Presenting 12 compelling reasons to choose a small marketing agency:
1. Agility
It’s pretty easy for us all to picture the large agency—Mad Men or otherwise—at work with the all-too-familiar cogs-in-the-machine analogy. In comparison, the streamlined clockwork of the small agency is comforting in its ability to remind us of how much less red tape is involved in any project. The fewer the people that need to handle a project, the more flexible they are to work with and the more they understand the need for swiftness and accuracy.
2. Business Partners vs. Vendors
The larger an agency, the more accounts they will be handling and the greater the tendency that your project will be siloed into one department or other where it will be completed as a vendor outputs a product for their buyer. Small agencies, on the other hand, offer the opportunity to ally yourself with marketers akin to business partners; they have a much greater stake in seeing you succeed, not to mention the desire to turn out a well-crafted product.
3. Flexibility
The small agency understands the need to adapt. They adapt to survive; they will adapt to your changing needs and offer you the flexibility of knowing who you are working with face-to-face.
4. Machine
Thriving on the drive and desire of the individual, the small agency is not a machine. It ebbs and flows, finds alternatives to the traditional methods of doing business and outputs original products and services unlike the one-size-fits-all quality of a large-scale machine agency.
5. Customer Service
If you aren’t working directly with the top decision-makers or partners in the company, you are working with the people assigned to complete the project and no one else in between. Either way you are on face-to-face terms that engender a higher quality of customer service.
6. More ROI
What to pay? Do you hire the larger agency that offers sometimes less expensive package deals, vendor-like, or do you hire a smaller agency for those customer-service oriented/flexibly inclined/agile qualities? Larger agencies can also be more expensive, and you can get just as much quality for a lower price with a small agency (lower overhead = lower prices). Whatever you decide, just remember that you get what you pay for.
7. Higher Risk Tolerance
A fantastic but edgy campaign could sink a larger agency (remember, less flexibility, higher overhead, the machine!), but a smaller agency? Hello and goodbye boxed tradition. Give yourself the chance to experience creative living.
8. Content Oriented
”The traditional ad agencies are going to lose because creating great, engaging content is emerging as the key skill in marketing. And they don’t have it.” —Kirk Cheyfitz
If the new frontier is engaging content, you don’t want to stick with the now-resented, interruption-advertising method. Small agencies with that higher risk tolerance but quality of thought and product will deliver for the changing market.
9. Technologically Savvy
In order to stay in business the smaller agency must specialize, network and know how to deliver. Technology is the field leveler when it comes to a small agency’s ability to compete with big business. Thus the small agency will be technologically savvy, exploring methods that will put them ahead of the competition.
10. Mediocrity
By electing to work with a small agency you are not going to be fit into a cookie-cutter package, so say goodbye to mediocrity! Enjoy getting attention with your marketing whether it be through shock and awe tactics or engaging content (or maybe both?).
11. Work with the Big Guns
To bring your account in the door, you will probably be wined and dined by the big guns, but will these be the same guns working on your account? The Magic 8 Ball says, “Not sure. Check back later.”
12. Passion
This should really be the number one reason you choose to work with a small agency—the passion of the company leaders should be something you relate with, something that attracts you, something that you trust. Passion is what a small agency is founded on to begin with.
Before you make a commitment to your marketing agency, consider these 12 reasons to choose a smaller agency. Don’t lose sight of what you want when it comes to your marketing goals and objectives.