Last Updated on April 17, 2020 by
If you are in a position to consider hiring a marketing firm, you are most likely in pretty good shape. Staying up with all that is changing in the world of marketing can be a huge task, and a google search can leave you just scratching your head wondering what it is you are signing up for. Before you make that final click and hire a full service marketing firm, wouldn’t you like to know just what it is you will be hiring them to do?
Characteristics of a Marketing Firm
To say that a marketing firm that offers “full service” means they are able to offer and handle all the aspects of the marketing and advertising processes. This includes elements such as:
- Developing key strategies
- Creativity
- Interactive applications
- Analytics
- Branding
Everything a marketing agency offers should be specifically designed to help you drive your business, your organization or your project moving forward. A firm that uses a cookie-cutter approach and deals with each client in similar fashion, is not a cutting edge, full service firm. Their goal and mission statements should involve evolving along with today’s media sources to reach your audience on your behalf with an expectation of returns on your investment; anything short of that is a gamble and will likely result in wasting time, money, and other resources.
What should I expect a full service firm to do for me?
A full service marketing firm should be able to handle every aspect of advertising and marketing for you. These are the primary things you should expect from a reputable and capable marketing agency.
- Strategic Planning – Full service marketing should involve a lot of strategic planning. This type of marketing campaign should be driven by professionals that take the time to learn your goals and move all their marketing efforts toward them. Techs should have analytical skills when it comes to how the market works today and be familiar with media strategies and branding methods designed specifically to reach your audience.
- Creativity – If you want to know how creative a firm is, ask them to see their portfolio AND be sure to analyze their own company website. You can get a good idea of how they will handle your concerns by looking at what they have done for others, and more importantly for themselves. You may also do a quick search and find out what types of things they have done for others as well as some reviews of their work. Do they produce cutting edge designs and slogans? Are they stuck in the past? They should demonstrate strong knowledge and capability of copywriting, branding, studio work and graphic design; or at the very least have a term or contractors to take care of it in a way that will bring these elements together in a way that engages your clientele.
- Interactive Applications – The agency should be able to develop a variety of opportunities for your business to be actively engaged with your audience. This will include web designs and using the various relevant social platforms available, including mobile applications and mobile functionality.
- Analytics – A savvy marketing firm will have a predetermined way to gather the stats and report progress back to you on a regular basis. They should be able to tell you exactly what progress has been made, and how they measured it; adapting where necessary with new fully developed plan moving forward when needed.
- Branding – This kind of goes without saying and it pretty obvious, but your brand should be the primary importance for any marketing service. With so many people using the internet more and more to research brand before deciding to do business with them, it’s best to have a full service marketing campaign that will keep protecting your brands image as a priority.
From strategic planning to analyzing data, a full service marketing firm should be able to demonstrate what they are getting paid to do and follow up by reporting on how you’re getting an ROI. They should have a system in place and be able to keep you informed of what is being done all along the way and where things are headed in the short term and long term.
In Conclusion
Write up a set of questions before you start talking to marketing firms. By asking each firm the same set of questions, you can compare their answers and see which one is best suited for you. You should be able to expect a well-developed and strategic plan, creative solutions, interactive branding techniques and thorough analysis, monitoring and adjusting to be included in each marketing campaign. For some of you, this might be a lot to digest and thus creates more questions on the subject. If so, you’re in the right place to get the expert advice to help you on your search for getting a full service marketing campaign that will be succeed and be worth every $0.01 spent. Nomvo!