The most important things at a glance
For SMEs in Switzerland, digital marketing is often worthwhile when there is no broad internal marketing competence or when projects are clearly bounded, for example for a website presence or a migration. In-house is stronger when content needs to be created very close to the product on an ongoing basis. More often, a mixed form is sensible: strategy and technology externally, day-to-day operations internally.
From our experience at WEITBLICK, the best solution is rarely a either-or. What matters is whether your company needs expertise for strategy and technology, or whether content needs to be generated from day-to-day operations every day.
Who benefits from digital marketing through an agency?
An agency fits particularly well for SMEs that do not have their own marketing team or work with only one person. Then there is usually not enough breadth for web design, online marketing, analysis, and implementation simultaneously. Also in a website relaunch or migration, external support is often the more stable solution.
- When strategy, web design, and technology are needed in parallel
- When the project has a clear start and end
- When there is no internal capacity for coordination, approvals, and specialist knowledge
When is in-house marketing the better choice?
In-house makes sense when content must be produced permanently, quickly, and in a highly product-related manner. This applies, for example, to companies that need new content from day-to-day operations every week and require direct access to expertise, products, and internal processes. In such cases, proximity to the business is more important than the maximum external specialization.
WEITBLICK handles concept, design and programming for clients like MOVING LIGHT SOUND MEDIA; for the St.Gallen Symposium, technical support, interfaces, dashboards and trainings.
In what order should you decide?
| Criterion | More Agency | More In-house |
|---|---|---|
| Marketing resource in the company | None or only one person | Fixed internal responsibility with time reserves |
| Competence breadth | Strategy, design, technology and analysis are missing internally | Know-how for ongoing content and proximity to the product is available |
| Project type | Relaunch, migration or clearly defined assignment | Ongoing operation with frequent content |
| Speed | External specialists should bring speed | Content must come from the business immediately |
| Control | Structured briefings and defined approvals are feasible | The team can continuously prioritize marketing internally |
Contrary to the assumption that an internal solution is automatically cheaper, it rarely covers strategy, design, technology, and analysis at the same time. An agency may appear more expensive on paper, but often saves coordination effort and prevents costly missteps. The actual comparison is therefore not price-for-price but coverage-for-coverage.
What thresholds are helpful in practice?
Concrete figures cannot be given here in a blanket way because they vary greatly by company. A usable threshold for us is: as soon as a single person in marketing can no longer handle strategy, implementation, and control simultaneously, an agency or a mixed form becomes sensible. Once ongoing content needs are so high that specialist knowledge from day-to-day business is continuously required, this argues more for in-house.
- Check whether there is enough time internally for briefings and approvals
- Check whether content can be delivered from the company quickly enough
- Check whether strategy and technology are truly covered internally
- Check whether a project with clear milestones exists
Which mixed form works best?
The combination of both often works best in practice: strategy and technology come from the agency, day-to-day business remains internal. This keeps the company close to the content without foregoing specialized knowledge in web design, online marketing, or technical implementation. We apply this model in several client projects at WEITBLICK.
For MOVING LIGHT SOUND MEDIA we delivered concept, design and programming, the team maintained content and pages based on templates themselves. For the St.Gallen Symposium, since 2022 there is also technical support, interfaces, dashboards and trainings. This is the point where mixed models are often more stable than a pure full build in-house or externally.
When should SMEs refrain from an agency?
An agency is not ideal when content must be produced permanently and very product-near and internal specialists must be constantly available in day-to-day operations. If the company needs many spontaneous weekly contents from the operation, coordination overhead becomes excessive. Then an internal solution or a clearly split model is usually more suitable.
Frequently asked questions
How much internal time does collaboration with an agency really require?
Is an agency also sensible if I already have a marketing person on the team?
When is mixed form better than a complete in-house setup?
How do I recognize that in-house is calculated too narrowly for my company?
For SMEs, digital marketing makes the most sense when roles are clearly distributed. Those without internal strategy and technology hire an agency; those who need content from their own operation every week build internally. In many cases, the mixed form is the better answer to the core question: How to keep your marketing effective without overburdening the team?
Wie passt digitales Marketing zu Ihrem KMU?
Weitblick Online Agentur GmbH, St. Gallen