Articles in The 'agency' Tag

Don’t Let Your Doctor Unclog Your Sink Pipe

by Katherine Bennett

Would you want your doctor to unclog your sink pipe? Would you want your plumber to perform surgery on a clogged artery? I’m thinking most people would give a resounding no. Why? Because neither one is an expert in the other’s field.  Now, why would you want to take your advertising in-house when that’s not your area of expertise?

Everyone has an area of expertise and the best way to expound on that is to partner with other experts.  The purpose of working with an agency is to create a partnership where you work hand in hand to accomplish a goal. Let’s say for example that you are a college administrator looking to get more students to sign up for admissions. Working with students may be your strength, but you may be clueless on how to reach potential students and get them to sign up for your program via the internet. However, an internet ad agency would know how to reach those students via the internet. What most companies don’t realize is that the internet is always changing. There are always new sites coming out, new venues, and new ad strategies. A perfect example would be an article I read in Florida Trend about a site called affluence.org. A person can only join the site if they can prove they have an annual household income of $300,000. This would be a good niche site to advertise on if wealthy households are you target audience. To quote an article from Media Post’s Search Insider, “One of the biggest advantages an agency has over in-house teams is that we are exposed to a wide variety of accounts, which accelerates our learning in this rapidly changing industry.” It’s a simple concept, but it makes sense. Just like a clothing company keeps up with the recent fashions, advertisers keep up with the latest and greatest industry trends. If you tried to make your own clothes you might end up making a tie die shirt, and as far I’m aware, they went out of style awhile ago.  You might save a few dollars, but after a week or two you’d probably go back to buying clothes.

Speaking of money, some people think taking their advertising dollars in-house will save them money. However, that’s not usually the case. Number one, if you decide to pay someone to do the advertising in house their annual salary will likely be more expensive than paying an agency, especially if you hire someone with experience. If you decide to do it in-house, you may get distracted. Not only will you have to run your business, you’ll have to try to keep your campaigns in the engines up to date. A myth that some people believe is that campaigns run themselves. NOT!! Bids need to be updated constantly, ad copy checked, negatives added in and so much more. Managing a campaign isn’t something to be taken lightly.

The best way to get top performance for advertising dollars is to work with a qualified agency. Tell them your expertise and then they can match that with their expertise and together you can run successful campaigns. After all, you wouldn’t ask your doctor to fix the clog in your sink, would you?