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Let’s Give it to the Agency

February 24, 2010

It’s important to seek out and utilize resources that have more experience in a particular field than you do. But what happens when their expertise is…well, wrong?

Yesterday, I was on a consulting webinar call with one of our Business Self-Defense Gold Coaching members. He had sent in some of the various marketing pieces he was working on so I could make some suggestions that would help improve their effectiveness and response.

While we were both viewing one of the samples on our respective screens, I pointed to an entire section at the bottom of the page where there were logos of the various organizations and associations his company belonged to.

I suggested that these were not necessary, since they added nothing to the message that would encourage the desired response from the reader.

I heard laughter on the other end of the call, followed by, “Yeah, I didn’t even put them there. I had someone helping out with the design, and he actually tracked down the logos and added to the page without checking with me first.”

The person helping him was, by all accounts, a “design professional,” trained to produce attractive, pleasing ads. Here’s the problem: nowhere in that description did I use the words, “Trained to produce ads that will get people to jump out of their seats, visit a web site to request information; pick up the phone to call; or pull out their credit cards to buy something.”

Oh, the ad looked nice, but the logos and several other “design elements” took up valuable space that could have been much better utilized with testimonials, descriptions of value, and calls to action.

Unfortunately, most staffers at ad agencies are nothing more than artists pretending to be business people. Who do you want handling your marketing materials? Make sure anyone you entrust with even the smallest piece of your budget can deliver tangible, measurable results.


Written by Ron · Filed Under Business Self-Defense™ Tactics, Leadership, Mindset 

Comments

One Response to “Let’s Give it to the Agency”

  1. Judith Ramsey on February 24th, 2010 8:12 pm

    First, thank you for the opportuniity to respond. Your communications skills are both professional and courteous.
    My employer is the American Boat & Yacht Council, ABYC. ABYC develops safety standards for the marine industry. We encourage participants in the marine industry to look for the ABYC logo on surveyors, manufacturers, repairers and other professionals’ web sites, showrooms, advertising materials, business cards, etc. The point of this exercise is to identify businesses that use the ABYC Standards and, therefore, operate to a safer standard. Our mission is boating safety and this is one way a customer can locate a quality provider.
    An organization such ABYC has limited means and cannot reach every boater but the public can look out for themselves by looking for our logo.
    I believe this is a totally different scenario from listing membership in other, perhaps more social, organizations. Thanks for reading my thoughts! Judith

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