How to find the best advertising/marketing agency?

[The Fish]

Hi,
I have reached to a point I need to increase sales but I just can't do it myself. I know I have a very good service but I'm just sick and tired promoting it. Probably I don't do it the right way...

So I have decided to have some help from an advertising/marketing agency.

The problem is there are so many agencies and web sites that offering to promote your web site - I just don't know how to choose one.

Can you through me some advises regarding choosing the right agency for my service?
(Our service is an online recording studio - http://DrumsForYou.com)

Thanks!

[Mac 5]

I usually don't self promote on WPW but you asked, if you want a good printing company to print decals, bumper stickers, banners and anything with your website address or logo try the link at the bottom of this post.

[Duncan Pollock]

As you're in a particular market niche, I think your best bet is to browse through the various trade journals and consider the web development and/or hosting companies that your competitors are using.
Sure, selling is selling is selling and all that, but there have to be some people out there who are already making a success of promoting drum recording studios. I'd go looking for them rather than any marketing company that will have much less familiarity with where your kind of customers are and how to find and attract them.
It may also make sense to stay on your own doorstep (i.e. Israel), even though you are possibly serving drummers in numerous parts of the world. My thinking here is that they can personally visit your setup and promote what they see instead of just imagining it.

Duncan

[The Fish]

It will sound like I didn't search enough, but all my competitors use the same advertising as I do. I frequently check their site and the links to their site.

I have 2 major problems:
1) This is a new service. people don't look for it at search engines of seeking directory to find the best drum recording service. (though my site is #1 on drum recordings on google, and I'm using aswords and overture services)
2) 90% of my customers are based in the US. The music industry in Israel is pretty small to grip such businees. And as you said, it's a problem that the client can't personally visit my setup, but hey, that's the idea of a web base recording service.

Trying to folve this problem, we created a feature that allow our client to try it before they pay for it. (no one of our competitors have done yet)

I was thinking that a good US advertising/marketing agency may solve these problems. I just feel like I can't handle the marketing issue myself further then what I do now.

Am I wrong? Should I just try harder myself?

[ctabuk]

The Drums site is down when I tried it, so it's hard for me to give you an 'upbeat' reply (Ouch)but when it is back up and drumming up some bizz (I have an excuse, my hand is hurting) drop in to the marketing forum next week and I'll give you a hand, but not the one in bandages. Cheers David - I suppose we could touch Bass, or get you in a snare, a cymbal of success we hope

www.counciltenantsmortgages.co.uk
The home of the revolving News Desk

[mgillis]

I couldn't agree with Duncan more. As a web-marketer I try to be all things to all people, however I don't have the expertise to service all marekts.

Look at your competitors or sites in the same vein that you admire and that are doing well and try to find out who they are using and follow the leaders.

Keep in mind the idea of Core Competency - you do some things very well and should focus on those. I do other things very well and I focus on them.

Check references very carefully and offer up all of the competitive information and product information that you will have - it will help your marketer immensely (and potentially help shrink your bill!).

Good Luck!

[4imc.com]

I am not sure if you're are talking about ground or OnLine Marketing of your web site. Although many of the previous suggestions are very good, I have taken a few short moments looking at your web site and although looking at it from a readers point of view it is quite pleasing and and seems to be easy to go through.
But! looking at the source of the site "HTML" there are some issues to where it would be very unlikely that it will show in search engines:
No Keywords!, No Site Description!, and I'm not sure if you have submitted it to search engines or directories, but you have spent some money in the past to have the site built and it's going to stay as an anchor without much traffic until these things are fixed. If you need some assistance with these types of things or developing an online marketing program, we could be of help!

[The Fish]

To tell you the truth, I have never tried ground marketing (and I can't do that from the other side of the world:)). I have worked very hard of our online marketing, and that's include banners, search engines and some press about our site.

The problem is that I think that's not enough and I don't know how to make it better.

We are 1st and 2nd place on "Drum Recordings" on google and using adwords as well. But the problem is that nobody search for an online recording studio because they don't know it even exist!

I have explorer so much the behavior of our competitors... I haven't seen any different advertising or a different online marketing. We do offer much more than them and we are mentioning it quite well in our web site.

Do you still think I should do all the marking myself instead of giving it to a professional guy who learn that subject a few years?

[NextWave]

Fascinating business model. Only problem is that now all the prima donna guitar players can find a drummer that might put up with their BS :-)

On finding an advertising agency- for any business- large or small- my first advice to anyone is to learn a little about advertising. I highly recommend the timeless classic by David Ogilvy, Ogilvy on Advertising. I also have a tip sheet, called “Conversational advertising for everyone” on my site.
Once you understand better what advertising can and can’t do- the next thing is deciding if you really need an agency, or can afford one. We have a saying: “Advertising only costs when it doesn’t work”- think about it. If you spend X on advertising and get X to the tenth back in revenue, and profit structure is right, your advertising didn’t cost you a thing and your business is better off for it.
If you can’t handle a huge influx of work from the money you spent on advertising, you will probably be in worse shape than not having any business- since bad word of mouth travels faster than good. If you have no budget consider the book “Marketing without advertising” by Salli Raspberry & Michael Phillips (it’s out of print but worth it).
If you think your model can handle the business- by all means start interviewing agencies. As someone who has been in the business for a while, I can tell you the first question to ask is what else have the people at the agency done for a living and what made them go into advertising?
Why- because this isn’t a business about being cute- or funny- or cool, on someone else’s dime- it’s about selling things, and it’s serious business. I don’t know how many people I’ve met in this business (especially graphic designers) who have no clue about selling something other than their own ideas.
The second question is- what are their passions? If I hate sports, I’m not going to do a good job advertising your professional bicycle pursuit championships, but if I eat, sleep and breath bikes in my limited spare time- I’ll probably go to the ends of the earth to create the greatest ad campaign ever.
The third question is do you like the people at the agency? The working relationship between advertising agencies and their clients is like a marriage. You are allowing the other person to take your name and represent it to the world. With so many marriages in this country ending in divorce, it’s a wonder any ad agency/client relationships have a chance. Most important to this relationship (as in a marriage) is mutual respect and trust.
I’ve been assuming that you are approaching an agency that is the right size for your company all along- although if you are a non-profit, or something really offbeat that can allow an agency a chance to do something really creative and fun- you should always look for an agency that can afford to give you the right amount of attention for your budget.
So- once you’ve made it this far- start looking at methodology. There are agencies that always use the same formula for all their clients- TV, magazine, online, direct mail etc. Sometimes it’s based more on their own profit model/structure than your needs- be careful of that. The best agencies sell creativity- and are “media agnostic,” Crispin Porter Bogusky, the current darlings of the ad world have grown from a small Miami shop to a huge powerhouse by making small clients seem huge, not by spending more, but doing better creative. They started with the “Truth” anti-smoking campaign, moved up a notch with the introduction of the Mini Cooper to the USA and now have Burger King and as of this week VW.
You have to be willing to pay for creativity- not just media. If an agency is using the stupid model of a percentage of your media budget is their take, they will only advise you to spend more on media.
Look to what kind of “Brand voice” the agencies under consideration establish for their clients. Is it consistent, is it clear, is it distinct? Do they use a variety of media to surround the potential customer with your message? Does it evoke emotion? Does it make you want to be a part of the brand? This is what Crispin did so well with the Mini “Let’s motor” campaign. They found a voice for the brand, stuck with it, and spoke to their target market with a confidence that was sexy and smart.
The last part to look at, especially for a business that is dependent on the Internet, is to see if the agency really understands the net. Is it a part of every campaign? Do they insist on working on your site? Is the content updated often? Is it interesting, is it full of key words, is it built to search? If their own site is built in Flash- run. For the most part, Flash doesn’t search well, doesn’t tag well, and is useless for sending links to part of your site. A simple way to tell if a site is built well is to go to google and type in Site:theagencydomainname.com and see how many pages are indexed, how many have titles and descriptive descriptions. If the agency site doesn’t do this- how will yours?
Last but not least, call a few of their clients and ask how long they’ve worked together and how has their business grown.
I hope this helps answer your questions. Of course, I would hope you would consider our agency for your work, but, if not, we have a list of all our local competition on our site so you can do a comparison shop (and so that people looking for their poor sites, find us first :-)

[arrowsearch]

Just a couple of thoughts. You could search out a list of music magazines and place a few classified ads. For the internet advertising you can try http://www.engineseeker.com


I can help you out with some advertising as I run a couple of ppc engines and link directories. Send me an email for more info.

[Duncan Pollock]

Well, for my money, you could do a whole lot worse than take up NextWave's willingness to see what they could do for you.
Their post makes absolute sense to me. They clearly know whereof they speak and they aren't afraid to say they may not be the right people for you. That's honesty that's worth every penny you may end up paying them.
So ask them for their ideas and something in the way of a quote for whatever proposal(s) they send you.
If as you say, your market is primarily US, my suggestion of finding someone local may not be good advice after all.

Duncan

PS. ctabuk's inability to reach your site could be because you inadvertently include a final ) in the URL. I met with a Can't Display message until I realized what was wrong.

[NextWave]

Just one other note to all-
Just by posting on a board like this- helps you get redirects to your site.
If there are musician sites- esp. ones dedicated to recording your own albums- frequent posts about recording drum tracks- will help build awareness of your business.
I realized as I answered the original question- that I should have posted something like that on my blog (our news section) on our site-so I wrote a little more than normal- and then posted it in on our site as well.
Keeping your site fresh is critical.
If you haven't built a blog into your corporate site (or built you whole site active) do it now. We use WordPress- and it works quite well.
We are not the right agency for everyone- but, with my background in music and selling high end hi-fi- we might actually be a good match for http://www.drumsforyou.com

[dawilliams]

The greatest return on investment so far would be to optimize your site.

An earlier reply noted there were no keywords or metatags to speak of and they are absolutely right.

• Sit down with your developer and do some research on the desired keywords.
  Write more relevant copy.
  Optimize your site.

A small investment of time and money in this area will pay huge returns in the long run.

www.DavidWilliams.Biz

[Alli]

By targeting the offline media you can reach 60% of your targeted prospects that you wouldn't attract in the online world. http://www.imediafax.com is a great service for sending out media releases to your target market. It is highly praised by Joe Vitale.

[willthegeek]

We are 1st and 2nd place on "Drum Recordings" on google and using adwords as well. But the problem is that nobody search for an online recording studio because they don't know it even exist!

I have explorer so much the behavior of our competitors... I haven't seen any different advertising or a different online marketing. We do offer much more than them and we are mentioning it quite well in our web site.

You bring up a couple of important points here:

1. You are trying to advertise into an area no one is looking for. To solve this, you may need to approach the problem from an educational point of view. I would suggest publishing articles on your services and other subjects of interest to your target market. Use online publishers and directories for distribution of the articles.

You can also use subject matter that is related but not directly in line with your services to draw interest first.

Use keywords and phrases and jargon related to your business as keywords and use them both on your site and in your articles.


2. Just because your competitors are using a particular approach does not mean that they are successful. They may not be getting any business from their websites either.

Find a unique approach. Try to see through your customer's eyes and see what they want. Then give it to them. Use related items of interest to draw their attention to your services.

And of course, measure your results. You won't know how to get where you are going unless you know where you are.

Hope this helps a bit.

Will

[sherrif]

I am from the UK. I agree about offline media marketing. We find radio very effective, low cost and flexible. We use an agency that creates original articles around the web - search for Vernon Stent & you'll find them - this brings us some decent business.