With businesses in all sectors still feeling the recessionary squeeze, it can be tempting to try and save marketing expenditure by doing-it-yourself. After all, all PCs now have graphic packages that show you how to do layouts, don’t they? And Google has a really informative online guide to web advertising.

The sad fact is that the marketing DIYers often don’t discover how complex the marketing mix is until enquiries have fallen significantly and they’ve become jammed up against a deadline, having spent more than they would had they gone to an agency in the first place.

Erika Clegg, Managing Director of full-service creative agency Spring, has helped clients recover from the negative effects bought about after a period of marketing DIY:

“The trouble is, a good marketing agency will put a lot of effort into making life easy for its clients. The clients get so used to being told ‘it’s not a problem’ that they can begin to view the agency in terms of the proverbial swan – the process looks so smooth and easy, they completely overlook the paddling feet frantically doing the work out of sight!”

Spring, whose impressive client list includes Bollinger, Belvoir Cordials and Visit Suffolk, works hard to help its clients understand the purpose – or strategy – behind each piece of marketing activity. They then plan and budget before finding the best possible combination of digital and traditional marketing.

“Website and digital marketing is an area that is particularly tempting for clients trying DIY,” explains Erika Clegg. “It’s easy to overlook the simple fact that building and launching a website is not enough. You’ve got to attract potential customers to that site with pay-per-click or display advertising, and you’ve got to keep content fresh, with blogs and news updates, so that the search engines see that the site’s worth visiting.

“All these activities take time and specialist skills. If you’re running a business, it’s going to be really difficult for you to give these activities the attention they deserve.”

Good agencies will also play an important role in helping their clients stay on the ball in terms of opportunities that come up – after all, they’re professionals in the marketing game.

“We have an ongoing relationship with media organisations and publishers,” says Erika. “It means that we’re onto PR and media opportunities as they arise. We’re able to take advantage of a last-minute ad space, for example, because we can produce the ads quickly and professionally in-house.

“We also serve as a very useful buffer – which means that you never need to fend off an advertising sales call ever again – just tell them to ‘talk to my agency’!”

This piece was written for a regional business publication

Blog Post written by Erika Clegg