In this episode of Craft on Tap, Stephen and Faustin take this common dilemma head-on. They share real client stories, explore the pros and cons of each approach, and discuss the hybrid model that's working for some firms. Full disclosure: as an agency, they admit their bias, but they also explain under what circumstances building in-house would make more sense than hiring them.
👇 Watch the full discussion below:
Stephen opens by acknowledging the inherent bias they carry as an agency, then immediately pushes against it. He shares a recent conversation with a fast-growing advisor where his advice was surprising: "If you have the ability, the willpower to hire, train, manage, and professionally develop marketing people, you should do that. As a business owner, why wouldn't you?"
This sets the tone for an honest discussion about when each model makes sense.
Stephen and Faustin outline several compelling reasons to build your own marketing team, drawing from real client examples who successfully made the transition.
Complete Brand Immersion: An in-house marketer lives and breathes your firm. They attend client appreciation events, company happy hours, and team meetings. They're taking photos, capturing moments, and creating authentic content that an external agency can't replicate remotely. One former client built out their marketing function internally because they reached a stage where deep brand integration mattered more than an external perspective.
Long-Term Asset Building: If you're serious about building a firm that will reach $1 billion or more in AUM and you plan to keep growing, an in-house team becomes a real asset to your business. You're not dependent on an external vendor; you're building institutional knowledge and capability that stays with the firm.
Direct Control and Alignment: When marketing sits in-house, you have direct control over priorities, messaging, and execution. There's no translation layer between your vision and the work being done. For firms with strong opinions about their brand and marketing approach, this direct control can be invaluable.
Stephen notes that if you have the HR infrastructure, the management capability, and the professional development systems in place, building in-house should be seriously considered. As a business owner, investing in that capability makes strategic sense.
But building in-house isn't without significant challenges, which is exactly why many firms ultimately choose the agency route.
The Unicorn Hiring Problem: Finding great marketing talent is extraordinarily difficult. You need someone who understands financial services, can execute across multiple channels—social media, content creation, email marketing, paid advertising, SEO—stays current with rapidly changing platforms and best practices, and can work independently without constant direction. As Stephen jokes, "If I come across good candidates, we're gonna hire them first. Good luck."
Management Complexity: Most RIA principals aren't marketers. How do you effectively manage, coach, and develop someone in a field you don't deeply understand? How do you know what tools they need, what professional development opportunities matter, or whether the quality of their work meets industry standards? It becomes difficult to provide the level of coaching needed for that person to level up in their field.
Limited Perspective: A solo in-house marketer operates somewhat in a vacuum. They don't have ready access to what's working at other firms, what new strategies are emerging, or how to benchmark their performance. To replicate what an agency provides, they'd need to join a mastermind group with other RIA marketing professionals who meet weekly to share best practices and examples—which rarely happens in practice.
Scalability and Risk: With a single person or small team, you face capacity constraints and concentration risk. If that person leaves, you're starting over. If they're out sick or on vacation, marketing stops. You also face the full burden of salary, benefits, equipment, training costs, and other overhead.
Stephen and Faustin outline why many RIAs ultimately choose to partner with a specialized marketing agency instead of building in-house.
Removing the Management Burden: Perhaps the biggest reason firms hire Craft Impact is that they want someone else to drive the bus. They don't want to be responsible for setting KPIs, managing execution, coming up with ideas, vetting those ideas, creating plans, executing those plans, and then analyzing results. Faustin notes, "We take off a lot of that mental load." Everything gets queued up, agendas are created, you maintain final approval, and the agency handles its own professional development.
Cross-Client Expertise in the RIA Space: Agencies working exclusively with RIAs accumulate deep, specific knowledge about what works across different scenarios. They can tell you what's worked and what hasn't across Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Google ads for different firm sizes, different target personas, and different markets. This collective intelligence is difficult for a single in-house person to match. The team shares knowledge internally about what's working and what's not, creating compound learning effects.
Strategic Direction: Many firm principals openly acknowledge they're not marketers and don't live in marketing like an agency does. One current client told them the main reason they hired Craft Impact was: "We're not marketers. We don't know anything about marketing. How are we going to hire, train, manage, and level up marketing people when we don't know much about it ourselves? We're better off doing what we're really good at—running and growing the business and working with clients."
Flexibility and Scalability: Agencies typically work on a month-to-month basis with flat fees, allowing firms to scale up or down as needed. If something isn't working or circumstances change, you have options. With an employee, making changes is more complicated and carries more risk.
To keep the discussion balanced, they also acknowledge the legitimate downsides of working with an agency.
Potentially Higher Costs: While agencies eliminate some costs like benefits, equipment, and training, their monthly retainers can exceed a junior marketer's salary. However, you're getting a full team's expertise rather than one person.
Less Brand Immersion: As mentioned earlier, an agency can't attend your client events, mix and mingle with your team, or capture those authentic moments that an in-house person can. There's simply a different level of brand integration possible when someone is embedded full-time.
Dependency on External Partner: Some firms don't like the idea of being dependent on an outside vendor for a critical business function. If the relationship ends, you're back to square one.
For more on what it's like to work with a marketing agency, check the podcast episode about it.
Toward the end of the discussion, Stephen and Faustin explore a model that's working well for some of their clients: combining an in-house marketing coordinator with agency strategic support.
In this hybrid model, the agency provides strategic direction, creates content, develops campaigns, and brings cross-client expertise. The in-house person handles day-to-day execution, attends firm events, captures authentic moments, and serves as the internal marketing champion who keeps things moving.
This approach addresses many of the cons of each model while preserving the key benefits. The firm gets both strategic expertise with brand immersion. The in-house person receives support plus professional development through the agency. The agency gains an empowered internal partner who can execute quickly.
Several of their current clients use this hybrid model successfully, and Stephen notes it often evolves naturally as firms grow. They might start with an agency, then hire someone internal to help with execution while maintaining the agency relationship for strategy and specialized work.
As Stephen and Faustin make clear, there's no universal right answer. The decision depends on your firm's size, growth trajectory, management capacity, and strategic priorities.
Consider building in-house if you have strong HR and management capabilities, you're committed to long-term growth and team building, you value complete control and brand immersion, and you're ready to invest in finding and developing that "unicorn" marketing professional.
Consider hiring an agency if you lack deep marketing expertise internally, you want strategic direction without management burden, you value cross-client insights from the RIA space, or you need flexibility to scale up and down.
Consider a hybrid model if you want strategic expertise plus brand immersion, you have or can hire a junior marketing coordinator, or you're in a growth transition phase.
Whatever path you choose, the key is being honest about your firm's capacity, your own strengths and weaknesses, and what will truly move your business forward.
Whether you build in-house or partner with an agency, the goal is the same: consistent, strategic marketing that supports your firm's growth.
This conversation is only a starting point. For ongoing insights and practical strategies for RIA growth, listen to the new Craft on Tap marketing podcast. Available now, wherever you find your podcasts. Ready to chat? Get in Touch