Advertising agency, Inhouse, or freelance contractor?

The heart of this question posed by Brian Regienczuk in Linkledin, speaks to tools, ability, and management when it comes to jobbing out creative services. We are perhaps not too different from our advertising agency clients when it comes to resource allocation. As a small business we know what it means to be agile in augmenting our internal resources with reliable contract help.

However, big difference: our clients are typically not immersed in the advertising industry - with expertise to properly select, manage, and take full responsibility for a complete marketing project of which creative is but a single component. Art, design, illustration, videography and copy writing is highly subjective. Unless a company has a really well-rounded art director on staff, this is probably outside most managers' scope of work - regardless of who they know that does any one discipline either on staff or works outside as a freelancer.

Our agency lives in the B to B world where many smaller accounts understandably feel like they have to do everything themselves. But how much more marketing value could a client receive if a well rounded, empathetic, B to B advertising agency were brought into the picture?

I would say to companies who are actually at the point of realizing they need creative help: make an effort to find an advertising agency, and be prepared to form a real partnership. Raise your sights to find a group with whom you feel comfortable sharing challenges, not just an order taker.

Who knows? In the best possible outcome the company gains a fresh resource to serve as their de facto marketing department. Save overhead while getting (on demand!) new market communications ideas professionally-created and designed to boost sales. Visit http://www.ejwassoc.com/what-we-do/creative/

Call it Content or PR, it's customer engagement

Editorial is a marketer's most cost-effective tool for enhancing sales without burdening sales resources. 

Whether you do them, or hire an agency like ours, use articles, press releases, blog posts, industry newsletters to 

• Boost customer engagement frequency. 
• Enhance customer loyalty. 
• Penetrate key accounts to target new buying influences. 
• Prime both new & add-on sales.

Few organizations can afford to be in direct contact with all customers, all of the time - much less keep track of the ever-changing customer landscape of buying influences on a timely basis. Yet, without a regular public relations program that might include advertising, social, or content marketing, a company gambles on who has what information during a purchasing cycle.

EJW marketing PR services augment essential sales support obligations, helping clients multiply the efforts of a sales team.  Content with the right value proposition can penetrate old accounts, in addition to identifying new prospects and decision makers. Content can engage customers in between sales calls with your story the way it should be told.

A schedule for release of your company and product news, industry overviews, application information can be planned in advance, with content created as needed.

Press releases, articles, social media, white papers, videos, broadcast spots, websites and website blogs are major outlets for marketing PR. Some PR content can be quickly created and distributed to coincide with marketing pushes. In depth, article-weight content requires an appropriate measure of research and production. Our B to B pros can create it all for you, working with you to define content goals, media mix and final form.

On a project or contract arrangement, the public relations services we perform result in EJW clients establishing an ongoing dialog with their customers - raising awareness, adding to their knowledge, enabling informed buying decisions, and creating sales leads when your sales channel is not on duty 24/7/365.

Adapted from http://www.ejwassoc.com/press-releases.php