How To Decide Whether To Place Ads Yourself Or Use An Agency - Part 2
Last week we discussed how to decide whether to place ad's yourself or to use an agency. Here's more on that subject:
To review the #1 reason for using an agency was - there's a lot of specialized knowledge that goes into placing advertising. Specialized knowledge that you may not possess. A real ad agency, that's any good at all, can more than make up for their fees. Let's say that you're an auto mechanic and you charge $70 an hour to work on my car. In an effort to save money, I decide that I'd rather do it myself. Of course, I don't know 1/100th what you know about fixing cars, but I go ahead and give it a go. Are my savings - not paying you the $70 an hour - really a savings? Of course not. The same could be true for the agency fees that you're trying to save. It could actually be costing you money.
Reasons FOR Using An Agency #2 - Placing advertising can be extremely time-consuming, especially if you do very much of it. It's easy for a business owner to get faked out and forget that his or her time is actually worth a lot of money. But the reality for most businesses, is that your time is best spent working on your CORE COMPETENCY. What's your line of business? If you're a webmaster then use your time to make your sites as good as they can be. Yes, gain a working understanding of advertising. That's the whole point of our articles. But no, don't spend time trying to become an expert at it. Outsourcing your advertising to an agency may be a smarter move.
Here's one of the time traps most people don't see in regards to their advertising. They may call a publication and ask what the rates are. The salesperson then gives those rates or emails over a proposal. The business owner looks at the rates, decides what size ad to place or what kind of schedule to go with, and places the order...then smiles while thinking about the money he or she is saving by not having an agency. What they don't know is that a skilled advertising agency can in many cases negotiate the rates down. They never take the first proposal. They always take the time to make a second call and hammer them for a better deal. It's negotiation, and it's certainly worth more than the small amount of money the client could save by placing media themselves.
So back to the Ben Franklin method. You've most likely got more reasons FOR than you have AGAINST. In other words, you've concluded that it might not be such a good idea to place your advertising yourself. Is that true all the time? Well, not exactly. If you're a small company and you don't do all that much advertising, it might be a good idea for you to place your own advertising. If it won't take up too much of your time and you're confident in your negotiating ability, then go ahead and start placing ads. Otherwise, you might be better off leaving it to a professional. In that case, again, you want to have a good enough working knowledge of ad placement so that you can evaluate the job your agency is doing. And you definitely want to have a big say in the creative design and writing of your ads.
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