From branding to advertising, public relations to digital development, marketing is an essential component of any company’s success strategy. Some companies try to do everything in-house, hiring a small team of designers and marketers. Others prefer to put their marketing in the hands of experts and seek the services of professional agencies. Either way, it can be hard in this age of diverse media to cover all bases. The ultimate question is, how can you choose the right marketing agency for your needs?
Much Ado About Marketing
With the advancement of digital design software and platforms, it has become relatively easy for industry newcomers to create professional-looking websites and promote themselves as leaders in the marketing field. This low barrier to entry has allowed the marketing industry to become flooded with self-proclaimed experts and incompetent agencies who have little to offer to their clients aside from nicely packaged hot air.
Because marketers are accustomed to projecting confidence and speaking highly of themselves, it can be difficult for clients to scratch the surface of that façade and find the agencies that actually have the skills to deliver what they promise. Many agencies tend to be—naturally—biased towards their own services. This means that they may promote a service that they offer instead of recommending a service that they do not, even if that service may be better suited to their client’s needs.
Another issue with less reputable agencies is that some of them operate like shell agencies. They convince clients to sign on with them based on the purported expertise of their team members, but, in reality, outsource their work to a myriad of providers, local or overseas. Although outsourcing is not a problem per se, wholesale outsourcing of services can result in poor communication, inconsistency, lack of accountability, and eventually less than ideal campaign results.
Bombarded by sales jargon and empty guarantees, entrepreneurs and SMEs with little resources to spare have become understandably leery of marketing agencies. This not only presents a problem for brands, but also for bona fide marketing agencies who have genuine skills to contribute. Thus, The Agency Guide (TAG) was created to sift out the riffraff in the marketing industry and to bridge the gap between brands and agencies.
The Expert on Experts
John Bertino, CEO and founder of TAG, started working as a marketer in a digital agency and later became a vendor to marketing agencies. Through his immersion in the industry, he witnessed firsthand the hard sell and oversell of many agency salespeople, who were more concerned about pushing a product than fulfilling the needs of the client. Dissatisfied with the lack of reliability in the industry, Bertino started building TAG as a way to link brands up with quality agencies.
According to Bertino, “It’s all about consultative selling, and you can’t be a consultant if you don’t listen.” This is why listening is the first step in TAG’s consultation process. By offering a free consultation rooted in objectivity and experience, the team of experts at TAG seek to truly get to know their clients and have a full view of their goals, challenges, resources, and market dynamics.
After understanding these factors, TAG’s team of seasoned marketers then recommends the best pathways for their clients to improve their marketing. Each member of TAG’s team boasts a minimum of ten years of experience in the industry. Their function is to objectively advise brands on where to invest their marketing resources, how to choose the channels that work for their brand, and which agencies to work with to realize their vision.
This brings us to the other half of TAG’s winning approach: its portfolio of over 200 hand-picked agencies and consultants. TAG only recommends the very best of marketing agencies, evaluating and vetting them thoroughly before recommending them to any clients. As TAG is not a marketing agency itself, it is not beholden to selling a particular product or service. Thus, it can be solely concerned with addressing the needs of its clients.
TAG matches brands with agencies on numerous levels, from budget to personality, and industry to location. The company even looks at the internal resources of its clients. For example, certain brands may already have in-house designers or marketers implementing a portion of their marketing strategy. In such cases, TAG tries to come up with solutions that complement what is already being done well by the in-house team.
As per the words of CEO John Bertino, “We look to match the right brand’s need or situation to the ideal marketing partner.” And The Agency Guide is doing just that. The company has become so good at what it does that it has helped hundreds of prominent businesses and has been featured in many prestigious business publications. They consult on a variety of areas including branding and creative, search engine optimization, digital PR, digital marketing, advertising, and web development.
The marketing industry can be cluttered and confusing. Bypass the noise and the flashing signs and head straight for the experts who can point you to the experts that you need. The Agency Guide can help brands to find and hire marketing agencies that produce real results, and that is not just hot air.