The role of advertising in running a business cannot be underestimated. While most companies agree on the essence of marketing, they differ on how exactly it should be carried out. Some brands insist on handling the marketing themselves. They may assign a few individuals in the company to spearhead the process. Bigger businesses can set up a fully-fledged marketing department.
Such companies will tell you that this advertising strategy is more cost-effective compared to hiring an ad agency. Is it really? While it seems so in the short term, the efficiency of this approach may be lacking in the long run. As we discuss in this article, ad agencies bring an updated marketing perspective that your business needs.
Advertising Agencies: Why Your Brand Needs Them
“Does anybody know your product better than you do?” You will often hear this phrase propagated by those who would rather not hire marketing agencies. While we agree that you do know your product better than anyone, advertising isn’t just about that. You can have an excellent item ready to go out into the market, but identifying the people who need it and reaching out to them is a whole different ballgame.
An ad agency comes in with in-depth knowledge of the market and the most effective strategies to reach your target consumers. This could be costly at the beginning, but ultimately gives you value for your money by increasing sales. Below, we expound on some of the aspects that you may not be aware of, but that brand agencies are well-versed in.
Content Creation
How is your brand interacting with consumers on social media pages? If all you do is display your products and invite people to buy, you’re missing out on the immense potential of social media marketing. Ad agencies know how to maximize the impact of these channels by creating content to engage your audience.
They create written, audio, and visual content that aims to inform and educate consumers about the industry and how to choose and optimize the products on offer. With such conversations, consumers develop an emotional connection to your brand and become loyal customers — the precise goal of advertising.
Data-Driven Insights
Most brands base their advertising strategy on numbers, aiming to reach out to as many people as possible. The problem here is that some of these people are not the target candidates for particular products. If you’re selling baby products, for instance, it will be counterproductive to reach out to teenagers or the elderly.
Ad agencies know that such generic marketing has limited impact. They advocate for data-driven marketing, which relies on consumers’ data and analytics in crafting marketing strategies. The data collected here includes:
- Demographics – age, gender, occupation, income level, location
- Purchase History – products bought, order frequency, payment methods, total spending
- Internet Activity – websites visited, pages viewed, apps downloaded, ads viewed
- Lifestyle – interests, preferences, opinions, hobbies
Using this information, experts can carry out consumer segmentation according to their needs and spending power. After defining the target market, the next step is to figure out how best to reach out to them.
Social media is currently the most potent marketing platform. Brands often assume that having social media pages is enough. Ad agencies know that to optimize social media marketing, you must place targeted ads. Using sites like the custom audience platform for your Meta ads helps you to narrow down the ideal customers and direct adverts to them. This strategy leads to an increased conversion and a higher return on investment.
Measuring Impact
How successful is your marketing campaign? Most brands weigh this by looking at the sales. At face value, low sales mean that your campaign strategy was unsuccessful. But is this always the case?
Ad agencies know that the conversion rate is not the only measure of a marketing strategy. Other factors that count when measuring impact include:
- Brand awareness
- Lead generation
- Client retention
- Content engagement
- Website traffic
Ad agencies have the necessary tools to conduct a comprehensive audit on all the above factors and attribute them to the correct marketing channel. The sales may not be coming in just yet, but with these indicators on an upward trajectory, they ultimately will.
Conclusion
If you have been on the fence about hiring an ad agency, you now have a different perspective on the whole marketing issue. With their expertise and experience, advertising agencies take time to study the market and identify your ideal customer, then craft a strategy on how to reach out to them. The money you spend on hiring such specialists is an investment, which you will recoup many times over in increased sales.
