If you’ve been building your business for years, I mean pre COVID-19 era, you knew you needed to move online when covid happened.
But like many entrepreneurs, you likely faced a critical decision. To hire a marketing agency which would handle everything or work with a marketing coach to learn the skills yourself? This reflects what thousands of Kenyan business owners face to date.
Good news is, understanding the main difference between marketing coaching vs agency services will save your sanity, your time and your money, even as your business grows in the mid 2020s.
The Agency Approach
Marketing agencies promise immediate results. They manage strategy development, content creation, social media, and paid advertising campaigns. For most business owners, this may seem perfect at first. You can focus on production while experts take care of your digital presence.
However, agencies come with hidden challenges. Your unique business voice often gets lost. No external team understands your products, customers, and culture like your internal team does. Additionally, agencies juggle multiple clients, which may limit your project hours and how quickly they can adjust campaigns.
The financial setup creates long-term dependence. While agencies offer quick wins, once their services end, your marketing momentum usually stops as well. You’re left without the internal skills needed to keep up with what they built.
The Coaching Alternative
Decisions around marketing coaching vs agency often lean toward coaching for sustainable growth. Coaches work alongside your team, helping develop their skills through hands-on guidance. Instead of doing the work for you, they teach your employees to create authentic content that resonates with your audience.
This approach provides three clear advantages. First, authenticity increases when your own team creates content. Your sales staff knows what questions customers ask every day, providing invaluable insight for content creation.
Second, you gain operational flexibility. If you need an extra blog post or a sudden campaign shift, your internal team can act right away without needing to negotiate contracts. Third, your investment has an endpoint. Unlike ongoing agency fees, coaching finishes once your team becomes self-sufficient, usually within 12 to 24 months.
Many small business owners learn this firsthand. After switching to coaching, your team creates engaging social media content that showcases their fabric designs authentically. Customer engagement doubles because the content genuinely reflects their brand personality.
Making the Right Choice for Your Business
Think about marketing coaching vs agency in the lens of, the former teaching you to fish and the latter giving you fish. Choose coaching if you want to build long-term internal skills. Say you prefer to control your marketing message, and seek a finite investment with lasting results. Your team becomes self-sufficient, creating content that truly reflects your business values.
Select an agency if you need quick results for time-sensitive campaigns, lack internal resources for marketing tasks, or need specialized technical skills for complex paid advertising management.
Many successful Kenyan businesses use both approaches. They start with agency services for immediate needs while also investing in coaching for long-term skill building.
The main question isn’t whether to invest in marketing. But how to invest wisely for sustainable growth in Kenya’s competitive digital marketplace.