I don't think there is a more ambiguous company description than 'Marketing Agency', but knowing exactly what they mean by that description could determine whether they are the right company for your business. In one way it's understandable because if you recognize all of the facets that fall under the umbrella of marketing, it lends itself to some confusion. Now with the explosion of digital media, social media, PPC, inbound marketing, etc., the description of ‘marketing agency’ is more ambiguous than ever.
It is extremely important to understand the specific services or expertise of a company that uses the term ‘marketing agency’. A business owner needs to understand based on what he/she wants to hire a company to do, what their core skills are, and maybe even what their marketing or advertising prejudices might be. If you're a digital marketing company, you might be very oriented to consider broadcast advertising and other types of advertising as what inbound marketing refers to as ‘interruption media’. On the other hand, if you're dealing with an advertising agency which has morphed or added digital marketing services, they may not have the true expertise in digital marketing that you want. Even worse, they may be applying the advertising agency business model to the digital services they provide, which could mean big markups.
If you're reading this blog, you're probably familiar with the fact that I'm the founder of a marketing company, but unlike a majority of companies that use the term ‘marketing company’ or ‘marketing agency’, we don't sell marketing services. Customer Focused Marketing Group actually develops, directs, and executes marketing strategies for our clients. We maintain the necessary expertise to evaluate media, evaluate vendors, understand our client's key marketing challenges, and execute a marketing program which addresses those. Our fee payment basis ensures that our clients can have confidence in our objectivity because we don't profit from selling services or marking up vendor's work.
Understanding exactly what an individual company means by calling themselves an ‘advertising agency’ or ‘marketing company’ can make a big difference in how well suited they are to help you meet your business goals.
