Advertising and Marketing are two pillars of business that often go hand in hand; you can’t have one without the other. Advertising bridges the gap between your company and the customer, informing them of your products and preferably convincing them why they should buy it all in one fell swoop.
But creating ads is a daunting task for any company. It can often be an expensive endeavor with no real guarantee of a return on investment. It’s because of this that an advertising agency, and more importantly choosing the right one, is crucial in helping you market your business.
There are advertising agencies based all around the world, meaning there is most likely one local to your company with whom you can liaise with. A quick google search can reel a comprehensive list of advertising agencies in New York City, or London, or even Bangkok.
The role of an ad agency is ever-changing. Whilst previously they would have simply designed and released print, radio, and television ads, now agencies need to do a lot more in order to engage with customers. In today’s market, they must also provide branding, build content, and essentially market your company for you with diverse marketing strategies. With all this in mind, here are some important things to consider when hiring an advertising agency.
Make Sure They Understand Your Business Goals
Make sure any advertising agency you work with has a full understanding of both the long term and short term goals for your business. This way they can best focus their marketing on your business needs and ensure that you achieve everything you can from their advertisements. It’s also worth noting that you as a business must also have a concrete idea of your goals to relay to the partner, otherwise the process may be flawed from the start.
Ask For A Report On One Of The Agencies Previous Projects
One of the benefits of hiring an advertising agency is that, in most cases, they will have had clients before you. This means you can actively see how their work has affected businesses before yours and judge whether their services are worth your time and money. A verified report from one of their previous projects can really help predict whether you’ll see a return on your investment, particularly if they have a previous report from a company in the same field as yours.
Be Sure You Can Build A Good Relationship
An agency that is willing to build a good relationship is one you’ll be able to return to in the future. On the agency’s part, building a great relationship can constitute learning your business’s needs, familiarizing themselves with demands of the market and possibly even providing an insight into your business that your team may not have thought about.
Ensure The Scale Of The Agency Matches The Size Of Your Business
Make sure the size of the agency matches your budget and provides the service most relevant to your company. Big and more expensive ad giants offer a far more extensive range of services, but smaller agencies are more likely to be experts in a specific niche or specialty.
Although with this said, building a relationship with a large scale company can ensure that advertising will be covered if your business grows. If you expand your company and your PR needs increase, sticking with a large scale agency, in the beginning, can save time and money in the long run, even if you’re not initially utilizing all the services they have to offer.
Advertising is an ever-changing environment, but if you’re savvy with your choices in finding the right ad partner for you, marketing will seem a far less daunting task.