At some point, your business is going to want to consider working with an advertising agency. You might want to raise brand awareness and drive more sales, or perhaps you simply don’t have the bandwidth to do it yourself. Whatever the case, working with an advertising agency can be very beneficial if you find the right one. But, as with anything else in business, there are downsides to consider as well.
In this blog, we’ll look at the pros and cons of advertising agencies, what they can do for your business and how you can use them to your advantage. Read on to learn more.
What Does an Advertising Agency Do?
First, what does an advertising agency do, exactly? For the most part, it is going to act as your marketing department. Many advertising agencies offer their services as a full suite or a la carte — meaning if you already have a marketing department, you can hire an advertising agency to pick up the slack or provide you with the services that you lack. Typically, a good agency will be flexible to your needs and help you create an agreement that is customized for your company.
When Should You Hire One?
Knowing when to hire an advertising agency is just as important as knowing what it can do for you. Not every company necessarily needs an advertising agency. But if you’re a company that can benefit from their services, here are a few scenarios where you might want to consider taking one on.
You Have No Advertising in Place: Advertising is extremely important in the modern digital era. If you have no advertising in place, it might be a good idea to hire some professionals to help you get the ball rolling.
Your Marketing Efforts Aren’t Working: If you’ve tried the DIY advertising route and the efforts aren’t worth your time and money, you might be better served using an agency instead.
Your Department Is Overwhelmed: You might have an awesome advertising team, but if your company is growing rapidly and they can’t keep up, an advertising agency could be a good solution to take on the additional work.
You’re Missing Key Components: If you have a department that specializes in Google Ads but doesn’t know how podcast advertising works, you could hire an agency to take care of the campaigns that you’re not equipped for.
You’re Wanting to Raise Brand Awareness: If you’re trying to get more eyes on your product or service, an advertising agency could be the quickest way to do so.
These are just a few of the reasons you might consider hiring an agency. Let’s take a look at some of the advantages and disadvantages to help you make your decision.
Advantages and Disadvantages
Now we have a good idea of what an advertising agency can do, but what are the pros and cons? Outsourcing work isn’t a decision that businesses typically take lightly, so you want to weigh your options and make sure it will be a worthwhile endeavor. For many businesses, it will be, but this isn’t always the case. Let’s take a look at the advantages first.
What Can They Provide?
Here are some of the biggest advantages that an advertising agency can provide your company.
Expertise
First and foremost, an advertising agency will have a team of professionals who have expertise in their field. They’ve already done the hiring, found the right team, trained them and amassed a group of people who know what they’re doing.
With an advertising agency, you get their expertise right away. They’ll be able to break down strategy, address pain points and identify what needs to be done to help you reach your advertising goals.
Saving of Critical Resources
Hiring an advertising agency saves you internal employee hours and, hopefully, money. With an advertising agency taking on all of your advertising tasks and duties, your employees are freed up to work on what they need to be working on — no more guesswork or long hours trying to figure out unfamiliar concepts. Your agency can take care of things for you.
Improved ROI
The desired result of hiring an advertising agency is that it will get you a return on investment on your ad dollars. Although an advertising agency is an expense in and of itself, the work they do should increase your profitability overall, bringing in more revenue and offsetting the expense of outsourcing your advertising.
Unique Ideas
When you’re doing the same thing every day, it can be easy to stagnate — and hard to look at your company from an objective, outside perspective. An advertising agency team will be able to come in fresh and provide you with creative, unique ideas for reaching your audience and growing your customer base.
Related Trends
An advertising agency will be intimately familiar with new and emerging trends in its industry. Your team likely spends enough time just trying to keep up with the latest trends in your own industry, much less the trends in advertising. With an advertising agency, you can trust that your ad team will know what customers are responding to and the latest way to reach them.
Brand Development
Advertising agencies can do more than just turn your ad spend into profits. They also know how to market and raise brand awareness. With the help of an advertising agency, you can refine your brand voice and develop your brand to be a unique, trusted voice in your industry. You can also get more relevant demographics learning about your brand than ever before.
Crucial Feedback
Finally, an advertising agency will be able to provide you with in-depth reports, analytics and feedback about your campaigns. Part of an ad agency’s job is keeping track of your efforts and optimizing them. The longer you use an agency, the more they’ll learn what works for your business and the better your ads will be.
Disadvantages
Now we know the good, but what about the disadvantages? There are two primary downsides to hiring an advertising agency.
Expenses: Hiring an advertising agency isn’t free. There will be upfront and ongoing costs. But if an optimized ad campaign is successful, these costs will be outweighed by the revenue and profits it produces.
Industry Knowledge: Not every advertising agency is going to know your industry inside and out the way you do. There may be a bit of a learning curve if your industry is very specialized, which means it may take a little longer to get the ball rolling. You can always seek out agencies that specialize in your industry if you want to be extra careful.
Grow Your Brand Presence With Backtracks
Whether your advertising team is internal or outsourced, you should be making an effort to implement podcast ad campaigns. Backtracks is the platform that can help you grow your brand presence through podcast advertising. With in-depth analytics and reporting, you can see how people are interacting with your podcast ads and where your conversions are coming from. Learn more about Backtracks today.
