Agencies & Consulting.

Types of Agencies

Marketing agency

Marketing agencies help brands and organizations unlock growth opportunities and increase their visibility to multiple audiences. Generally speaking, there are two types of marketing agencies: integrated marketing agencies and specialist marketing agencies. Whereas integrated marketing agencies have the expertise to create strategies and execute full-fledged marketing deliverables across multiple formats, specialist agencies focus on one specific marketing niche, such as creative or digital marketing, leading to a more nuanced approach to fulfilling client needs. Regardless, marketing agencies use their expertise and creativity to help their clients solve unique challenges and put the right messages forward at the right time.

Advertising Agency

Though featuring many of the same strategic and creative solutions as a marketing agency, advertising agencies differ in their ability to provide more holistic, unified services in the form of campaigns. Advertising campaigns incorporate multiple forms of creative, digital, strategic, interactive and production-based executions designed to be activated either simultaneously or in succession of each other in order to reach a common goal. Many companies will choose to retain an agency as their “agency of record,” meaning the partnership will continue indefinitely and campaigns will continue to be launched and adjusted based on various metrics. Not only do advertising agencies create campaigns but they also seek out and purchase media placement opportunities on the brand’s behalf.

PR agency

Like marketing and advertising agencies, public relations agencies, more commonly known as PR firms, also work to increase a brand’s audience size and boost public perception. PR firms can serve niche markets or cross-industry clients but do so by utilizing unpaid media opportunities, also known as earned or free media. Common unpaid media opportunities include news publications and social media channels. Businesses that hire PR firms most commonly utilize them to produce press releases, company statements and other various other forms of communication.

Additional types of agencies

Staffing agency – Staffing agencies help rapidly-scaling companies hire the right talent to grow effectively, often utilizing teams of recruiters to help organizations source talent they may have otherwise missed.

Temp agency – Occasionally, companies need to fill roles on a short-term basis due to a project’s extraneous demands or the unexpected departure of team members. Temporary staffing agencies, or temp agencies, maintain a roster of industry professionals available for short-term work and ready to integrate within a company’s staff, who then match workers with the right opportunities based on their experience.

Marketing agency services

All marketing agencies offer a wide range of services and capabilities but not all agencies specialize in every skill. In order for a company to find the right agency to meet their needs, it is important to understand which kind of agency will possess the services required to meet and overcome the challenge at hand.

Digital marketing agency services

Digital marketing agencies offer many of the most cost-effective, ROI-friendly marketing opportunities that all businesses, from freelance professionals to Fortune 500 companies, can utilize to boost their market share. These agencies offer their expertise in online communications and analytics to build campaigns and deliver services designed to reach specific audiences through the optimal channels, often at a robust scale. Typical digital marketing services include: 

• search engine optimization
• paid search engine marketing
• email marketing
• social media marketing
• website building
• content marketing 
• digital product creation

Creative Marketing Agency Services

Creative marketing agencies focus solely on creating the content that goes into a campaign or activation. These agencies will often work with a company’s internal teams or partner with additional agencies to better understand the scope of the project and develop work that reinforces the strategy and messaging. Creative agencies are typically responsible for a campaign’s:

• Campaign copywriting
• Art direction
• Graphic design
• Photography
• Video production
• Audio production
• Interactive marketing

Production agency services

Often a component of or a partner to creative agencies, specialized production agencies, commonly referred to as production houses, produce various forms of media for inclusion within a marketing campaign or activation. Typical services from a production house include:

• Filming
• Photography
• Video production
• Graphic design
• Interactive media
• Experiential marketing activations
• 3D modeling

Local marketing agency services

Local marketing agencies specialize in connecting small businesses with the communities they serve. Services can vary by the agency, but often include a mixture of digital techniques like:

• Email marketing
• Local SEO
• Social media marketing
• PR
• Audio production
• TV & social advertising video production

Advertising agency services

Full-service advertising agencies offer many of the same services you will find at integrated marketing agencies and specialized marketing agencies, but with additional emphasis placed on purchasing media and utilizing services as a part of a campaign. Many common advertising agency services include:

• Campaign strategy development
• Media buying & placement
• Art direction
• Graphic design
• Video production
• Copywriting
• SEO & SEM
• Email marketing
• PR
• Photography
• Social media marketing
• Custom experiential & interactive activations

PR agency services

Since public relations relies on shaping public opinion through unpaid media, PR firms utilize many opportunities traditional marketing strategies cannot. While many advertising agencies may utilize PR capabilities within the context of the campaign, public relations can be very valuable on its own. Services exclusive to public relations include:

• Press release strategy and writing
• Contacting outlets such as newspapers, radio stations, news stations, online publications and additional unpaid media placement opportunities
• Crisis strategy & management
• Speech writing
• Pitch writing
• Market research

Advertising agency jobs & marketing agency jobs

Advertising and marketing agencies cover a lot of ground for their clients. To do so effectively, each requires a robust staff of specialists with expertise in their respective crafts and enough versatility to think outside of the box to get the job done. Jobs you will commonly find at marketing and advertising agencies, whether full-service or specialist, include, but are far from limited to:

• Creative director
• Associate creative director
• Head of accounts
• Account supervisor
• Art director
• Graphic designer
• Copywriter
• Developer
• PR strategist
• Brand strategist
• Media buyer

PR firm jobs

PR firms also cover a lot of ground for their clients, especially in areas where traditional advertising and marketing can’t reach. Earning media placements and other PR work is most often done through these positions:

• Publicists
• Copywriters
• PR specialists
• Social media managers
• Spokespersons

Consulting

Enterprise consulting comes in many forms and provides a way for companies who are looking to increase their market share or workplace capabilities to receive expert advice. While a company may have the necessary staff and expertise in place to make these kinds of changes, consulting agencies and firms provide an outside point of view on market share, possible scenarios and outcomes, and where the competition currently stands. Whether a company is weighing a massive jump into a new market or simply wants to upgrade its technical infrastructure, consultancies can help.

Types of consulting services

IT consulting

IT consultancies work with organizations to ensure their technical abilities are on-par with where they need to be for them to continue to grow effectively. Their expertise can be invaluable whether a company upgrades its systems regularly or requires massive updates to legacy systems. In terms of upgrading technical capabilities, IT consultants are skilled in helping companies upgrade to cloud servers and systems, migrate data from one server location to another, replace legacy networking systems, introduce new software, and much more. Additionally, IT consultants may be brought in to aid with specific types of development projects, fix niche components on failing systems, or help with strategic technical development.

Strategy consulting

Strategy consulting helps provide organizations with an effective roadmap and possible blueprints for achieving growth and winning market share well into the future. Often, strategy consulting involves working with financial advisors to ensure goals and timelines can be reasonably projected and achieved. Plans are formulated through constant collaboration with leadership and teams throughout the company.

Business consulting

Business consulting involves companies working with specialists to determine the best ways to structure their organization. Business consultants typically have a wide range of business experience across many years and work with companies to help determine department structure, team and staffing needs, top-down organizational hierarchy, day-to-day workflow necessities, workplace environment, and business ethics.

Marketing consulting

Many companies who have a robust staff and a variety of teams within their workplace do not need to outsource their marketing work to agencies and instead rely on their internal staff members to get the job done. However, when it comes to creating an overarching marketing strategy, marketing consultants can be invaluable. These professionals work with company executives and marketing directors to forecast strategy to meet long-term goals, help design marketing funnels, create plans to break into new markets, and provide suggestions for decreasing churn and increasing conversions amongst qualified leads.

Brand consulting

When companies require a shift to better align themselves with their constantly evolving audiences, brand consultants are there to help. From influencing the company’s general PR approach and sense of representative “voice” to design, logo and visual imagery decisions, brand consultants utilize their expertise in perception and competitive analysis to help brands stand out in changing times, embrace new opportunities, and above all else, feel authentic.

Public relations consulting

Much like marketing and brand consulting, PR consultants help companies determine how to authentically communicate and address their audiences through earned opportunities. Many PR consultants will act as a liaison between companies and the public, while others may simply provide strategic advice and create materials for marketing teams.

Legal consulting

Companies without dedicated legal teams or who need additional advice when making a critical decision can work with legal consultants to help with a variety of legal needs. Common situations legal consultants provide assistance with include government regulations, settling IP/trademark disputes and reaching appropriate resolutions to lawsuits.