Today, there are a large number of young entrepreneurs starting successful business ventures. While they all have the confidence to start, they often lack advertising sense. Though it’s easy to think that business people have inherent ‘marketing expertise’, the truth is that they are far from it.

Have you ever been in a situation where understanding the nuances of paid media has been beyond your control? Well, just like you would go to a hairdresser to get a haircut or a tailor to stitch a new outfit, you need to approach an advertising agency or media-buying agency if you would like to get your message in front of your intended audience.

We’ve seen a lot of business owners reluctant to hire an advertising agency because they feel like when they do it themselves, they can save marginal costs. While this may make sense on paper, there are a lot of indirect costs and inefficiencies that ensue.

Thus, if you’re in a quandary whether to hire an ad agency or go direct, we have you covered with the answer.

Advantages of Hiring an Ad Agency vs Going Direct

• Lower Media Rates: Advertising agencies partner with media-buying agencies often as they have to buy media space for their clients regularly. This can help your company as you benefit from lower media rates. When you approach a media house directly, they quote you receive from them will be higher because for them you are an individual client who will not buy media in bulk.
• Point of contact: As a business owner, you have a lot of things to do. Imagine, you’re in a meeting and a media sales rep is constantly bombarding you with deals. Also, these calls don’t stop at one. If you approach media houses directly, you may have to deal with such calls every day. When you hire an agency, they are the buffer between your brand and the media sales rep.
• Enhanced experience: Though you may be the ‘jack of all trades’, you cannot match the experience marketing executives all. When you partner with an ad agency, you get to leverage on multiple talent and specialists. Since they understand the nitty-gritties of the field, they’re more likely to guide you better. This also helps in better positioning of your ad.
• Saved time: When you run a business, time is money. Promoting your company on your own requires months of planning which takes up considerable time. This results in lesser time spent on building your brand and lead generation. An ad agency saves you from any such situation. Since they have dedicated teams for every niche of marketing, you can be sure of the outcome. You can use this time saved on expanding and growing your business.
• Better marketing strategy: When you approach a media-buying agency directly, you’re prone to fall into their pressure trap. Irrespective of whether a product is good for your business or not, they are under the pressure to sell. This may result in you making a bad choice for your company. On the other hand, an ad agency is more objective when choosing marketing techniques. They will only recommend what is good for you after gaining a thorough understanding of your target group and objective.

Bottomline: The benefits of hiring an ad agency outweigh the disadvantages of going direct.