It’s tough to be a business owner. You get so used to doing things your own way, you get used to taking control of your business and pushing it forward. So it’s only natural that many business owners feel doubtful to hire an advertising agency and share the reins of their business with another team.
So why should you hire an advertising agency? What are the advantages of hiring an advertising agency?
Business owners often feel that it’s possible to skip hiring an ad agency and simply approach media vendors directly to make dealings with them and thus save costs on agency fees. But there ARE many legitimate reasons to hire a branding agency. Let’s discuss some of the reasons.
- In-house expertise in an agency – An advertising agency employs or partners with many people who are experts in various marketing techniques and mediums. Collectively, the agency has a higher level of expertise than any business owner or a single marketing representative. It’s rare to find media account executives or managers who entirely understand the intricacies of all various methods of advertising. Likewise, a business owner may not know as much as the specialists an agency can bring into the work for a rounded marketing plan.
- Agency becomes a time-saver – Business owners who use the direct approach end up spending significantly more time during the week on their marketing. The owners get bogged down in the minutia when they don’t let the agency do such detailed marketing work. This is precious time that they don’t really need to be spending. Over-seeing that the marketing plan is in line with the brand or company goals is the business owner’s responsibility but micromanaging every detail in the marketing plan is not. It’s just not the best use of their time. There are usually much more productive things a business owner could do. The productivity loss due to micromanaging marketing plans usually costs more them more money than their agency’s fees.
- Ad agency brings more objectivity – When it comes to choosing marketing techniques and methods, an agency is much more objective. They do not owe anything to any specific media platform or have any obligation towards any marketing medium. This means they have more liberty to make the best choice for a client based on their needs and their situation. Newspaper executives or a radio salespersons have certain quotas to complete, and hence a compulsion to sell certain things.
- Ad agencies have better relations with media outlets, negotiate lower rates – Usually if an ad agency regularly buys media spots then the media representatives are under pressure to keep the business. Since an agency has no obligations and is free to choose any or all of the media platforms, agencies are free to choose those platforms that offer the best deal. Competition among these various media platforms means lower ad rates, which means agencies often pay lower rates. Another advantage that agencies have in this case is that they are able to negotiate better deals because they cultivate better relationships over time. Agencies thus are able to leverage these relationships for better deals.
- Agencies can provide trusted counsel – Agencies usually guarantee a fresh perspective on creatives and messaging. This is important to keep the brand or the company fresh in a competitive environment. Many a times, business owners need that outside perspective which is beyond a self-serving answer. Another reason is that an ad agency can offer marketing advice which is not influenced by the desire to get the sale or be financially motivated.
- A top ad agency always thinks about the best needs of its clients and as we saw above, hiring an agency is an advantage to a business owner for several reasons. As discussed before, it is much more beneficial to hire an agency rather than spend precious productive time on in-house management of marketing methods. Hiring an agency is actually mutually beneficial for business owners because advertising agencies are considered more successful when they show success in growing their current clients’ businesses. So when companies or brands keep their branding agencies around and are happy with their performance, agencies are very happy!
