Profits down - Blame your ad agency
July 30, 2009
IN this economy it’s becoming more and more of a trend to blame your ad agency for virtually every single sales and revenue problem. The problem has always been showed to magnify itself during a recession, but due to the severe nature of this one, the problem has grown into an epidemic.
You seeing a significant drop in sales? It’s because your ad agency is doing a crumby job getting the message out. Having a problem getting people in the door or on the phone? It’s because your ad agency isn’t marketing to the right people. Online sales are showing negative sales? It’s because your agency didn’t optimize your site right… ok .. well maybe the last one is very possible.
However overall blaming your ad agency for the short comings of your sales isn’t exactly fair. Somewhere in October of 2008, life went from a mild recession to the worst economic outlook since the great depression. The markets collapsed, unemployment websites went down under extreme levels of traffic, people started to lose their homes in record numbers.
In all honesty your advertising agency isn’t to blame for those issues. That’s the new reality for the next several months … maybe years.
Blaming your marketing firm for horrific sales isn’t exactly fair nor is it even proper, but it is a growing trend. Reports that advertising agency reviews are up 35% over last year this time is a prime example.
Some CMO’s hire ad agencies to cover their rear during a recession, during a recession generally there is less risk taking. A typical CMO will hire the biggest BDA they can find to present to the higher ups that “I’m doing my job, I went with a big firm”.
Other CMO’s go out and find a smaller agency, and tell the higher ups… “our sales are down, we need a radical change”. These CMO’s however are much fewer in number.
The point is that when things go bad, firms normally blame the firm that can be pawned off as “directly responsible” for the disruption in the sales channel, and generally that falls right in the agency lap.
So how do you fight this? For one you do a better job with less resources, that means spending less money on TV and more online. It means doing more powerful creative. It means utilizing blogging, SEO, SMO and other online tools to help get the word out.
It doesn’t mean spamming the daylights out of forums, it means setting up something that is useful to others and capitalizing on that to increase your overall marketing power.
Simple example, let’s say your client is a car dealer, well setup a virtual test drive… give it a proper domain name… and make a game out of it. Complete with a “race car X vs car Y”
If the game is cool, people will link to it… I for one would love to see a Jeep vs a Ferrari on an offroad course with a first person view from the steering wheel.
The other defense is simple, get the track record of competitors that are traded no Nasdaq or NYSE, and show that they are hurting too…. it proves that the recession isn’t to be blamed on the ad agency.
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