search engines, an agency will have experts in each area of expertise and the systems and software for integrating the whole process.
• Agencies work from a proven, step-by-step methodology for completing these projects that ensures the multifaceted project  receives the appropriate attention.
• In general, combining these two steps above means that agencies generally create a higher quality product that aligns more effectively with your business objectives.

Agency Cons

• Because of overhead and many hands touching the job, you’re likely to spend more with an agency.
• Because agencies typically have many clients, they may be slower to respond to your needs and take more time to finish the tasks.
• With a big agency, sometimes that personal touch is missing. Some agencies love to show off their work by creating “cool” or highly creative website experiences, but that might not be what you need to drive leads and sales.
• Agencies often have relationships with vendors in your industry and this can pose a conflict of interest in the working relationship.

The Freelancer

Freelancer Pros

• You’ll typically find freelancers to be less expensive than working with an agency.
• Freelancers generally work on fewer projects at once. So you may receive more personalized attention from a freelancer and have more leverage to negotiate.

Freelancer Cons

• A freelancer may not have the full range of skills necessary to complete the whole task correctly. You may have to hire several, one for the technical side of website development, one for the graphic design, and another for the content creation. Some freelancers may be good at two of these three skills, but very few will do the whole job proficiently.
• Freelancers, especially less experienced ones, will merely take orders instead of providing the guidance based on experience that you may need to make your website something special.When you hire a freelancer, you’re relying on a single individual to deliver the end product for you. That kind of reliance can put you at risk of ending up with an incomplete project at the end of the day.

Before hiring an agency or a freelancer, check their references, and look for samples of prior work. As you make your decision and begin creating your website, keep your target audience in mind and do whatever it takes so that website will be the first step in establishing a solid relationship.

A Third Option: Fixyr

Learn more about website creation and digital marketing from the professionals at Fixyr.​

At Fixyr we provide a holistic solution that combines all the advantages of both the Agency and Freelancer options. Let us build you a focused, scalable, and repeatable marketing system.

To generate high-converting quality leads for your accounting firm, leverage our professional project management team that uses the very best, carefully vetted independent agencies and freelancer talent. 

It’s the best of both worlds. Check it out at Fixyr.