Coaching, Done-for-You, or In-House: How to Choose the Right Marketing Path for Your Business
When it comes time to branch out and expand your marketing efforts, it can be tricky to know what the best move is for your business.
Should you:
Hire a marketing coach?
Outsource to a done-for-you agency?
Build an in-house team?
The truth is, there isn’t a universal right answer - and that’s where most advice goes wrong.
Believe it or not, the best choice depends on where your business is right now, not where you want it to be.
Many businesses make this decision emotionally.
They choose an agency because it feels “next level”, an in-house hire because it feels stable, a coach because it feels safe…
But marketing decisions made on image instead of readiness often lead to wasted time, money, and momentum.
The real question isn’t what’s best - it’s what’s appropriate.
So let’s dig into these three main options and talk about who will really benefit from each of them the most….
Option 1: Hiring an Ads Coach (When Learning Is the Priority)
An ads coach is often the right move when:
You’re early-stage or transitioning from organic to paid traffic
You want to understand what’s happening with your marketing and why it’s happening, not just leave it to someone else and trust that they’ll understand it
You plan to be hands-on with marketing implementation and decision making
Time and curiosity are at the ready
A coach is not a “hand it off and forget about it” solution - it’s a partnership… one in which you take on the bulk of the “doing” while knowing that you’ve got someone with the experience watching over your shoulder, offering advice and guiding you on what decisions and actions they recommend you make.
A coach helps you:
Learn the fundamentals
Avoid common mistakes
Build internal understanding
Make smarter decisions long-term
Address areas of opportunity in your marketing strategy
Pivot when things aren’t going as you had hoped
Understand what works for your business and why so you can replicate, implement and scale a proven strategy
Where this breaks down:
If you expect results without implementation - or want someone else to do the heavy lifting for you - coaching will feel frustrating.
Coaching requires active participation and a willingness to learn.
Option 2: Done-for-You Marketing Services (When Execution Is the Bottleneck)
Done-for-you (DFY) services make sense when:
You already have a validated offer
You know your audience and messaging
You don’t want to manage the day-to-day execution
You value speed and focus over learning/understanding the ins and outs of what’s working
A done-for-you service requires a level of trust. Most agencies will meet with you to discuss current offers, assets, funnels and business goals… but then they are off “on their own” to develop and implement the marketing strategy. This is more of a hands-off approach for businesses. While there will need to be an open line of communication, most agencies require a level of freedom and autonomy to implement what they feel is the best strategy and micromanaging tends to lead to tarnished relationships and suffering outcomes.
This route works best when:
You can clearly communicate your goals, what’s working now, and what you want to see happening going forward
You’re prepared to collaborate and give and receive feedback
You understand that outsourcing doesn’t mean disengaging, but it does mean that you’re entrusting someone else with the development and implementation of your marketing strategy.
Where this breaks down:
If the offer or messaging isn’t clear, agencies can end up testing blindly - burning budget trying to make it work instead of focusing on scaling. It’s important to find an agency that you can trust to let you know if they don’t feel an offer is clear enough or strong enough either before or early on in the testing phase. Simultaneously, it’s critical that you’re open to hearing such feedback and willing to try new things, hone in on messaging and work collaboratively with your agency to develop an offer that will help both of you reach your goals. Most agencies are hired to amplify (market) what already exists (your current funnels, offers, webinars, etc). They aren’t magicians who can press a button and get instant results or create clarity from nothing. Your foundation is critical in finding success with DFY services.
Option 3: Building an In-House Marketing Team (When Consistency Is Critical)
An in-house team becomes valuable when:
Your revenue can support salaries and ramp time
Marketing is a core, ongoing growth lever
You need deep brand understanding and daily hands-on execution
You have leadership capable of managing marketers
You want to keep all access, services and implementation in-house
Having an in-house team can be highly beneficial for companies that are capable of supporting them and allowing them the creative freedom to explore messaging, offers and strategies.
In-house teams provide:
Brand continuity
Faster iteration
Internal knowledge
A dedicated team that will be solely committed to you and the success of your business
Where this breaks down:
Many companies tend to jump the gun when hiring internally and begin bringing on positions like a “social media manager” or “ads specialist” without having any underlying strategy or leadership. This leads to misaligned execution, over-reliance on junior talent, slow results with high overhead and crumbling morale within the company. If you’re considering hiring an in-house team, it’s important to start at the top - find a leader - whether it be a CMO, a VPM, a Marketing Director or a Marketing Manager, you need to find someone who will be the leader of the marketing team and who is capable of both translating the company’s overall vision and goals, developing an effective marketing strategy based on the vision and goals, AND guiding/managing execution to ensure that the marketing team is aligned and consistently making strides toward meeting those goals.
Building an effective in-house marketing team can look different for different businesses. Maybe you only need a leader and one or two people to help with implementation. Maybe you are large enough that you’re looking for a leader with multiple team members specializing in areas like funnel design, paid traffic, graphic design, email marketing, copywriting and analysis. It’s important to have a clear vision of what your marketing team will look like and then be specific in your hunt for employees about exactly what they’ll need to do… You’ll find a vastly different set of applicants for an “all-in-one” unicorn marketing role versus something like a graphic designer or a dedicated Facebook ads specialist.
So, as you are exploring your options and trying to determine which path to choose, keep in mind that different goals require different solutions.
Focus less on “leveling up” - and more on finding the right fit. Choosing a path that is too advanced for where you are currently will lead to frustration, lost funds, and oftentimes, a serious blow to momentum and confidence. Focus on where you are right now and what your goals are with this next move.
One path isn’t more legitimate or better than another… The mistake is skipping steps - or outsourcing decisions you don’t yet understand.
The most successful businesses evolve through multiple stages:
Learning
Delegating
Building internally
Not all at once. Not out of order.
Good marketing decisions aren’t about trends or tactics. They come from having a strong sense of self-awareness, your level of business maturity and an honest assessment of constraints.
The right choice doesn’t just get you results - it protects your momentum, protects your peace, and keeps you moving on the path toward where you want to be...
And the better you understand why you’re choosing a path, the more likely it is to work.