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Choosing the right agency for a small or medium-sized business
As an agency guy (and survivor of many many pitches) I have often thought about this. How would I go about hiring an agency and getting the best quality work out of them?
Here’s what I would do:
Get your documents in order:
- Your sales objectives
- Some market and competitive set information
- Your key business drivers
The last item is important. The same way that you don’t want to walk into that Ford dealership without knowing what you want, you should not walk into an agency search without understanding what you value.
To do that, you need to examine three factors:
- What really drives or you think will drive your business? Is it online sales? Search? Email? If you are not sure, that would be an item to explore in a casual conversation with the agency principals, but it would be unfair to include it as a key factor. Hey, if you don’t know what drives your business… why should they?
- What are your weaknesses? Over the years, I’ve had clients who had great media relations… but no clue how to talk to consumers, so we focused on the creative. Or clients with tons of great creative idea, but that did not have the time to execute, so we focused on that. What you want is an agency that will fill your gaps and help you get to your business goal.
- Based on the previous factors, what kind of agency will you be searching:
- Creative boutique?
- Integrated/full service?
- Media only?
- Social media only?
- Direct Response?
- Promotional specialists?
Selecting agencies to interview, the long list:
By now, you should have decided more or less what kind of agency can benefit your business. Now, it’s time to put together a list of agencies to call and visit.
Ideally, you should have a preliminary list of around 10-12 agencies that you are going to request a presentation from, narrow it to 2 or 3 finalists and then choose the winner.
This is probably the most frustrating part of the search for several reasons:
- There is a huge lack of information among small or local ad agencies. You don’t know the size, their billings, purchasing power… anything.
- From reading their websites, they are all super-agencies capable of super-human feats. In other words, there’s a lot of BS in those websites.
Some factors to consider:
- The agency’s specialty. By now, you know more or less what you want, so go into their website and figure out what it is that they do. Are you looking for Direct Response expertise? Then select agencies that list that expertise. Beware of small agencies that have a laundry list of “capabilities”… they are the equivalent of restaurants with 20-page menus. Yes, you might be able to get a lobster thermidor… but it will probably be mediocre. Roughly speaking, the agency specialization will match the previous specialization of its principals.
- Location – do you want the agency near you? If you live in a small city, it might be that you should look at the nearest large DMA; if you live in a large city, it might be easier to find a nearby agency. However, it is a consideration.
- Client roster. Are their clients more or less your size in sales? If their clients are way bigger than you… you will get lost in the agency. If they are way smaller, the agency will probably not have the resources to handle your needs.
If you know any media or creative-related vendors, now would be a good time to reach out to them, discreetly, and ask them for a few names. If you see a name being repeated a few times, that is a great sign, and you should include that agency on your search.
In the next installment of choosing the right ad agency we’ll cover: Narrowing the List, The First Contact and The Evaluation Checklist
Related articles:
Part 1- Taking Your Business To the Next Level?
Lessons in Small Business Marketing Decision Making
Top 10 Marketing Pitfalls
