Have you ever asked yourself what do marketing firms do? Let me put it this way—if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Similarly, if you start a business and don’t do any marketing, will anyone find out about it? The answer is no—at least to the latter question. Ignoring marketing is like opening a business but not telling anyone. Most business owners know they need marketing, but there’s just one problem—they don’t know anything about marketing. Thankfully, that’s what marketing firms are here for.
What Do Marketing Firms Actually Do?
A marketing agency is a business dedicated to creating, implementing, and managing specific areas of your company’s marketing strategy. By hiring a marketing firm, you are adding a whole team of experts to your company. Depending on your budget and how many services the agency is providing, they will dedicate a set amount of time to your business each month. Firms will work within the parameters and budget you set for them.
Each agency specializes in different areas of marketing. Some agencies provide traditional marketing solutions such as yellow page ads, billboard ads, mailers, and more. While other firms provide digital marketing solutions such as social media management, paid social ads, email marketing, website management, search engine optimization (SEO), etc. Depending on your business and where your target audience spends their time, you’ll need to decide what kind of marketing agency to hire.
The main goal of any marketing agency is to show results. If a firm is running your company’s Google ads, they want to show you a positive ROAS (return on ad spend). If they’re running your SEO, they want to show you that they’ve increased organic traffic to your site. And so on and so forth. If they don’t show results in a timely manner, they expect to be hearing from you. Essentially, your success is their success.
Is Hiring a Marketing Firm Worth It?
The short answer—it depends. If you are a small business owner with a limited budget and not much background in marketing, then yes. Hire a marketing agency ASAP. If you are a Fortune 500 company with a big enough marketing budget to build out an entire marketing team, maybe go ahead and hire internally. Then again, Nike did hire the creative agency Weiden + Kennedy to help with their advertising.
If you’re not in a place financially to hire out an entire marketing department, the agency route is going to be your best bet. It’s important that you vet different digital marketing firms to ensure you’re making the right decision for your company. Ask potential marketing agencies about the level of communication you’re going to receive from them, their team’s level of expertise, and how much time they’ll be spending on your account each month. Paying thousands of dollars each month to have an SEO agency—that really turns out to just be a college student—spend a couple of hours on your account each month is definitely not worth it. Be sure to take the time to research various agencies and talk to their sales teams to ensure you get the best bang for your buck.
What marketing firms do depends on the specific marketing firm. Some agencies consider themselves a full-service marketing agency offering a wide variety of services, while others will solely focus on one or two specific services. Which type of agency you hire will depend on your business’s specific marketing needs. Though we can’t tell you which agency to hire, we can tell you that hiring a marketing agency is the right decision if you’re in need of marketing yet can’t afford to hire a marketing employee. If you’d like to learn more about what marketing firms do and if it’s worth it, contact the Set Fire Creative team today!
McCain is the founder and VP of Client Services at Set Fire Creative. When he isn’t busy helping his clients grow their business through digital marketing, you will most likely find him with his nose in a Stephen King book, eating spicy buffalo wings, hanging out with his wife and Blue Heeler Ozzy, or listening to Guns N’ Roses—sometimes all at the same time.
