Marketing concepts and applications

Marketing firm should enlist the assistance of an advertising firm once the other key marketing tasks have been completed. The role of the agency is to present your company and products in the best possible light to the public. Therefore the firm should already have formulated a business strategy, and from that strategy identifying key opportunities for their products or services. An analysis of potential target markets should have been conducted, with primary and secondary target markets identified. The media by which these markets can be reached should have also been examined. This will assist in the process of selecting an advertising firm.

Additionally, the company needs to have their distribution channels identified and deals made. Essentially, the firm should be ready to take the product to market before selecting an advertising firm. The ad campaign, after all, will only be effective if the company can clearly communicate to the advertising firm the product, the market, how they expect that market to be reached, and where the consumers can make a purchase.

There should be specific targets in terms of sales, market penetration, profit and other key issues. All of these will ultimately be communicated to the agency explicitly, as this will help them devise the best possible campaign.

Some of the important criteria to consider when selecting an advertising firm are its capabilities, its ability to work as a partner with the firm, and the strength of its creative. Agency presentations are a great way to evaluate the latter, since they often focus on that aspect. However, a more strategic approach can be taken to evaluate the agency's strength on other issues. For example, it may be worthwhile to test an agency's depth. While presentations are often put together by experienced staff, much of the work once the account is secured may be done by less experienced staff.

The ability of the agency to work as a partner is also critical. The firm should measure the agency's ability to ask the right questions - to gain for itself sufficient understanding of the firm's goals and targets with the advertising program. Even though the firm has its own ideas about strategies, the agency should be able to demonstrate that they are able to contribute to these as well, thus showing they have sufficient expertise to make a genuinely valuable contribution to the program.

If the firm is entering a new overseas market, finding an advertising partner with local knowledge, and who can apply that local knowledge specifically to the firm's product or service is critical. No matter how much research is done prior to entering the foreign market, the firm may have made errors in their analysis due to certain biases that can only be corrected by someone with local marketing knowledge.

It is critical for the advertising agency to understand your company's market strategy because ultimately the job of the agency is to translate that strategy into results. No matter how wonderful the creative is, if it is not focused towards the right strategy and the right targets, the company's objectives will not be met.