Hey, we’re not out to replace your Marketing Director (he/she does more for you and your business in one day than most national leaders), but ad agencies/marketing & PR firms can help in ways that really count.

1) No Cloudy Thinking — An agency offers independent and objective third party input on all matters of marketing. Agencies aren’t caught up in your unique company culture (water cooler convos, insiders’ politics, the boss’s hot points). Agencies are able to cut through the weird corporate-speak and stale company history to get to the heart of what’s really needed to build your business.

2) Ideas Off the Clock — Agencies are creative entities, and you can never have enough fresh, creative thinking floating down the hallways.

3) Dry Cleaning Deliveries & More — Marketing directors must usually multitask (unfortunately for many, the word “marketing” has become a catch-all phrase that serves the whims of various department heads. The daily assignments vary — from writing 75-page marketing reports to accessorizing the lobby). A multi-talented, left-and-right-brained agency team works behind the scenes to juggle media production, copy writing, media buying, planning, budgeting and presentations. They may even bring home-baked brownies to the next regional meeting, if you ask nicely.

4) Jaded to Fire Sales — Dealing with multiple vendors takes a big hunk out of the day of a busy marketing director. Direct all those eager salespeople and vendors to your agency’s door (they probably know most of them anyway), and they will listen politely, take in all the essential information, condense it, and deliver it to you along with their own knowledge-based recommendations.

5) Everything’s at Stake — If you don’t look (or sound) good, neither does the agency. They know this, so they’ll knock themselves out to get everything reasonably right the first time. Best of all, they’ll be the shadow people that make everyone “out front” shine like a hunk of cubic zirconium.