But at the same time, many businesses often overlook the equally high costs of hiring marketing talent internally.
The Real Costs of Hiring a Marketing Director
According to Workopolis, the typical Base Salary for a Marketing Director in Toronto, ON is $82,988 to $129,128.
For simplicity’s sake, let’s say that it’s $100,000.
But the real costs don’t stop at the salary, you’re also going to pay for:
- recruitment
- hiring
- integration and training
- benefits
- equipment
- rent
- HR/IT support
- CPP
- taxes
- business expenses
In fact, according to Eric Koester of MyHighTechStartup, the real costs of hiring an employee ranges from 1.5 to 3 times the amount of the actual salary.
For simplicity’s sake, let’s say that it’s $150,000 ($100K x 1.5).
How much is that per hour?
Let’s say your $150K Marketing Director works 45 hours per week (assume they’re going to work more than 40 hours).
That’s 2340 hours per year (52 x 45)
Subtract 260 hours for lunches
Subtract 135 hours for vacation
Subtract 45 hours for sick/illness
Subtract 20 hours for personal days, dr. appts, or for just leaving early on a Friday.
That leaves you with 1880 hours of actual work in a year.
That calculates to $80/hour for your $150K Marketing Director.
Costs of Hiring a Marketing Agency
We’re not trying to tell businesses to bypass hiring a marketing manager or director, the point is to show the options available for spending your marketing dollars.
At 150K in actual costs for a Marketing Director, that equates to $12,500 a month.
Obviously prices range for marketing agencies and marketing services, but most digital marketing agencies will be able to deliver multiple services with this kind of budget.
Here’s an example:
- $5K on PPC, or Google AdWords to help generate new leads and customers quickly
- $2.5K on SEO and Content Marketing to gain better search engine rankings and get more traffic
- $2K on Email Marketing, to create an email strategy to help capture more leads, and keep prospects and customers engaged
- $1.5K a month on website testing and optimization, to increase website conversion and capture more leads
- $1K a month a referral marketing campaign to incent current customers to refer others to your business
- $500 on a blogger outreach program, to help get industry bloggers talking about your brand, and your business.
A digital marketing agency can have a range of expertise that you simply won’t find in one individual.
As well, you don’t pay agencies benefits, pensions, or time off for vacation or sick days. As well, it’s a business expense so it’s tax deductible.
Remember that digital marketing agencies don’t always have to work outside the confines of your business.
Look for an agency that is flexible, can hold a lot of face-to-face (or virtual) meetings and openly collaborate with your existing marketing team and resources.
Whatever you choose, good luck and have prosperous year 🙂