Comments for Free Advertising Candy

Comment on Listen Up Pitches!…The Pitch Process from a Creative’s Mind by Debbie

Debbie — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 18:29:58 +0000

I’m really enjoying your app. This article was particularly good. I’m curious to know how many prospective clients you have been able to meet with before a pitch. Also curious to know if these meetings include all prospective agencies at once or if they’re one-on-one. Seems like every pitch I’ve been involved with, there’s a big priority placed on not bothering the client. Once the business is awarded, then the day of discovery happens.

Comment on $5,000 Websites? Not From An Ad Agency. by Bryan Coe

Bryan Coe — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 18:01:14 +0000

My company works mostly on the SEO, social media side of things, and one of the frustrating things is when a companies think they can design a site on the cheap (i.e. someone’s kid using Frontpage), then they come to us and want us to drive traffic to the site. The problem is, we could drive tons of traffic to the site, but if the site doesn’t look professional are people really going to trust the company? Are they going to trust entering the payment info and actually buy something from the site? Doubtful… Unfortunately, many people drastically under-estimate the cost of good design.

Comment on $5,000 Websites? Not From An Ad Agency. by Greg London

Greg London — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 12:55:09 +0000

Yes, I agree that good, unique content is what can bring the value of your site up as well as a unique theme or service that your website offers. Good post.

Comment on A Working Lunch – Something to Chew On by break up advice

break up advice — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 08:20:00 +0000

I really enjoyed reading your thoughts, obviously you understand what are you talking about! Your site is so simple to navigate too, I�ve bookmarked it in my personal folder

Comment on Why does my agency put a mark up on production? Part 3 of 3 by rosie doggett

rosie doggett — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 01:01:12 +0000

That’s a nice reply from Wagner, who one would imagine works at an agency. He’s quite right but more than a tad disengenuous. Agencies mark up on production (and fees) because they can. The much vaunted ‘transparency’ preached by agencies is as a direct result of their costs (and mark ups) being questioned by marketers and marketing procurement, and means that lump sums or opaque quotes simply don’t cut the mustard in these more commercially demanding times.

Agencies now produce quotes of such biblical complexity that most time-pressed marketers haven’t a cat in hells chance of deciphering them, are given less than no time to do so (the classic agency ‘time-trap’), and should they be fortunate enough to be able to call upon expert (unbiased and truly independent) external help – they are frequently shocked by how much mark up is routinely applied. Caveat emptor indeed.

Most marketers are demons for negotiation when it comes to buying their own cars, insurance or white goods, yet pull their punches when querying agency costs because they are eager not to sully their ‘relationship’ with their agencies of record. Having been on both sides of the agency/client fence I can advise marketers that we (ex) agency folk have skins like rhinos and will defend the indefensibly high prices we charge as a matter of course. Because of course it’s about the creativity. When actually it’s about making money.

My advice to anyone who thinks they’re being charged too much – you probably are. The trick is to pay a fair price (which allows an agency to make 20%) and not one penny more.

The hackneyed old agency chestnut of ‘if you cut the price the quality will suffer’ is a clever bit of emotional blackmail as most agencies wouldn’t do work of substandard creativity which could end up in the public domain. My advice to anyone spending a marketing budget is to make sure that you’re paying a fair price for everything, and watch those third-party costs like a hawk. It is the responsibility of the client to ensure they are spending their employer’s money wisely, and to treat it as if it were their own.

In my experience there’s a huge amount of better value to be gained before one gets anywhere near the ‘creative bone’ as it were. It takes confidence to challenge an agency of record on costs, and in the long run appropriate cost challenges will engender grudging respect from any good marketing supplier who will be willing and able to (genuinely!) justify how they’re spending the client budget.

Comment on $5,000 Websites? Not From An Ad Agency. by Chris Olberding

Chris Olberding — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 21:57:34 +0000

I’m glad I read through your post – yeah a straighforward but nice brochure site can be done for $5k (not including things like copywriting and photography). But with a project that includes the high-level list of requirements you read off you’re looking at 3-8x that even for a small agency like our with very low overhead. But it is what it is, I talk to people with $500 budgets for a brochure site and big companies with 20k budgets for 100k development projects, how it goes. Sad thing is is that very often these potential clients will go with the cheapest firm, often outsourcing development projects, and then come back to us down a chunk of change and a lot of time and frustration.

Comment on $5,000 Websites? Not From An Ad Agency. by Marc Rapp

Marc Rapp — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 21:16:49 +0000

Good points.

Interface design and user-experience, is branding.
And like all branding, we must determine the needs of our visitors and be able to adjust the site and UI when needed.
That doesn’t happen with a template.

Comment on $5,000 Websites? Not From An Ad Agency. by evoklarry

evoklarry — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 21:44:37 +0000

We approve all, well, most comments good or bad, and I hear ya that you, as a client have to determine “value”, and dividing up the needed elements. We should have stressed more about clients requesting custom databases or non off-the-shelf CMS. Next time, leave your company’s url in your post and we’ll keep the link-back active for SEO.

Comment on $5,000 Websites? Not From An Ad Agency. by Terrence J.

Terrence J. — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 03:42:19 +0000

Hmmm-not sure that this is really a sound argument, at least not one that carries much weight. Simply dividing up the hours and quoting an hourly rate doesn’t prove much. As a client, I try and determine what elements are worth paying for from scratch (i.e. custom-built) and which are more economical to pull off the shelf.

Comment on Why does my agency put a mark up on production? Part 3 of 3 by Wagner

Wagner — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 16:46:43 +0000

At the end of the day the question a client must ask themselves is are they hiring an agency for their expertise and ability to manage their account or are they looking to purchase service items off of a rate card. If it’s the latter, there are plenty of “do it yourself” resources available but 9 out of 10 times the end result will be inconsistency with other elements, delays in production, job errors, etc. Most of all, an agency looks at the overall marketing objective and strategy to make sure all components work within the designated matrix.