You’ve hit a wall. Your hardscape or landscaping business is doing $1M, $3M, or maybe even $7M in annual revenue. The “word-of-mouth” engine that got you here is still humming, but it isn’t enough to fuel the next stage of growth. You need a predictable pipeline of high-ticket outdoor living projects—such as paver patios, outdoor kitchens, and complex retaining walls—not just “mow and blow” leads.
At this crossroads, every owner asks the same question: How do I structure my marketing?
Do you hire a “marketing person” to sit in your office? Do you find a handful of freelancers on Upwork? Or do you partner with a specialized hardscape marketing agency?
The truth is, all three models can work, and all three can fail spectacularly. After years of watching hardscape companies scale (and stumble), we’ve seen that the “right” choice isn’t about which option is better in a vacuum—it’s about which one fits your current revenue, your management capacity, and your 3-year goals.
1. What “In-House Marketing” Actually Looks Like for Hardscapers
For many owners, the idea of an in-house marketer is comforting. You have a body in a seat. You can see them working. You can pull them into a meeting on five minutes’ notice.
The “Swiss Army Knife” Reality
In the hardscape world, an in-house hire usually starts as a “Marketing Coordinator.” This person is often tasked with everything: managing the Facebook page, taking photos at job sites, updating the website, running Google Ads, and occasionally helping with the office phones.
The Pro: They are 100% focused on your brand. They can jump in the truck, head to a job site in the middle of a $150k pool deck build, and get the exact drone footage you need. They understand your “vibe” better than anyone else.
The Con: The “Swiss Army Knife” fallacy. No single human is an expert at search engine optimization, high-level PPC marketing (pay-per-click), graphic design, and technical copywriting. Usually, they excel at one (like social media) and struggle with the others (like technical SEO or lead tracking).
Expert Insight: In-house marketing for contractors works best when the hire is a manager of resources, not the sole executor of all tactics.
2. When Freelancers Make Sense—and When They Don’t
Freelancers are the “special forces” of marketing. They are often highly skilled in one specific niche—say, Google Ads management or WordPress development.
The Management Tax
The biggest mistake hardscape owners make with freelancers is thinking they can hire three different people (one for SEO, one for Ads, one for content) and they will naturally work together. They won’t.
If you hire freelancers, you are the Marketing Director. You have to coordinate the strategy. If the SEO freelancer needs a new landing page, you have to tell the Web freelancer to build it. If the leads are low, they will often point fingers at each other.
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Best for: Specific, one-off projects (e.g., a new logo, a one-time website refresh).
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Worst for: Consistent, aggressive growth that requires integrated lead tracking and analytics.
3. What Specialized Agencies Do Differently
A specialized hardscape marketing agency is built to be a plug-and-play growth engine. Unlike a generalist agency that works with dentists one day and plumbers the next, a specialized agency already knows what a “Techo-Bloc Blu 60” is and why it matters for a modern patio design.
Check out our hardscape case studies
The Power of the “Tech Stack”
Agencies bring a suite of tools that would cost a single company thousands of dollars a month to license individually. More importantly, they bring a proven process. They aren’t “testing” things on your dime; they are implementing what worked for a company in a similar market six months ago.
The Main Advantage: They provide a team of specialists (SEO, Paid Ads, Content, Strategy) for roughly the cost of one mid-level in-house employee.
4. Cost Comparison: In-House vs. Freelancer vs. Agency
Let’s look at the actual numbers. Many owners underestimate the “fully loaded” cost of an employee.
| Expense Category | In-House (1 Hire) | Freelancer (Multiple) | Specialized Agency |
| Direct Salary/Fee | $55k – $85k | $2k – $5k / mo | $3k – $7k / mo |
| Benefits/Taxes | 20% – 30% extra | $0 | $0 |
| Software/Tools | $500 – $1,500 / mo | User-provided | Included |
| Management Time | High (Training/HR) | High (Coordination) | Low (Strategy syncs) |
| Ad Spend Management | Often extra | Included in fee | Included in fee |
| Total Est. Annual | $75k – $110k+ | $30k – $60k | $40k – $85k |
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median salary for a Marketing Manager is well over $160,000. While you may hire a coordinator for less, you aren’t getting the level of strategy required to move a $5M company to $10M at those lower price points.
For a clearer look at how these investments scale, you can view our pricing and packages to see how agency models compare to these internal costs.
5. Speed, Accountability, and Execution
How fast do you need to move?
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In-House: Slowest to start. You have to recruit, interview, onboard, and train. If they quit, you lose 100% of your marketing momentum and institutional knowledge.
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Freelancers: Fast to start, but execution is often “choppy.” Since they have other clients, your $2,000/month project might not be their priority on a Tuesday morning.
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Agencies: Fastest to execute. They have the templates, the tracking codes, and the workflows ready to go. Accountability is high because they are bound by a contract and performance reports.
6. Common Failure Points with Each Model
Knowing where things go wrong can save you $50,000 in wasted “learning” fees.
In-House Failure: The “Boredom” Plateau
A marketing coordinator often gets the “easy wins” in the first six months. They clean up the social media and fix the website typos. But then they hit a plateau. Without a team of peers to push them, their skills stagnate. Your marketing starts to look the same year after year.
Freelancer Failure: The “Ghosting” Risk
We see this constantly in the landscaping industry. A business owner hires a “guy they know” to do SEO. It works for a while, then the freelancer gets a full-time job or a bigger client and stops responding to emails.
Agency Failure: The “Generalist” Trap
If you hire a general digital marketing agency, you will spend your time teaching them the business. You’ll be explaining why you don’t want “lawn mowing” leads and why you only want “hardscape design-build” leads. If they don’t understand your sales cycle, they will send you high-volume, low-quality leads that waste your estimators’ time.
7. How Marketing Structure Should Evolve as Revenue Grows
Your marketing team should look different at $1M than it does at $10M.
The $750K – $1.5M Stage: The “Outsourced Growth” Phase
At this stage, you (the owner) are likely still the primary salesperson. You don’t have time to manage an employee or three freelancers.
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The Move: Hire a specialized agency. You need a “foundation” (SEO, Website, GMB) and a “gas pedal” (Google Ads). Let them build the system while you focus on sales and production.
The $2M – $4M Stage: The “Hybrid” Phase
You are growing fast. You have multiple crews. You need content—photos and videos—faster than an outside agency can visit your sites.
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The Move: Keep the agency for the high-level PPC and technical SEO. Hire a “Content Creator” or “Junior Marketing Coordinator” in-house. This person’s sole job is to visit job sites, grab footage, and feed it to the agency.
The $5M+ Stage: The “Marketing Department” Phase
You are now a major player in your region.
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The Move: You might hire a high-level Marketing Director (in-house) who manages the relationship with your specialized agency. The agency remains the “execution arm,” but your internal Director ensures everything aligns with the long-term business strategy.
8. How to Choose Without Wasting 12 Months
Before you make a move, ask yourself these three questions:
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Do I have the time to manage another person? If you are already working 60 hours a week, don’t hire in-house or freelancers. You will fail them, and they will fail you.
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Is my problem Strategy or Execution? If you know exactly what to do but just need someone to do it, a freelancer is fine. If you don’t know how to outrank your biggest competitor, you need an agency.
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What is the cost of a “lost year”? If you hire the wrong person and spend 12 months getting no results, you haven’t just lost the salary—you’ve lost the revenue growth you should have had.
Summary of Decisions
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Choose In-House if you have a massive volume of daily content needs and the management bandwidth to lead a creative professional.
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Choose Freelancers if you have a specific, technical gap (like a website bug) and you have the expertise to manage the project yourself.
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Choose a Hardscape Marketing Agency if you want a “hands-off” lead generation system that is managed by experts who understand the outdoor living industry.
Conclusion: Stop Chasing Tactics, Start Building Systems
Marketing isn’t a “task” you check off your list—it is the heartbeat of your business growth. Whether you hire in-house, go the freelance route, or partner with an agency, the goal is the same: ROI and Predictability.
If you feel like your current marketing structure is holding you back, or if you’re tired of being the “Marketing Director” on top of your role as CEO, it might be time for an outside perspective.
Would you like us to audit your current marketing structure? We help hardscape companies determine exactly where their bottlenecks are—whether it’s a lack of specialized expertise or a management breakdown. Book a Strategy Call today to see how we’ve helped companies scale from $1M to $5M+ by building the right marketing engine.
