🔒How to choose the right marketing partner

Most business owners and marketing managers recognize that to retain and increase market share they need to continually build awareness of their products and services. But choosing the partner best suited to help with that process can be tricky. For a relationship to work, the partner's capabilities and capacity need to align well with an organization's needs and budget.

There are three types of marketing service providers: freelancers, specialized firms and full-service agencies. In choosing a marketing firm, consider the following:

Freelancers

Generally one-person shops, freelancers often specialize in one or two disciplines. The most common of these are graphic designers, public relations specialists and web developers. In our market, freelancers typically charge $30 to $75 an hour.

Pros:

 • The person you talk to is the person who does the work 

 • Talent in a specific discipline

 • Flexibility for short-term projects

Cons:

 • Limited capacity

 • Often more tactical than strategic

Good fit for:

 • Small or start-up firms with limited needs and funds

 • Mid-sized entities with some in-house capability and need for specialized skills

Specialized firms

Specialists focus on one service, such as web development, video production, digital marketing. A typical rate would be $75 to $120 an hour.

Pros:

 • Expertise in a particular field

 • May provide discipline-specific capacity that other types of firms may lack

 • More strategically focused than freelancers

Cons:

 • Burden is on the client to maintain brand consistency and strategic integration

 • Limited scope of services

 • Difficult to measure return on investment

Good fit for:

 • Smaller companies and organizations with moderate budgets

 • Mid-sized entities with strong in-house capabilities in some disciplines and deficiencies in others

Full-service agencies

Full-service firms possess in-house expertise across marketing and design disciplines, including strategy, campaign development, web services, collateral design, ad production, media planning and placement and social media. They tend to work with clients on an ongoing basis and range in size from 10 to 100-plus employees. Rates in Maine are $100 to $200 an hour.

Pros:

 • Strategy driven and skilled at creative execution across all channels

 • Cross-channel brand consistency

 • ROI measurement, reporting and analysis

Cons:

 • Focus on strategy and planning can slow initial progress

 • Generally aren't interested in one-off or short-term projects

Good fit for:

 • Companies and organizations with an established marketing budget and clear goals and objectives

 • Firms that operate in competitive markets that demand effective marketing, long-term support and ROI analysis.

If your marketing partner is too small, it may not generate the results you need to succeed. Too big and your work may not be considered a priority or you may pay for overhead and capacity that won't benefit you in the long run. The final decision often comes down to chemistry.

Determine which provider is best suited to your goals, requirements and budget, and then set up in-person meetings to get a sense of which firm might provide the right fit for your culture and business.

Sheldon Perkins is a senior account executive and head of new business development at Vreeland Marketing & Design in Yarmouth. He can be reached at sheldon@vreeland.com