Ad Agency Advice

There comes the time when your marketing needs a huge kick in the rear end.
Maybe you or your staff have been writing brochures and web copy, or placing your ads in the Yellow Pages, newspapers and digital media. Perhaps you are even writing a few press releases.

But your referral sales materials are older. Your ads in senior papers and nursing journals are tired. Your website hasn’t been updated in years. Your logo is decades old. You have a Facebook Business page, but are unsure about social media. You need new creative direction and a solid approach to advertising.

To determine whether you need an ad agency, ask if your advertising is meeting strategic objectives. An ad agency can provide fresh advice and a new creative approach. It can help coordinate advertising between different locations. It can relieve you and your staff of the burden of writing, producing and managing promotional materials and help keep deadlines and dates straight. It can assist with bookkeeping for media invoices and collecting cooperative advertising allowances from manufacturers.

Here are five tips for finding an ad agency that might be right for you:

1) Have a clear idea of what you want to achieve, your target audience and your competitive positioning. List your goals, and rough out a budget.

2) Look at other businesses about the same size as yours and their advertising. Contact them and ask who they use and their satisfaction level. Get referrals from manufacturer reps and professional business groups. Check local advertising associations and look at national directories such as Advertising Redbooks and Adweek and Brandweek Directories Online. Check online and the telephone book. Build a target list of firms based on your research.

3) Interview and evaluate agencies. Set up a “screener” based on your needs and goals. Review websites. Evaluate qualifications. Review portfolios of recent work, specifically in health care. Call or e-mail agencies to determine if you should proceed to a meeting. In meetings, determine who will work on your account. Will it be a junior person who knows less than you? Have they done any work with baby boomer and the senior markets? Do they have the staff to handle your needs? Does the agency have expertise in the medium you want to use, i.e. TV, direct mail, social media, e-mail marketing or radio?

4) Research costs. Every agency is different. Some require a budget threshold. Ask about that before proceeding to an in-depth discussion and final decision. Many agencies use a combination of commission and fees. Fees are typically charged for survey research, logo design, website development and creation of marketing pieces such as a brochures, print ads and TV or radio spots. Commission, which is usually 15 percent, is paid by media to advertising agencies. So if you pay an agency $3,000 to run radio spots, the agency pays the stations $2,550 and earns $450 in commissions. Ask for all the costs involved in your campaign, and all costs should be itemized in billing statements.

5) Select the right agency based upon a mutual relationship for the success of your business. Check references. Visit agency offices. Identify who will be working directly on creative aspects of your account, and who will be your account manager.  Confirm they are not working with any directly competing business. Then select the agency that meets your criteria and demonstrates that they have the interest, experience and skills. Work closely with them but let them create. They can help your firm blossom in new directions.

Marketing is about solid research, specific objectives and quantitative results. But innovative, creative advertising that gets attention and motivates action should not be underestimated. You have seen brilliant advertising and promotion campaigns change a company. Still, remember that it takes more than advertising, and that all other pieces of the marketing mix must perform with the campaign—the right product, services, pricing, sales and distribution.

HomeCare, January 2012