Let the ad agency help; they know what they are doing.

We recently were confronted with a potential client who wanted to do "email marketing"; with their potential clients, "businesses with multiple computers that need networking and IT assistance". This company provided IT and networking services to small and mid size companies.

During our meeting, they told us what 'they' wanted to do. Now this is one of those touchy areas, this is a possible client and agencies don't want to lose business because the client has a specific direction. What the IT company wanted was to perform only a direct email campaign.

Now this sounds good, a possible client has a specific mission and is willing to pay for a direct email campaign to 10,000 small and mid size businesses. But let's look at this closer.

An IT & Networking company that specifically focuses on repairing networks and computers and keeping them healthy; you can liken them to a doctor. Most businesses do not want use them, unless they have to. Most businesses will only call them, unless they are unhappy with their current IT people or company, or something breaks. But what about email campaigns.

First, any quality advertising and communication will not hurt. But if the possible client receives an email only that talks about how they can keep their networks healthy; this may not be the most effective campaign. By the time their system goes down, perhaps they cannot retrieve the email, and the marketing was a bust. IT & Networking is not pizza; what I mean is that it is not an "impulse, knee jerk, buy". People switch or hire an IT person because they have had previous issues and their other IT person did not meet their expectations, or they have not had any issues as of yet.

So, what was our response? Our solution was to run direct mail campaign at least two people in the office. One was the Decision Maker (owner, manager, etc.) the other was the Influencer (receptionist, assistant). Typically, when a network or computer system is going down or slow, let's say at a doctors clinic, the doctors themselves usually don't flip through the yellow pages, they ask their assistants to look into the matter for them and find someone. These owners and directors are not worrying about this stuff; they just want someone to repair it and do it immediately.

The direct mail campaign could be something that offered a promise or guarantee. "Service today or you don't pay." "99% uptime guaranteed" Providing these incentives, for a company who just lost their network will undoubtedly produce a phone call to the company. "Service today or you don't pay" simply would mean that if the company could not get out to perform the services for the company on that specific day, they would not charge the trip charge fee. Something to this effect, but the idea is that a direct mail piece for an IT company would last longer than an email campaign.

Now all of that said, are we saying that an ad agency can never be wrong? Of course not. Attorneys, bankers, and even physicians can all be wrong and some with detrimental consequences. But, when we hear of these professionals make mistakes, we don't do away with all attorneys, we hire a new one. Same goes with ad agencies. Most of these professionals have marketing degrees and years of business and professional experience under their belt. Many have worked with top agencies and have learned their "tricks", they read, eat and breathe this stuff. So, they know what they are doing; and a good company will give you honest feedback. Now we agree that companies usually know their industry; they watch their competitors, they survey their customers, but this does not mean they should handle their own advertising, the creative, and most importantly, the strategy. A good advertising agency and strategy studio asks the questions and thinks outside your company; often how your potential client thinks, and this is what most businesses desperately need.

One of the things we love about being in the advertising business, is the cross-pollination of ideas gained from working across a variety of industries. Every industry is unique, but they all share common characteristics. Often what we learn serving a client in one industry triggers a fresh idea for a client in another. Bring your ideas to the table, but be ready to listen to others as well.

In regards to this particular company, sure we could have taken the monies and sent out emails, but our personal philosophy is that clients come to us with specific results, and that's usually in terms of more business. For this specific client, we felt that this was not the best use of the clients time and money and would not produce them the "more business" they were seeking. It's not always in your best interest to hire an agency to simply take orders.

So, let the experienced agency help; they know what they are doing.