GoFaxer Blog

All of this week I’ve been discussing advice given by Steve McKee in his article at Businessweek.com on working with ad agencies.

Advertising campaigns, if they’re good, are also risky and might not seem that great at first sight. If someone had told me that the gecko ad for Geico was going to be a brand building success, I would have told them they were crazy. What does a gecko have to do with an insurance company, aside from the fact that people might easily mistake the words.

So when you launch your new idea, McKee counsels that you must really champion the idea and hold your ground on it. Even when “someone in your organization who doesn’t understand the context or objectives catches a glimpse of it and says, ‘I don’t get it.’”

You and your agency have done your homework. You believe it’s going to work for some very smart reasons. So stick with it. Stand by it. Stay firm.

I hope that all of these points of advice from Mr. McKee this week are of help to you and your small business. Check back in next week where we’ll be talking more about email fax and how it can be a vital aspect of your small business’s success.

Next week we’ll talk some more about email fax and all of it’s benefits to small businesses. But this week we’re talking about a great article by Steve McKee on working with ad agencies.

It took several seasons before viewers to realize that they loved “Seinfeld.” Now it’s the biggest sitcom in history. The Herman Miller Aeron chair tested extremely poor in all of the test market analysis. Now it’s the biggest success in office chair history. In his article, McKee mentions the Ford Taurus. At first glance it seemed like an ugly car. But it became the biggest selling car in America.

McKee’s advice is to reserve judgment when we don’t like something that our ad agency presents to us. It might not be that it’s bad. It might just be that it’s different. In the ad world, difference is the key to differentiating a brand. So an ad campaign that might seem a tad odd might just be the ticket you can ride to super-sales success.

McKee advises:

“Sleep on the idea and try to look at it from a different angle. Keep in mind that creative, intelligent people who have your best interests at heart believe it’s going to work. Let them help you see it through their eyes. You can always say no tomorrow.”

Next week I’ll be back on the topic of email fax, but this week I want to share some good advice to small business owners on working with ad agencies. My source of inspiration is a wonderful article by Steve McKee at Businessweek.com.

I have extensive experience working with small businesses and marketing. Cash is limited in a small business, and small business owners don’t like taking risks. But when these owners tell me they can’t afford to take a risk I tell them, “You can’t afford not to take a risk.”

Most small businesses fail. That’s just a pragmatic reality. So if you want to beat the odds you’ve got to take risks.

Ad agencies tend to push their clients to try new and interesting things that are out of their comfort zone. This can cause a adversarial relationship between the agency and the clients.

As your working with your agency, remember McKee’s advice:

“Good agencies aren’t reckless. They have a sense of what risks are appropriate and how to mitigate them. But they can only do it for clients who value the benefits of a little calculated risk-taking.”

Make good strategic decisions and the risks will be mitigated.  You’ll see the pay-off for taking the chance on new ideas.

Because I know that many of our readers are small business owners and need good advice on all aspects of their business, I won’t be discussing email fax this week. I’m focusing on the subject of working with ad agencies. This subject is outlined in Steve McKee’s excellent article at Businessweek.com.

Unfortunately, too many companies hire an ad agency to do work for them, but they expect them to do their best work without any attention. Remember, you’ve hired this business to represent your company in the media. Their success is your success. So don’t ignore them.

I know that running your business is time consuming and stressful. When you hire another company to do work for you, you hope that this will alleviate some of that workload, worry, and attention. But hiring another company doesn’t disconnect you completely from making that element of the business work.

It’s like the manager who hires an employee and thinks they don’t have to train them and bring them into the company culture.

McKee says:

“Be open and honest with your agency, communicating your needs and goals clearly. Make time for the agency, answer all of its questions, and allow it to immerse itself in your business.”

It might seem like a waste of time to work with a company that you hired to save you time, but the investment on your part will be worth it. The longer the relationship goes, the less time it will take for them to meet your desires.

Rather than talking about email fax this week, I want to spend some time chatting about advertising for your small business. Most small businesses can’t afford to do their own advertising in-house. Nor do they have the experience to do it well. So they feel a need to hire an ad agency. But it can be hard working with a company that isn’t part of their company culture. Conflicts can abound.

I read an article at Businessweek.com by Steve McKee that outlined some good advice on how to keep this relationship strong over the long term. McKee emphasizes creating a relationship of trust with your agency. You want to really bring them into your company. The more ingrained they are with your company the better of a job they’ll be able to do for you. He says:

“To do great work, an advertising agency must be informed. It must know everything it can about a client’s business, from sales and margins to strategies and plans. It’s important to treat an agency as a strategic partner—an extension of your marketing department—and not just a vendor. This includes sharing results—nothing is more demoralizing than working hard on a project and not knowing how it turns out.”

When your ad agency reps come to visit your company, treat them like they’re part of your company. Invite them to company lunches and yearly strategy meetings. Make them feel at home, and they’ll communicate your business effectively to the rest of the world.