Why do some business-owners have reservations about hiring a branding agency?
The biggest one is cost. Other factors include lack of education of what a branding agency does and how it can help your business grow. Branding is one of the most important investments you can make and often, the most overlooked. Hiring a branding agency can end up cutting costs in the long run by creating a strong brand and consistent narrative in the marketplace.
Some bigger companies have the money to hire a Marketing Director, Brand Manager or a whole internal marketing team. And often, companies of this nature will wonder why they need an agency at all if they’ve already got internal help. Well, even if you’ve got someone on staff full-time, chances are that person is going to need some guidance and additional resources to operationalize the brand internally, uncover pain points at the leadership level, unify the brand across touchpoints and ultimately see your business from the customer’s point of view.
Here’s a few reasons you should consider partnering with a branding agency:
Big Picture
Creating a comprehensive brand that is consistent and tells a compelling story is a skill that requires some serious know-how and ability to both see the vision and execute on that vision. A great branding agency knows the intricacies of taking a brand from concept to completion and also has experience working with various companies at different stages in their business lifecycle. The ability for an agency to see the big picture of your organization and help you bring your brand to life is critical and extremely valuable.
Creativity
When you hire an agency, you get the benefit of having a bunch of strategic and creative minds collaborating on your projects. Agencies often have strategists, writers, designers, illustrators, and other talent in house, which inherently cultivates exciting and compelling ideas.
Consistency
Many organizations that hire Motto are often organizations that lack consistency in their branding efforts and often have disparate pieces of their brand working against them. A great branding agency knows that consistency–from your name, strategy, position, message, tone of voice, personality, website, social media—is vital to your success.
Putting Your Money To Good Use
If you’re a small business, it’s likely that you don’t have an enormous branding budget. If you’re a larger organization, you might have more money to put towards a branding effort. Either way, how do you make the most of your dollar? A great branding agency can help you prioritize what you need in the order in which you need it to make the most impact. Many companies come to Motto with a pre-conceived notion about the services they need and we come to find out through initial conversations that the money would be better spent in a different area. For example, we’re working with a client now that came to Motto for a visual identity and we learned that what they really needed to invest that money in research and strategy first, to then help inform their visual identity.
On-Going Brand Management
Once you have worked with a branding agency, it’s important to find a branding partner who can help you with the brand over time. As a brand is re-introduced, launched or goes through a refresh, and then begins to scale, it’s important to ensure the brand does not become diluted. Your company will have on-going needs and new ideas will arise such as launching a new product, creating a video, motion, animation, photography. A great branding agency can orchestrate and lead the creation of those deliverables because the agency already knows your brand intimately and can effectively deliver on the vision for the brand. And when your agency is managing your brand, you can focus on what you do best: Running your business.
Cross-Industry Knowledge
Internal departments only learn from their own mistakes. Many agencies work across diverse industries. And often, the knowledge gained from doing work in one industry can be beneficial to another. You become a more knowledgeable client just by having an agency around.
