So: your small business is starting to grow, and you are running into the issue of trying to expand further, but organic growth when doing your own marketing isn’t cutting it anymore. You may be at the point where you need to start ramping up your marketing by hiring an advertising agency Austin to assist in your marketing efforts, but how do you choose the best advertising agency for your business? There are a lot of aspects to look at before you should settle on a company to take over your marketing campaigns.

Know What You Need

One of the first things you should do is determine what it is exactly what you need from an advertising agency in Austin so you have a starting metric for choosing an agency that is the best for you. Knowing what you need can determine what agency you choose, especially if you are deciding to branch out into a new platform for advertising that you haven’t used before, or if you plan on modifying your brand identity. If you are hiring an advertising agency, are you just hiring them for a single marketing campaign, or are you looking for a long-term relationship with an agency? Also, do you want your new agency to be the gateway to other clients for you? If you are hiring an agency, you will likely be asking about their past or current clients, so you need to know beforehand how important their client roster is going to be for your decision-making process. You also need to know what the new marketing campaign is for: is it for a new product, or are you just looking to boost sales? All these factors are going to affect who you are going to choose an advertising agency in Austin.

Decide on a Budget

When it comes to advertising, a budget is an absolute must. If you are hiring an advertising agency in Austin, you need to know how much money you are willing to spend on the marketing campaigns. This budget is likely going to be higher than what you had been spending when you were doing advertising for yourself, but you don’t want to overspend; the purpose of hiring an advertising agency is to boost your overall profits. When determining an advertising budget, you need to keep some things in mind. For instance, advertising agencies will either charge by the hour or the job for creative services, and there is often a 15% media commission above the hard costs of production. The 15% media commission is provided to agencies by the media outlets as a gratis for their business; it rarely changes, but the other fees often change based on city and market. When interviewing an advertising agency, they will often give you an estimate of costs based on what you want, and the job length. Be sure to be clear in communicating what you need upfront, and be sure to keep the timeline on schedule so that budget costs do not get out of hand.

Choosing an Advertising Agency

Once you have determined what you need, and the budget you want to be working with, you’ll need to search for advertising agencies that interest you. You can use web searches, or find out who makes ads you like in your area or industry to see if they would be a good fit for your business as well. Once you have a list, you can start sending out feelers in the form of brief letters to the CEO or VP of the agencies you are interested in. You can inquire about their capabilities, state your advertising objectives, get a sample of their work, state your timeline, and request a presentation from them.

Next, you need to look at the attributes of the agencies that come to give you presentations. A few questions you should ask during the presentation include:

• The strengths of their team and creativity;
• Who will be the point of contact;
• How closely you will work with their creative team;
• Their examples of good advertising;
• Can you speak with their other clients?

The presentation is a perfect opportunity to get a real feel for the advertising agency and whether they will work well with your company. Do they listen to you, do they understand the objectives, have they worked in your industry before, are they creative? Choosing the best advertising agency in Austin for your company can be a daunting task, but if you just break it down to knowing what you need, how large a budget you have, and what to look for when initially interacting with an agency, it can be worth it in the end for your business growth.