Business requires marketing and PR activities. Of course, you can develop your own marketing strategy and plan a promotional campaign. But do you know how to do it? You can independently prepare texts for the website, and press releases, and contact journalists before the conference. But do you have time for it?

When you decide to cooperate with a marketing and PR agency, you pay. However, you gain the experience of several, or sometimes a dozen or so, people, their skills, and their time. Then you don’t have to know what the increasingly popular recommendation marketing, word-of-mouth marketing, or social media marketing, which is crucial in every communication, are. However, sometimes you delay starting cooperation with an agency because you have doubts. You don’t know what you will receive in the final phase of the project and you are wondering whether you will overpay:

“100 business cards for 290 PLN?! In an online printing shop, I can print five times as much for this amount.”

“A business photo session for 690 PLN? My friend will do it for half the price.”

“A website for 6,000 PLN?! It’s so simple to make, it can’t cost that much.”*

Do you recognize it? Is that really how much a marketing communications agency wants for its services? How big a budget is needed? Why should you pay so much? Will the graphics be to your taste, will the Facebook profile be managed appropriately? What about your company’s image? These are the basic dilemmas of people using services, not only marketing or PR.

A marketing service is not a product

The thing about services is that they are intangible. This is the fundamental difference that distinguishes a service from a product. A product, according to marketing dictionaries, is an item that has already been produced and is ready for sale, e.g. an umbrella, toothpaste, a mobile phone, or a chair. A service is an activity, the performance of a given job, that one party can offer to another. Apart from being intangible, it does not lead to any ownership (Kotler, 1999).

See also: Brand Book – what is it?

When you go to the hairdresser, you are not sure that the hairstyle you will end up with will be the exact same one you showed the hairdresser on your smartphone earlier. And whether they will advise you a different one if the hairstyle you have chosen turns out not to be suitable for your facial features. However, you’ve looked through their website before, and you saw the cuts and colors they’ve done before. Additionally, you checked the number of stars on their Facebook profile and the opinions left by customers who had previously decided to use their services. You decide to cooperate with a PR agency.

Ask questions, that’s what a marketing agency is for!

We should do the same in the case of PR and marketing. This will reduce our uncertainty when choosing a marketing agency and allow us to see the point of using its services. A website, social media (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn), and individually received presentations are the most common places where we can review the portfolio of completed projects. You can also check the company’s ratings and references. However, the best solution is simply to meet. Thanks to this, you will get to know the team that will work for you and you will gain a full idea of their approach to projects. This is also a great time to openly discuss the costs of individual marketing or PR elements offered by your potential subcontractor. There’s nothing wrong with that – just ask. During the conversation, it may turn out that:

• business cards cost so much because the cost also includes the price of the design. Additionally, appropriately selected paper quality, double-sided printing, and, for example, one finishing option to choose from – embossing, UV varnish, or hot stamping.
• a business photoshoot is not only two hours of work by a photographer who comes to your office or hosts you in a professional photography studio. During the session, they are often accompanied by an assistant and a makeup artist. The cost of the photoshoot also includes post-production, an additional time the photographer spends on retouching and correcting photos. The gross price also depends on the equipment and experience of the photographer.
• the price of the website also includes creative content – copywriting, the full translation into English, and photos.

The marketing agency uses dozens of tools in its work, including Google Analytics.