Whether solepreunuer, small business owner, established business/brand, or large conglomerate marketing is going to be essential to the growth and success of the business. How you "get your name out there" initially and how current/former customers are engaged on an ongoing basis, how do you aquire new customers and build your client base therefore growing the business is essential and is directly tied to marketing. Using a Full Service Marketing Firm is a great way to address these challenges and make sure your marketing is on point, keeping you in touch with your ideal customer and driving growth. When to use a firm is an important decision and is going to depend on a number of factors here are 5 that you should consider.
Read about our Marketing efforts for a Private Liberal Arts College
Expertise
You may be assigned to do marketing for your business or company, but unless you're working or running a marketing company this is not your actual area of expertise. Your doing it out of necessity, because "hey someone has to do it". But even if you have a marketing background if this isn't the primary function of the company it can be hard to galvonize the time effort and resources to put together effective marketing that works. It'll be to the comapnies advantage to bring in a firm that focuses soley on marketing on your behalf so the company can focus on what they do best providing a product or service.
Buying Power
You're marketing plan is more than likely going require that you buy media. It may be traditional media TV, Print, OOH or non traditional digital signage, grassroots activations, branded ride share vehicles. Once a startegy is built A full service marketing firm is going to have the leverage with media companies to place buys on your behalf for less money than you would be able to on your own. Because they're buying media not only for your brand or business but for other clients as well they can purchase media at a bulk rate. They'll also have the relationships at these media companies to obtain favorable pricing on your behalf, expedite the buying process so your ads are in market when you want/need them to be, and make sure you secure any bonus media that's owed or offered.
Proven Strategy
A full service marketing firm who's been around the block a few times may have strategies that are already proven. I'm not advocating for cookie cutter campaigns, but if the agency has worked on a similar piece of business they can apply proven techniques and strategy to your campaign. This will in turn help save time and money not spinningwheels or guessing on strategies they may or may not work.
Metrics
Marketing and by extension advertising placements certainly have a creative side to them but more importantly are the Metrics behind those placements. Firms aren't in the habit of placing good faith buys, they're going to look at the best available metric and analyze each medium each message to determine which is most effective in reaching and evoking a reaction from the target market. If these metrics aren't avaialble a company/brand can get burned placing good faith buys that don't garner results and waste resources.
Full-Time Dedication
More than likely marketing is not your primary function. It's something you have to do in order for your product or service to be known to your target market so they could in turn patronize your product or service. Even if you do well marketing you're still not going to be abale to dedicate the amount of time needed to execute marketing at the highest level while performing other functions necessary to the business as well. Using a firm will ensure that the marketing is receiving the undivded attention it requires and frees you up to focus on your primary duties within the company.
Hiring a full service marketing firm is one of the best decisions a company or business owner can make when the time is appropriate. The expertise they bring , the ability to leverage buying power on your behalf. Coming to the table with proven strategies and the metrics to justify/quantify those strategies are all great reasons to hire a firm. The advantage that comes with having full time dedication to those marketing efforts is something that can't be replicated. Once a decision is made to go in this direction you will see a return potentially higher than what was expected. Comment below if you have anything to add to the discussion on reasons to choose a full service marketing firm.