Should i hire a marketing agency

[nik82]

I am in the process of setting up an digital production company and would like to do all my marketing through a marketing agency. They would be required to help us brand our new company as well and put together a strategy and execute it for us.

I have never worked with a marketing company and would like you know your thoughts if you have any experience (good or bad) with these types of companies.

Also any advice regarding what to look out for and important questions to ask.

Also if you have worked with a marketing company who you would recommend please get in touch.

Many thanks

 

[S-Marketing]

My top tip would be to look for a consultant or agency who actually have other business interests.

Consultants who are just consultants are usually former employees of large organisations or worse still bank managers and such like. They know very little about marketing a small business. Being an employee in a marketing role, no matter what level, doesn't give the skills required to market a small business.

Equally, although I think qualifications are important, they do not prove competence. You only need to go to 1 CPD course of the Chartered Institute of Marketing to gauge the knowledge and likely success of listening to the advice of their average member . Trust me, I speak from experience, although this is just my own personal opinion obviously.

 

[nik82]

I get what your saying, however i would be slightly concerned if my marketing agency had other business interests as that would mean that they could not give me 100%

I have had a meeting with a company called Blend marketing who are based in Reading. They are a small company with 8 staff 3 of who are Partners in the business.

I'm meeting with more over the next few days, However none of the companies i have contacted seem like one man bands. They all have between 5-10 staff who focus 100% on marketing.

Although we are a small business we do have a nice marketing budget and just need some help choosing the best marketing partner for our company.

Any suggestions or advice on questions to ask and what to look out for?

 

[S-Marketing]

Why have you decided to work with an agency rather than a self employed guy / girl? Any particular reason?

What sort of budget do you have?

What specifically will you be wanting the agency to do?

 

[nik82]

We would require the agency to put together a marketing strategy and fully execute it from start to finish. We would require a company who could spend time understanding our market and making the correct marketing decisions based on previous experience.

Although we have a half descent budget we wouldn't stand for a company who did not produce results. This i think is why we would prefer to work with a slightly larger set up rather than a single consultant. I guess a larger set up gives us more confidence in their abilities.

Our initial budget would be £25,000 and based on the results seen from this spend we would set our annual budget.

 

[S-Marketing]

We would require the agency to put together a marketing strategy and fully execute it from start to finish. We would require a company who could spend time understanding our market and making the correct marketing decisions based on previous experience.

Although we have a half descent budget we wouldn't stand for a company who did not produce results. This i think is why we would prefer to work with a slightly larger set up rather than a single consultant. I guess a larger set up gives us more confidence in their abilities.

Our initial budget would be £25,000 and based on the results seen from this spend we would set our annual budget.

That's a fairly sensible budget.

Ok, you seem fairly convinced that you want to use an agency so ill not bother convincing you why you shouldn't.


I completely understand your need for a decent return. The most obvious answer to that is to find someone who will work on a results based fee structure. I'm not sure how many agencies will be prepared to work in this way, but its certainly a good question to sort the wheat from the chaff. Anyone worth their salt will be prepared to at least negotiate terms of such an arrangement.

Other very basic things to ask are for things like proof of professional indemnity insurance. I'm sure the agencies you approached are all up together with this kind of thing, but it sometimes catches out the cowboys. I always supply a copy of my certificate to all clients and it seems to reassure them to a certain extent (even though no-one has ever actually asked for it).

Any other comments I would make would be far too biased as I'm not a fan of agencies for this sort of work, so ill leave you to wait for more replies.

 

[nik82]

Why are you not a fan of agencies for this type of work?

My think is that if the company has a 5 staff who are all knowledgable in their type of marketing then that the should be stronger than say one or two people trying to do everything.

I'm not an expert and my thoughts are just personal opinion rather than experience so please don't hold back...

Let me have your full thoughts on pro's and con's of using agencies for this type of work.

 

[S-Marketing]

Why are you not a fan of agencies for this type of work?

My think is that if the company has a 5 staff who are all knowledgable in their type of marketing then that the should be stronger than say one or two people trying to do everything.

I'm not an expert and my thoughts are just personal opinion rather than experience so please don't hold back...

Let me have your full thoughts on pro's and con's of using agencies for this type of work.

I can't give an impartial view as I am a marketing consultant who works on a results based fee structure. Ill get that out in the open in case you are unfamiliar with my postings on this forum.

From my perspective, a good chunk of your £25 K is going towards paying for the offices of the agency, the director's new leased Beemer, and 100 other things. For the budget you have I cant see how an agency can give you as much value. Yes an agency will have diverse skills, but all that really matters is the strategy. If the strategy is planned and supervised by someone who knows what they are doing, there is no need for it all to be done in house.

When I need a graphic designer or web designer I have trusted freelancers I use. I know the web guy is good as he was in my class at University where we were studying marketing. Trust me, a web designer with a good knowledge of marketing is a very rare commodity.

I suppose in conclusion you have many pros and cons to weigh up. Personally, I think a freelancer would be better, but then I would say that. A good freelancer could almost become a part time member of staff who only gets paid on results (and doesn't get sick leave or holiday pay). That's got to be the best solution. I cant see how an agency can give the same in-depth level of service and understanding, or even integration into your organisation.

Anyway, if you get any proposals and want an opinion on what is suggested, i'd be happy to take a look.

I'm sure someone from an agency will be along soon to give the other side of the coin.

 

[nik82]

Thank you for your help.
I take on board what you say.
Please send me your contact details and i will certainly get in touch to discuss this in further detail, maybe towards the end of this week once i have had a chance to speak to a few more agencies.

Many thanks

 

[bensmoa]

Initially note down the things that you want to be done during your marketing campaign and also look out the previous track record of the company as well . Talk to their previous clients.

 

[phoenix3]

The challenge you face with a free lance consultant is that they still need to outsource things to get the job done, in my experience no one person can do everything that is required in marketing. so it would end up costing you more as the consultant would call upon their friends who all have different rates to execute the tactical activity. By using a outsourced company you are getting all the skills you would need without the extra cost.
by having clear objectives and working with a company who have business owners with commercial common sense your business can benefit. A good marketing company will advise you on the best way forward as its as much in their interest to have you succeed. They also have the staff so if one person is off sick - your marketing continues - what happens to your marketing if your free lance consultant is off sick long term? More things to think about I'm afraid!

 

[Phil Richardson]

Hi,

It's interesting reading through the thread. My thoughts are that although your £25k budget is quite healthy you could get through this very quickly with very little to show at the end of it and no increase in sales.

There are lots of different types of agencies out their from strategy, branding and design through to online, direct and PR.

It is very unlikely you could get a single person/agency to undertake all the elements you talk about, certainly not one who can deliver.

Yes your marketing startegy is very important but it should also be a part of the sales strategy which should also be a part of your business startegy.

Personally I would work on the strategy yourself, most of it you should already know, then get a few agencies in to talk about their specialist areas and how they fit in to the overall strategy.

Once you understand your market your marketing is often obvious, do customers buy online for example or do you need to be sat in front of decision makers before they buy. Both of these will require very different marketing approaches and very different skills from your agencies.

If you don't know the information then is a research agency the place to start?

How important is your brand, you could spend £25k designing a logo or are you better spending £25k sat in front of decision makers.

We are an agency that specialises in B2B Lead Generation, some of the best clients that we work with have a regular meetings between the sales/MD and all of the agencies that are working together to deliver results. Often this is PR, Online and Lead Gen then you can undertake fully integrated campaigns and see which areas are successful.

Be very careful with your budget and make sure you find the right agencies that are going to help you grow now.

 

[harrycooper1122]

Yes I have experienced a marketing agency. Company name is Blueprint media. One thing that I have learnt from this company is that to be on top you have to hire a revolting, unrepentant, and shameless spammer. My experience was great. It is really helpful to hire such a good marketing agency.

 

[eventdomain]

They would be required to help us brand our new company

Heard enough already - jeeze, a new company? Branding will eat that 25k so fast, you won't see squat. ROI advertising/PR is what you want to begin with and suggest you start with Public Relations and do most of this yourself!

If you can't hack the idea or dont have the time, a good small PR agency can do something for 7-10k and drum up some nice PR editorial stuff that will do more good than brand advertising ever will.

PR - the DIY approach

Begin with a press release, send this to ALL local newspapers and speak to the Journalists PERSONALLY!, see what you get back (usually its small mentions for off-line biz types) - put stories in your website, then contact some regionals and test that. This can take 2 months before anything is printed or you see any results.

Paid Links on Main industry targeted portals

Get these in the hundreds. You want lots of little links and adverts in as many places as possible. Make a list of related PORTALS , and contact the owners for the rate card. Your aim is to get on mid-range to high traffic sites, and for £5'000, you want 25 to 50 links, maybe some homepage spots for that if you can bargain well.

Do this yourself - you don't need an agency to plug your own biz - UNLESS the agency happen to own the main industry portals for your sector..... which I very much doubt as they won't be that clever, or they'd have thought of that idea in the first place.


Paid Links on targeted 3rd Tier portals

Copy the above - these are related lower-rated portals who will give a link for a small fee eg: £25 a year etc. Aim for 300 of these (depending on the sector). Idea is to grab quick-targeted traffic-flow/Fixed link presense for ROI sales - eg: 100 to 150 visitors per year is considered good for these sites.


Email/Newsletter marketing

Start building a list of 3000 businesses to contact. Obviously actual clients is best, but that's a long-term goal and takes time. Build a content, regular e-zine kind of offering and send it out for free. Once your content is settled on, add a sign-up page and build up a list.

Seek out other websites ezines, these can be low-cost and great to get your name out there. Plus if you find a few, then list who you use on your website.

 

[Mystro]

I want to add, just because the PR company employs 5-8 staff don't mean to say all will drop what they are doing and work on your project, From experience one person will deal with you, the group may bounce ideas from each other.

Small company's can be just as effective as larger organisations, either way you just have to do a bit of homework and pick the right company

 

[Jonathan Smith]

I agree with Stretchy on this

As marketing consultant myself primarily focused on the psychology of sales and why people do what you do I give the following 2 points

1. as Stretchy says a lot of your budget will go to agency overheads. Similar to Stretchy I would use freelance / crowd-souring for best prices and talent and manage the work myself on behalf of the client. Go consultant with contacts IMHO

2. lots of companies use lots of marketing tools. From leaflets to social media but results vary drastically. The reason for poor results is often that they are not peaking their target audiences interest in a way that it needs to be done. It is vitally important to focus on the psychological and motivational differentiators of your target audience and apply this congruently across all marketing you do, not just add more stuff to a poor / mediocre converting business

Hope that helps somewhat and makes sense. Written quickly on my phone :0
J