Well the most obvious one has to be, they work for you and you alone, they’re there 9-5 every day, working on just the stuff you want them to work on – your website, your digital media and your apps. They are a 100% committed resource.

The argument could also be made that they’ll gain a longer-term understanding of your business and you’ll have to explain less of it to them over time and this should translate into them operating autonomously quite often.

Other advantages are that they ought to be very quick to respond and changes you want implemented should be fast and exact. You’re able to interact with them directly, face-to-face on a daily basis to ensure the project is on task and proceeding according to your plans.

Well some of them are the counter-points to those above, first and foremost the fact that you are hiring them full time means you’re taking on that cost as a permanent ongoing outgoing for your business.

The average web developer salary is £25k+ so you’ll be taking on a significant outgoing month on month PER developer you take on. The cost is a major aspect to consider, you’ve got to add them onto your books, pay them each and every month, not to mention you’ve got to buy them all their computing equipment. And most developers want Mac’s – this means that you’re paying £1,200 per computer rather than about £6-700 for a top of the range PC.

In addition, when you don’t need anything pressing done, you’re paying your developers constantly to just sit there. Sure, you could FIND them jobs to do, but you’ve got to be the one to do that, or you’ve also got to employ a manager to oversee them and of course you’ve got to pay that person too.

Well again, there are pros and cons to this, but these are simply those that are weighed up against each of the above. First and foremost is the cost – hiring an agency will be SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper than hiring your own developers, the agency already employs them, all you’re paying for is some of their time to be allocated to you each day/week/month. Therefore the £25k+ a year PER developer you hire will instead be replaced with a monthly fee which will give you a TEAM of people working for you.

On top of which the digital agency already has it’s own managers, team leaders, those that will hold the workers to account and ensure projects are completed adequately and on time. Removing the stress from you and allowing you to sit back and relax and await the results.

Of course, the downside is that you have to put your trust into the agency to produce the quality you are looking for and understand your brand and what you’re looking to achieve. But a good agency ought to be able to do this and will go through a number of steps and processes in order to ensure they do just this.

Other advantages are, of course, that an agency isn’t simply a bunch of web developers. They’ve also got graphic designers, SEO specialists, social media specialists, copy writers and a whole range of experience in online marketing and brand improvement.

So for less than you’d likely have to pay a single developer, you’ll be getting an entire team of people working to improve your business’s online marketing and overall brand recognition.