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Agency or in-house marketing?
An honest comparison for restaurants, hotels and bars. Both can work. The right answer depends on what you need covered, and many venues end up doing both.
Side by side
| In-house marketer | Specialist agency | |
|---|---|---|
| Skills | One person, usually strongest in one or two areas | A team: photography, video, social, ads, search, web and email |
| Content | Phone content, or a separate photographer to brief | Shoots planned and run for you |
| Cover | Holidays, sickness and notice periods leave gaps | The work carries on regardless |
| Tools | Paid for separately: scheduling, design, ads, SEO | Included, plus our own AI search tool, Wonder Score |
| Benchmarks | One venue to learn from | What’s working across many hospitality venues |
| On site | Always there, knows the venue inside out | Visits for shoots, and relies on good contact with your team |
The real choice isn’t a salary against a fee. It’s how much of the job gets done well.
Hospitality marketing now covers photography, video, social media, paid ads, search, AI search, websites and email. That’s a lot to ask of one person, however good they are, and the gaps usually end up filled by freelancers, tools and the general manager’s evenings.
An agency gives you a team that covers every channel and has seen what works across many venues. An in-house marketer gives you someone on site every day. If you can, the strongest setup is often both: someone in the building, and a specialist team behind them.
One team across every channel.
Questions
Not necessarily. A single hire often needs a photographer, ad budget management, design and tools on top, and still can’t cover every channel. Compare the full cost of each, not just a salary against a fee.
Yes, and many venues do. An in-house person handles the day-to-day on site, and we run content, ads, search and the bigger campaigns.
Regular shoots, a named contact on your team, and a monthly review of what’s coming up and what worked.
We work alongside them, taking on the channels and skills that are hardest to cover in-house.
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