In a divergent world with media fractured by the internet, this is an interesting question.
For many years, before the internet becoming dominant, an advertising agency
The Wikipedia definition of Advertising says.
"An advertising agency or ad agency or advert agency is a service based business dedicated to creating, planning, and handling advertising (and sometimes other forms of promotion) for its clients. An ad agency is independent of the client (it may be an internal department or even an internal agency) and provides an outside point of view to the effort of selling the client's products or services. An agency can also handle overall marketing and branding strategies and sales promotions for its clients."
Any agent acts on behalf of a client, in this case, to procure advertising. It was much simpler in the old days, when it was mainly just TV, Radio, Press and outdoor advertising to consider.
For many years, advertising was considered an essential part to building your business’ brand, connecting with your consumers and establishing yourself within your industry. But it has all changed now with the internet and many traditional ad agencies are struggling to keep up with the changes.
With the internet, a business now has a wide variety of consultancies to consider.
Including (but not limited to):
Graphic Design
Social Media
Content Marketing
Inbound Marketing
Web Design
Video Production
Digital
Media Buying
It's now a completely fragmented marketed for a business operator to choose from, if at all.
Running a business means you have a lot of different things on your plate throughout your day.
"agencies" allow you focus on your on your company while we ensure that you’re reaching out to your target consumers in the strongest and most effective way possible.
How an agency can help you
Through managing all forms of social media from Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn, as well as managing and developing your website, creating and running campaigns, helping organise big events and occasions for your company. Ad agencies are out there producing TV and radio commercials, print advertisements and all the while ensuring that everything is tailored to your particular needs and aims.
Advertising agencies hire professional idea generators so that only the best minds are working on how your company is coming across to your consumers, ensuring that your brand awareness continues to grow.
Advertising agencies will often claim they can assist you with every element of your marketing mix. They can also help you assess which forms of advertising would be the most effective for your particular business, or what would be the best way to reach out to your targeted consumers.
Do you need an advertising agency?
This is a tough question to answer. To help you with the answer it is worth expanding the investigation.
Do you need marketing agency? Do you need a digital agency? Do you need a new website? Do you need a content marketing agency and have you allowed for an Inbound marketing agency?
A new player, made possible by Automated Marketing Software is Inbound marketing.
Inbound marketing is the process of converting strangers to prospects and prospects to customers by using your website content and marketing automation.
With the invention of marketing automation software in the last eight years, inbound has become a powerful way to increase your website effectiveness.
Inbound is now a critical part of any advertising and marketing mix. Traditional advertising and design agencies struggle with inbound as it's relatively new and different skill set.
Chances are the traditional ad agencies you may want to pick won't know much about it.
So how do you choose and do you need any agency? To help you with the process we have created a free e-book, The 15 Step Guide to an Agency Pitch. Please feel welcome to download it below.
If you would like to learn more about Inbound Marketing and HubSpot, why not sign up for a free Inbound Marketing Assessment? It takes just 15 minutes and can arm you with the information you need to correctly assess your needs.