When a small business is looking for an advertising agency relationship, is this inherently an impossible quest?
We’d like to think not since our mission and purpose has been to serve small businesses in an era when a broad-spectrum advertising agency is getting harder and harder to find. In the advertising business, this is a period of specialty.
Digital media, social media, website development, graphic design, direct mail – all seem to be growing specialties in today’s agency market. Yet as more and more small businesses emerge in a new economy, less and less full-service agencies are prepared or willing to serve these new companies.
How does a small business search for an advertising agency to serve them in a broad, holistic manner?
First, let’s define small business and what they might be looking for in an advertising agency or marketing company.
Regardless of how the Small Business Administration defines small business, a company that has yet to develop a fully integrated internal marketing department led by a chief marketing officer could be considered a small business.
Another determinant could be the internal marketing knowledge of company leaders. If nobody within an organization has deep marketing or advertising experience, perhaps this company can also be considered a small business.
Whether you call it a small business or not, if there is a need for marketing leadership, then searching for an external relationship to advance your marketing can be a challenge. For most small businesses, what they really want when they reach out to an advertising agency or marketing company is advice, education, guidance and eventually practical tactical execution.
If you are a small business without deep understanding of marketing and advertising principles or talent, then consider the following when searching for a partner.
- Look for a company that leads with education rather than execution. Today’s marketing disciplines are complicated. A small business owner cannot make an informed decision if an advertising agency or marketing consultant is unwilling or incapable of educating the client first and offering solutions second.
- Hiring a specialist is fine but only after a strategy has been carefully determined. A website company that helps a small business determine their marketing strategy has an inherent need to sell a website or other online marketing initiative. Seldom will a company that specializes in one area of marketing advise you to seek another solution.
- Experience must be relative. If you sell techno-widgets, it’s less important to find an advertising agency that has experience selling techno-widgets than it is to find an advertising agency that has successfully worked with companies that look like yours. And when we say ‘look like yours,’ what we mean is size, scope, culture, customer and process.
- Don’t get emotionally attached to an individual’s talent when searching for an advertising agency or marketing company. Sadly, companies like LogoWorks and Intuit have made graphic design and website development a commodity. So when you find a company whose critical talent ‘understands your business,’ keep in mind that the individual talent could be gone tomorrow. Look for an agency, not an individual that relates to you and your small business.
- If your business has evolved beyond what you consider small and you seek professional advertising and marketing support, think back to when you hired an accounting firm, lawyer or insurance company. Hiring an advertising partner should have no less due-diligence in the process.
A small business usually doesn’t have the latitude to make a costly mistake in hiring a partner, whether it’s accounting or advertising. Conducting your agency search and interview process with the same vigor as you did when hiring your last employee will pay dividends in the long run.