Whether you’re a big or small business, you can and should investigate working with a reputable ad agency or professional. The additional expense you’ll add will most often be minimal to the money you’ll lose making mistakes on your own. If it’s important enough, such as health, legal or accounting, you’ll seek professional help. Advertising is certainly important enough to seek professional help with.
Ad agencies come in all sizes, from working out of their spare bedroom to Madison Avenue high-rises. Although most tout themselves as a “full service agency”, most usually work in one of six primary areas:
• Graphic Design
• Audio/Video Production
• Media Planning
• Web Design & Development
• Consulting
• Public Relations
A true full-service agency does all of these service but they are far more rare. One big advantage of working with a full service agency is that they can offer better brand maintenance because it’s all handled in-house. This also gives you better cost efficiency than farming all the components out to individual production shops.
I think another advantage is that their clients get more honest and un-biased counseling because the agencies services are not limited to any single production they must sell to generate income, i.e., video, graphics, etc. The best solutions can be freely recommended because the full service agency will be paid either way.The basic thing that an agency should for you is help you plan your program, assemble the creative and production, place the media and (sometimes) monitor the results.
Advertising agencies are paid several ways: retainer, hourly fees, by project, for media placement, etc. An agency can even be in-house, meaning they work exclusively for one firm.
Working with an advertising agency should be considered if your business’s advertising volume is substantial. Planning, adjusting and running large ongoing multimedia promotion can be very distracting from your normal business tasks, and should be left to the advertising professionals.
Red Crow Marketing covers every area mentioned above; if you have any questions about what we can do for you as an advertising agency, please contact us at 417-889-1658 or info@RedCrowMarketing.com.
