They say that the shoemaker’s children are always shoeless, and that is certainly true about marketing agencies, who traditionally do a lousy job marketing themselves. The awkward truth is that advertising and marketing agencies are their own worst clients. LA ads president and creative director, Dan Katz, shares what we learned about ourselves, how we did it, what we did about it, and how it has important lessons for anyone who depends on their marketing for sales. Click to watch the video, or read the full transcript below.
The absolutely hardest thing one can do is turn one’s eyeballs inward to see what others see. And let’s be honest, nobody really wants to know what others truly think about them, right?
And yet, for us personally, professionally and as a business, knowing what others think about us gives us powerful, valuable knowledge.
We tell this to our clients all the time, get a real-world picture of your own brand so there’s a solid platform to build a marketing program on. The most valuable tool we bring to our clients is objectivity.
But what do you do if you’re the agency and you have to be objective about yourself? The awkward truth is that advertising and marketing agencies are their own worst clients. They say that the shoemaker’s children are always shoeless, and that is certainly true about marketing agencies, who traditionally do a lousy job marketing themselves. As I said, it’s really hard to turn our own eyeballs inward.
But that’s just what we needed to do for ourselves so we could launch a new 2018 advertising and marketing effort for LA ads.
So we began by contracting with an outside market research firm, someone we work with frequently, to find out what others think about who we are and what we do. Or don’t do, as the case may be. The research firm reached out to a number of people who had some knowledge of us, or perhaps worked with us in the past. And they asked the really tough questions that in some cases we honestly weren’t sure we wanted to know.
So what did we find out? Well, we got good news and we got bad news.
The good news was that nearly everyone was familiar with our brand promise – Dare to be Different – and our key point of difference, that our work was intelligent and highly creative, perhaps the most creative in the business. We also heard from those who had worked with us in the past that they felt we offered sincere, personal attention as well as high-level strategic thinking. All that was great.
But on the negative side, we heard that many weren’t aware of our full scope of services – from web development to video production to social media strategies. All they thought we did was ADS. Well, I guess our own name has a lot to do with that. In addition, many who hadn’t worked with us didn’t see the link between our work and the return on investment, the ROI.
Wow, were we missing the ball on those two counts!
All of this had us rethinking our fundamental messaging and what we really stood for.
The results of which were delivered at our new booth this past April at the ICCFA Convention, and in a new series of print ads which are running now.
My message here isn’t about us, though. It’s about YOU.
Are you certain of how the outside world sees your business, or are you guessing – or worse, flying on a hope. It’s only when you get an honest reality check that you have the tools to move your messaging forward so it can do you the most good.
Ignorance isn’t bliss. It’s a pathway to lost business. What is it you’re not communicating that gives prospective customers the wrong impression? What is your marketing saying that you think is important but that others couldn’t care less about, such as the number of years you’ve been in business or the size of your staff? What could you be doing better, or saying better that strengthens the bond between you and those you do business with? What don’t you know that could be hurting you but helping your competitors?
You won’t find out unless you ask through thoughtful, skillful, truly objective market research. Which is — as it was for us — possibly the best marketing money you could ever spend.
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Dan Katz is president, creative director of LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Dan on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com. You can also connect with Dan on LinkedIn. See agency work via this link.
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