Almost any type of business activity needs to be promoted, advertising allows not only to increase the percentage of products sold or the demand for services, but often it generally serves as the basis for the successful work of a businessman. In some areas, its use is limited to the simplest methods only at the start of a business (so that the client simply learns about goods or services), in others, without advertising support, business is impossible in principle.
Not every company allows itself to have its own advertising department, and even large prosperous enterprises are forced to turn to specialized advertising agencies, because they employ creative people with a rich imagination and an original mindset, keeping an advertising department means having an organization in an organization. Today, the field of advertising, with which PR is closely intertwined, is a large area of human activity, and some of its products can already be called works of art to some extent.
Advertising is a part of marketing, which is a tool for researching consumers, market conditions, as well as for conveying the necessary information to people, studying ways to enter the market, countering competitors and other similar activities. Advertising specializes in three components: conveying information, stimulating interest, and maintaining the level of fame received with consideration of the prospects for increasing it. It tries to directly identify the audience that will consume, in order to further focus primarily on the target group (the second part of advertising aimed at a specific consumer – BTL). Its variants are diverse, the townsfolk consider advertising annoying and brainwashing, but it will not disappear anywhere as long as capitalism exists.
A lot of different companies, competition and the general professionalism of the players bring to the point that an ordinary commercial or leaflet no longer “catches” a person, he needs to convey something that will stick in his memory for a long time and make him turn to the advertised object. The advertising agency is also in business, and every year many such enterprises fail and close, because there is a war of intelligence, this is the production of ideas, and only real professionals can survive. The rest sooner or later are waiting for non-existence.
Many young people want to be advertisers, who consider themselves to be creative people, imagining free creative work with multimillion-dollar fees, which are obtained from 99 francs thanks to a unique idea, but become similar venerable specialists of the unit.
The complexity of organizing your own advertising agency is not even in competition, investments or the absence of your customers (all this, of course, is present to varying degrees), but the notorious creativity is always a determining factor. You can become a well-known and sought-after advertising agency literally from the very first days. How? It’s really interesting to advertise yourself.
Today’s advertising agency can be represented by organizations with, in fact, completely different activities. This includes owners of retail space – those that have their own banner poles, huge TV screens, and even owners of shopping centers. These people, as a rule, do not directly deal with advertising, but provide places for its placement, earning money on such a slightly unusual lease. They are joined by manufacturers and installers of all these poles, signs, banners, print advertising (many printing houses can be attributed here) and other organizations that bring the advertising product to life, but in no way participate in the process of creating its ideas.
Separately from advertising, SEO specialists, or companies that create and promote sites and groups in social networks, stood out. This requires a creative approach to creating a site, but the site itself should be not so much an advertisement as a visiting card of the customer company; promotion of the created page in general is often a technical process of war with search engines for bringing the site to the top.
There are also intermediaries who penetrate the relationship between all companies, having no creative baggage, but only the ability to resell.
And, finally, an advertising company in its purest form, which creates advertising and ensures its distribution to promote the customer’s products. It is the latter firm that has the full right to ascribe to itself the proud abbreviation RA, which has already become generally accepted, before the name.
The expediency of creating your own advertising agency is initially determined by the presence of potential clients. In very small cities, such an organization, most likely, will not be needed, because even without it there is no struggle between companies, and their budget does not allow itself to allocate funds for full-fledged advertising – the population is too small for these investments to pay off.
If the opening is supposed to be in a large city, then this is a platform for a successful start. The answer to the question of whether it is worth trying is in direct proportion to the question of whether there is a good creative team. Many advertising agencies open without the presence of such people, because the opening of such a company seems to many start-up entrepreneurs to be a simple matter that does not require large investments; therefore today in any large city of agencies there is simply an outrageous number. At the same time, there are only a few long-lived ones, and serious companies turn to them. Such agencies are already beginning to act as organizers of large events and presentations, that is, they are already engaged not so much in advertising as in organizing activities.
The most important thing is the team, it is on it that all the activities of the enterprise are based, if there are creative employees, then customers will appear, and there will be many orders, and it will be easy to find partners. The permanent team should include two designers, an art employee, as well as two people to solve organizational issues, for example, finding a printing house for printing products. An entrepreneur himself can become a director, because if he started doing such a thing, then he himself has creative thinking.
As a rule, the whole team will discuss each order, generating ideas and discussing the little things that can be very important by brainstorming. The main creative core will be an art employee, whose duties will include the creation of unique ideas, finding non-standard approaches to solving problems, and developing a concept plan.
Do not be afraid of a little crazy people, all geniuses were unusual in everyday life. Finding a person who can really cope with such tasks is not only difficult, but catastrophically difficult, because they can be counted on the fingers, and many of them are already employed.
The next are designers, who, in addition to talent, must also have an education, because knowledge of working with computer applications and the basics of design art makes a capable amateur a real professional.
People who are entrusted with organizational skills are simpler than others, and the requirements for them are communication skills, the ability to negotiate with people, search for information and use it correctly. They should also have some mathematical thinking in order to immediately identify the most profitable, but also promising, from the many enterprises that offer the placement or implementation of advertising.
The director himself (that is, the entrepreneur) must have the traits to fulfill all the above duties in order to be able to help or advise his employees. He will become the pillar on which the agency rests, but if the businessman himself does not possess these qualities, then he needs to seriously think about hiring an outside director. But these are additional and very significant costs for a start-up enterprise, which are best excluded.
In addition to a permanent team, you will have to cooperate with third-party workers who are hired only for some projects (promotions), their work is paid by the customer, the agency simply searches for them and casts them. When you find a competent employee, you can cooperate with him for a long time, inviting him to various events, and not just once; in the process of work, a group of freelancers will be formed, with whom productive and professional cooperation has been established. Their search is also carried out by people responsible for the organization, but the casting is carried out in the presence of the director and even a representative of the customer to identify the most suitable candidates.
Work with minors is practiced, many high school students are ready to work in the summer and in their free time, but the number of hours of their work cannot exceed that established by law, while they cannot be registered for permanent work, and cooperation becomes somewhat informal. However, even among these people it happens that there are competent and promising personnel.
The agency should be located in a small office, as possible props for some promotions can be stored in a small room. In addition to the warehouse, you need to have two offices for the work of designers and the rest of the staff. If you have extra funds, you can allocate a separate office for the director, but this, as a rule, is an unnecessary expense for renting a larger room.
The area of the rented office starts from 40 m2 , as there should be space for castings, which are attended by many people. The rental price starts from 30 thousand rubles per month, because it is best to be located in the central districts of the city – it is convenient for absolutely all customers. Ideally – a business district, where there are many buildings, organizations and in general there is a business environment. Finding your client in such areas becomes much easier, since the agency will always be in full view of the potential consumer.
It is best to try to cover all possible types of advertising, but for businessmen who do business in only one city, ordering advertising on television or radio will not be as relevant as holding promotions and banner advertising. Banners and streamers can be installed by the client by directly contacting the owner of the advertising space, but only if he has ready-made sketches; otherwise it will come to advertisers.
All activities of an advertising agency can be divided into creative and media parts, in the first case a unique product is created – style, design, trademark, images, in the second – the created products are placed in advertising promotion channels. Most advertising agencies do BTL advertising (bellow-the-line – part of direct marketing aimed at a specific consumer in a specific place at a specific time) because it brings the most income due to demand from customers; ATL advertising (above-the-line – traditional types of advertising that cover the entire population or a significant part of it without identifying the target audience) is more expensive and may be of interest to small and medium-sized businesses only in the form of outdoor advertising. Therefore, all your creative potential should be directed to the following activities:
- Newsletters (e-mail and regular mail)
- Trade shows, fairs and conferences
- Viral Marketing
- Corporate events
- Development of customer loyalty and retention programs
- Promo action
- Internet advertising
The last type of activity is the most effective and frequently used tool, promotions allow you to involve a potential consumer in the consumption process or at least direct his interest to products at a specific right moment. Advertising agencies are often used by those entrepreneurs who are just entering the market, presenting new products, holding seasonal discounts, and also, if necessary, attracting the attention of buyers who are aimed at purchasing services and goods from direct competitors. A promotional action can take place in completely different ways, with certain conditions (which are set by the customer), in retail outlets or on the street, with the involvement of the required amount of resources, including human resources.
A very large percentage of the income of an advertising agency will be precisely the holding of such promotions, the development of the entire concept and scenario of work falls on the creative team, which, at the same time, must also take into account the special wishes of the client. As mentioned above, it is precisely for such events that additional people will have to be attracted in the form of junior advertising personnel (promoters, supervisors, tasting attendants, consultants, gift givers, etc.).
The cost of opening an advertising agency will consist of registration, rent and furnishing of the office and own advertising. It is also optimal to create your own website, where the client can get acquainted with the portfolio and the cost of services.
Registration will require no more than 20 thousand rubles, you can register any form of entrepreneurial activity, but an LLC inspires more confidence in the client. Employees will receive wages in the form of a small salary (about 10 thousand for each employee) and a percentage of the amount of revenue, so only the amount of rent and utility bills (about 35 thousand rubles) will become monthly expenses in addition. For full-fledged work, you will have to not only purchase equipment for the office (50 thousand rubles), but also productive computers for designers, as well as specialized software, which will require at least 100 thousand rubles more.
Thus, the starting capital will amount to 250 thousand rubles, taking into account the salary of the staff for the first month of work. The payback period rarely exceeds a year, but only in the case of an active search for customers and a spotless reputation. In the event that you have to work with the involvement of additional people or freelancers, their wages will be made up of a percentage of the amounts allocated by customers, so you will not have to take into account the expense item for their wages.
A start-up enterprise should not count on large orders of many thousands, so you should not miss a single client, no matter how insignificant his campaign may be; thanks to this, it may not be possible to make money, but it will be possible to gain fame among entrepreneurs, i.e. earn a name. The best cooperation for any advertising agency is the management of the entire advertising campaign of a customer who is just entering the market. This will give a lot of work from designing a logo to advertising in local media. Such a project will provide funds for many months in advance, but getting such a client is a great success, so you won’t have to rely on it too much.
Recently, the placement of commercials on the Internet, in particular on such well-known resources as YouTube or Mail.ru, has become increasingly popular. At the same time, monthly advertising is not so expensive for the client – about 20 thousand rubles, taking into account the agency commission of about 15% of this amount.
Banner advertising will also be in demand for a long time, only the technical development of which will cost the client 20 thousand (of which the agency will take only a small percentage), while you will still have to pay for the rental of advertising space itself and design development services (the amount of which is completely for yourself). will be taken by the advertising agency).
Holding promotions can also be good for profit, because the simplest event will cost 40 thousand rubles, half of which will be taken by freelancers. If you manage to hold at least three promotions a month, then the income from them alone will be 60 thousand.
The most expensive services – design – will not be in demand too often, but will also become a significant source of income. Profit can vary greatly depending on the number of orders (from month to month their number is very variable), so you need to have some reserve funds. But the most important advantage of such an undertaking is that, having a creative team, it is quite possible to count on huge development prospects, expanding more and more and finding more and more expensive orders and already working not only “under”, but also “above the line”. Here it is very important to earn a name, after which it will work for the agency itself, although you will always have to maintain a high level of professionalism.