Advertisers trust advertising agencies with their marketing strategies to achieve their sales targets. How these agencies work …
Although the world of marketing arouses much interest and curiosity in large numbers of people, few know how an advertising agency works. These companies behave as natural allies of advertisers, who trust them with their marketing strategies to achieve the established sales objectives.
The marketing department of the advertising company is in charge of relations with the agency, which, depending on the complexity of the business, may have different structures. If we are talking about a large company, it is usual for it to have a structure made up of different product managers and a marketing manager. If the business is small, the owner itself may be in charge of advertising.
Either way, the person in charge of marketing is vital to the business, and the company’s livelihood will depend on their decisions. Although the sellers are the ones that ultimately close the business transaction, the entire design of the strategy comes from the communion between the advertiser’s marketing department and the advertising agency.
Once the objectives are defined, the agency’s work begins, which, through different strategic actions, such as defining the target audience, designing a content plan, sending emails or publishing press releases, has the task of achieving them.
Structure of advertising agencies
There are large, medium and small advertising agencies i.e agentur picasso, as well as generalist and specialized agencies in particular sectors.
Large or medium-sized agencies usually have the capacity to support the client in all areas of action, because they have specialized experts for different purposes, but small ones guarantee more personalized attention. The important thing is that a relationship of mutual trust be established that brings benefits to both parties.
Advertising agencies, in addition to their manager and a financial and administrative structure, are usually divided into the following departments:
Commercial
It is often said that the people who work in this department are the voice of the client within the agency. Its primary role is to attend to any client request, negotiate proposals for action and prices, and distribute the work in the agency.
Although the sales representative is the main contact for the client, it is proven that the results improve when the meetings are attended by representatives of all the departments involved.
Creative
In this department all the people who are in charge of preparing the campaigns for all the media work: television, radio, print, etc., for which they have editors and graphic designers.
Over the years, agencies have been dedicating more and more resources to the production of campaigns on different platforms and online channels to sell on the internet , with editors and graphic designers specialized in digital marketing.
Investigation
To design the strategy, the first thing to do is a market study that provides data from the public, their interests and their purchase intention. Some advertising agencies offer this service, but there are also companies specialized in this type of research.
The objective is to collect information from potential customers and detect their needs for the creation and optimization of campaigns and marketing actions. This is achieved by interviewing groups of similar predefined characteristics and detecting what in advertising is called ” insight “, which translates as bringing out what is hidden in the consumer’s mind about a product or service.
Media
Media planning consists of studying, selecting, contacting and negotiating the means to be used to carry the marketing message to customers, and it is of vital importance in the overall conception of any campaign.
The trend in recent years has been to eliminate the media departments of the agencies, and outsource these services to external media companies, such as Publiplanner , who mediate between them and the agency. The advantage of leaving media planning in the hands of this type of companies is that they have a long catalog of supports with which they work regularly, which gives them extensive knowledge of each of their advertising formats and their public, and allows them to negotiate significantly lower prices due to the volume of contracts.
A good media planner must know a lot about marketing, apart from knowing very well what each medium contributes, both qualitatively and quantitatively, whether it is the mass media or specialized media.
Good media strategies are closely linked to the marketing objective, and the planner, to a large extent, determines which media and channels are going to be used, so it also participates in defining the creative pieces that are going to be used. to elaborate.
The ultimate goal: effectiveness and efficiency
The entire team of the agency has a supreme mission, which is to achieve the objective of the sales projected by the client within the designated budget. Finding a powerful “ insight ” and translating the idea into a memorable creative campaign, will make any communication need less exposure because its memory will be very strong.
But, given that the largest percentage of the client’s advertising budget is spent on the purchase of advertising space, the role of the media planner is relevant to ensure that the campaign is effective (the objective is achieved) and efficient (at the lowest possible cost). ).
One of the fundamental principles is knowing how to determine the necessary scope, which translates into defining how many people should be contacted. For example, it is not the same that the client intends to sell 100 million units to 10 million.
The first objective obviously requires greater weight in mass media, and the second can probably be achieved through minimal weight in a traditional medium, an important activity in specialized media, the use of social networks and the sending of emails. segmented with tools like Mailrelay.
An advertising agency that has experience and professional level contributes significantly to achieving the objectives set.
