Creative Building a brand doesn’t happen immediate. It takes a lot of work to forge strong relations with people and much of that work is done through marketing and branding. Unless you have a powerhouse internal office team to help you tell your story, it’s likely you’ll need a little support in crafting and executing your branding and marketing strategy. But searching for the right creative agency to help you do that can be confusing. There are all sorts of companies out there, so how do you know whether you should hire a creative company, a digital marketing agency, or an advertising agency?
Here, we’ll break down all you need to know about creative agency: what they are, why they’re changed and how to find the best one for you.
What is a Digital Creative Agency?
A digital creative agency is a term for a company that proposals a variety of services that fall under the umbrella of advertising and marketing. Basically, if you need any type of creative strategy in advertising, work, promotion, they can help you get it done.
While some creative ad agencies specialize in one thing more than additional, they usually provide:
- Business Strategy Services
- Marketing Strategy
- Advertising strategy
- Brand Strategy
- Content Strategy
- Social Media Strategy
2- Competitor Measurement and Analysis
3- Attractive Content Creation
- Annual Reports
- Case Studies
- Blogs and Articles
- Branding
- Copywriting
- Content Planning and Publishing
- Explainer Videos
- Graphic Design
- Infographics
- Presentations
- Motion Graphics (or Animated Video)
- Microcontent
- Photography
- Website Development and Design
4- Communications Services
- Media Buys
- Paid Placement
- Sponsored Content
- Influencer Marketing
- PR
In short, a creative digital marketing agency is a team of specialists who can support your business brand’s strategy. In overall, that includes a combination of the following:
- Art Director
- Creative Director
- Brand and Content Strategists
- Account Directors/Managers
- Producers
- Writers and Editors
- Videographers
- Web Designers and Developers
- Graphic Designers
- Content Distribution Specialists
Depending on its structure, some creative agencies also work with professional partners, such as a video production company.
What’s the Difference Between a Creative Agency and Ads Agencies?
This is a common question. While some agencies may provide services that overlap with a creative company, many agencies effort on one particular category or service.
Overview:
- Design and Print agency: Offers design and print services for a variety of visual mediums, including print and digital.
- Digital Marketing agency: Focuses on digital marketing strategy, particularly SEO and lead generation.
- Creative Advertising agency: Focuses specifically on advertising (digital, TV, radio, print, etc.). It may or may not provide many marketing activities.
- Public Relations Agency: Offers promotional and content distribution services to maximize brand awareness.
- SEO Agency: Focuses on various on-site and search marketing strategies and tactics to increase traffic and lead gen.
- Social Media Company: Focuses in social media strategies and oftentimes, the management of social media platforms.
A creative ads and marketing agency usually includes one or more of these services.
How Can a Creative Company Benefit Your Brand?
There are various services a creative agency provides. Whether you need them to fill in the gaps in your marcom team or take the reigns entirely, your brand can benefit from a creative ad agency help in many ways.
- Fresh perspective: It’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture when you’re immersed in your own brand every day, all day long. A creative ads agency can provide much-needed perspective to guide or improve your marcom strategy, as well as fresh ideas to help you achieve your goals.
- Expert execution: A creative agency is a team of talented specialists who can both craft and execute your Marcom strategies. From developers to designers, copywriters to data visualization experts, they have the knowledge and skills to produce content. Pro tip: You always want to work with a creative ad company with a proven track record.
- Insider knowledge: Sure, you know your brand inside and out, but how well do you know your business and industry? Your top competitors? Top Trends in the market? A creative agency works with a variety of clients across businesses.
- Connections and creator networks: One of the most common motives to seek outside help is because your brand doesn’t have the knowledge, bandwidth, or resources to do the work that needs to be done. In addition to being well-rounded pros, an ad agency has an established system of expert creators. Whether you’re looking for a production company to film your latest video or a developer to code an interactive website, a creative ads agency either has the skills or the skilled referral to get it done.
- Speedy production: Many products struggle to execute their strategies because they don’t have the infrastructure in place to handle production. This is understandable, as different types of content require different knowledge and resources. But an agency is a sophisticated machine accustomed to producing a variety of content, quickly and efficiently. They’re also aware of the common roadblocks, mistakes, or pitfalls that can sabotage production, so they can better navigate through them.
- Quality content: Quality, consistency, and cadence are crucial to a successful content marketing operation. Many brands struggle to meet at least one of these, if not all three. Again, with expertise and a solid infrastructure, a creative agency can produce quality content at a high volume. They’re also invested in doing the best job possible because when you win, they win. Hence, they will work hard to find the best creative for your brand, even if that means disagreeing with you or fighting for an idea they really believe in.
- Another bonus? They can also be your scapegoat. This one may sound a little harsh, but we’re well aware of the way marketing works. Nobody wants to claim failure, but if you absolutely need to, you can always outsource blame. Of course, a good ad agency will work to avoid failure at all costs.
Even better, you can often find full service digital creative agencies that specialize in your particular industry or offering. This provides even extra benefits to your brand, as they have expert insight and can provide the right recommendations for your exclusive needs.
How Do You Know If You Need One?
Not every brand needs a creative agency, particularly if you have a solid operation or an in-house expert team that is capable of executing your trend marketing strategy. However, you might consider using a creative agency if you don’t have the following:
Resources: Some brands find it difficult to execute their strategy due to limited means, accessibility, or availability. A creative agency can help support your strategy with the infrastructure you need.
Knowledge: A creative company is operated by expert creators who have the skills and proficiency to create all types of content-and, most highly, adhere to best performs.
Bandwidth: Your team may be bogged down with other projects, meaning your creative marketing projects are delayed or backburned indefinitely. A creative company can help you create consistent, quality content at scale.
Results: If your current marcom and creative strategy isn’t delivering the results you want, a creative company can advise you on how to weak, improve, or revise your strategy.
How Do You Find a best Creative Agency?
Having worked with Two hundreds of brands over the last decade, we know what roadblocks and hiccups can befall a brand on the hunt for a good ads agency. Here’s how to ensure the road to the right partner is as smooth as possible.
Know what you’re trying to achieve. You don’t have to know exactly what creative idea you want brought to life (that’s often why you’re seeking a creative agency in the first place), but you do need to know your goals before you hire one. The clearer your objectives, the easier it will be for your ad agency to find the creative resolution. Of course, if you’re soliciting an agency to guide your strategy because you’re not sure what to do, that’s OK.
Look for someone in your industry. There are a lot of creative marketing agencies out there, which is why finding one can be intimidating. Luckily, there are also agencies that specialize in particular industries, such as B2B tech. Otherwise, Google around.
Look for demonstrated results. Any Creative ad agency worth their salt will have a strong portfolio of not just work but case studies that showcase their results. As you review their work (and client business list), you’ll get a sense of their style, skill, and creative approach.
Find out if they share their expertise. A good agency is invested in elevating their industry. Thus, they should demonstrate their expertise in other ways, such as blogs, articles, books, contributor ships, or features in industry publications. This inclination to share their expertise – and be an active participant in their field – is always a good indicator that they are familiar and confident in their work.
Look at their own content. Review their site and social presence to get a sense of their personality, who their team is, what their values are.
No matter how good someone’s work is in their portfolio, one of the biggest factors that will influence your success is how well you work together. So, take the time to research and talk to potential candidates. You might be in love with one’s illustration style but not jive with their creative approach.
We recommend interviewing at least 5 companies and crafting your questions in advance. This isn’t about conducting a prim and proper interview. It can be casual and exploratory, but you want a framework to guide your conversation and help you get the info you need. A few good questions to ask:
- Do you have the bandwidth to take on my project? This is pretty much the first question to ask since everything revolves around timeline. If they do have availability, you should also ask about the projected timeline for projects similar to yours.
- How much experience do you have in my business? Whether or not they specialize in your field, it’s good to get a sense of their knowledge base.
- Who will I be working with? There are a lot of moving parts involved in marketing – and just as many stakeholders. From strategy to content creation, you will have a lot of people doing a lot of different things.
- What does your creative process look like? All creative agency is unique, but they should all have a traditional process to get things done on time. (We use Agency Agile-inspired processes.) Ask your ad agency to walk you through their process in detail.
- How much work is produced by your staff vs. outsourced? In the agency world, it isn’t uncommon to work with contracted creative partners, such as a video production house or composer. (Again, one of the benefits of an agency is that they have a network of reliable pros at the ready.) However, you’ll want to know who your creative team might be.
- Can you provide itemized pricing? Transparency is important here, as scope creep can be a huge problem.
Note: Make sure they’re interviewing you too. You want to cultivate a positive relationship, so your agency should be interested, engaged, and asking you questions as well.
Throughout the process, go with your gut. You want to work with a marcom agency that is friendly, responsive, and eager to build a good-term affiliation with you. If you aren’t feeling those vibes from the jump, look for one that does make you feel that way.
What to Do Once You Find the Right Partner
A good relationship is a true partnership, which means you’re both responsible for showing up and doing your part. Luckily, there are a few things you can do to start off on the right foot:
- Decide how you’ll split the workload upfront.
- Follow these instructions to build a strong relationship with your advertising and creative agency from the jump.
- Try these tactics to work together more effectively.
And if you’re curious to learn more about how we work, see our FAQs or hit us up. We’re always happy to talk shop.