Hiring a marketing agency could be the best decision for your brand’s image and growth potential. From established companies to small and medium businesses, getting the help of an external marketing agency can get you more leads, inform current and future marketing decisions, and optimize your overall brand presence and visibility.
And thanks to the development of the marketing field over the last couple of years, marketing agencies are increasingly more accessible and affordable today, which brings us to our first point.
It May Be Cheaper Than You Think
Many marketing agencies today have flexible pricing that can scale with your business. This includes but isn’t limited to dedicated single-project contracts and ad-hoc pricing models, which can allow you to get their help for specific tasks or crucial consultations on your existing or future marketing strategies.
You may also opt to pay a fixed price for an agreed-upon amount of content. While this may still translate to sizeable fees, you get what you pay for: not just a better overall marketing strategy, but also more time to focus on your company’s strengths.
Consider the Agency’s Specialization
Marketing agencies tend to specialize in specific sectors or tasks within the purview of marketing. For example, we are focused on providing high-quality product photography.
In today’s highly visual and increasingly digitally-driven era, this is crucial for any type of product sellers to increase not just their overall presence but their sales conversion rate as well.
Meanwhile, a big chunk of today’s agencies specializes in providing email marketing services and software, which is not only a very direct way of getting more leads but is also a rapidly growing sector of modern marketing.
Highly specialized agencies are also called boutique agencies and are typically composed of small groups of experts, which makes them comparatively cheaper than full-service firms.
On the other hand, full-service marketing agencies offer much more comprehensive in-house services. And if you can afford their services, they can aid in everything from the conceptualization to the execution of a long-term multimedia campaign.
The choice ultimately depends on your brand’s specific needs and goals. Taking the agency or consultancy’s specialization and range of services into account can help a lot in leading you to the right people for the job.
Hiring a Startup Marketing Agency
If you don’t want to employ a full-service marketing agency due to the costs of doing so, startup marketing agencies are a good option. Digital marketing is a cutthroat industry that has a surplus of demand.
This means that there are many graduates forming their own startups in order to get a foothold in the industry. While they may not have the experience of established marketing agencies, they will have experience acquired through their education. Today, it’s not uncommon for marketing agencies to partner with higher education institutions in order to broaden their reach.
When choosing a startup marketing agency make sure to check their background education as well as previous campaigns they’ve worked on, yet don’t be too narrow in what you deem acceptable.
Many of the world’s top universities now offer online degrees in marketing that are as valuable, in terms of qualification and experience, as a traditional degree. In fact, the academic training for today’s online bachelor’s in marketing degrees typically involves a multi-disciplinary approach designed to increase the competitiveness and critical thinking of fresh graduates.
Apart from social media marketing strategies, this includes online classes in psychology, mathematics, accounting, statistics, business law, business analytics, and multimedia arts, giving them a wide area of expertise to draw from. These new startups will be passionate to prove themselves, and will likely impose fewer demands than bigger marketing companies, giving you more freedom in how any campaign is run.
Aim to Establish a Long-Term Partnership
Another key consideration before pulling the trigger is the potential of working on multiple marketing campaigns or projects with the agency that you’re eyeing. The more you can work with the same marketing agency, the better they can develop any of your future marketing efforts. Long-term marketing relationships lead to more compelling market insights, a more consistent overall brand image, and networking opportunities for both parties.
Don’t Place All the Work on Outside Help
No matter how good a marketing agency is, the creation and development of any short or long-term marketing projects and strategies is inherently a collaborative process between the agency and the brand. Don’t hire an agency and expect them to do all the work.
They can certainly do the heavy lifting for you – but only if you’re transparent about your goals and needs, flexible about creative direction, and willing to compromise on certain costs and limitations.
Not only can this help your chosen agency craft a suitable marketing plan, but it also gives you a better purview of what else you need to work on to increase profits. If you don’t, you could end up with a campaign that isn’t suited to your image of the brand as well as being very a very costly expense.
