Your Guide to Working With Marketing Agencies

The hosts walk through best practices for working with marketing, creative, and media buying agencies for your attraction.

NEWS/Quick-Takes:
Physical products are more valuable than digital products - https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/how-can-marketers-deal-with-an-oversaturated-digital-space-turn-back-to-physical-products/

Expansion of Dollywood:
“The "new land," a $37 million investment, was the theme park's largest capital investment ever.”
https://www.wbir.com/article/news/local/dolly-parton-announces-plans-for-new-dollywood-area-set-to-open-in-2019/51-580078465

Snapchat Story Ads - https://forbusiness.snapchat.com/blog/introducing-story-ads-a-new-way-to-showcase-your-brand-or-product-in-discover/
“With one tap, Snapchatters can jump into a collection of 3-20 Snaps and dive deeper into your new fashion collection, movie release, suite of products, and more.”


Main Topic:
Ad Agencies - Help businesses execute marketing strategies and they range from full service to boutique. Think of them as an extension to your marketing department, which differs from contractors because they have support systems in place.

Full-Service, Creative vs. Consultant vs. Media Buying vs. Smaller Specialities (Social Media, PR, etc.)

Pros: They help reduce cost because you get the benefit of their expertise without needing to hire. Additionally, they provide an infrastructure for those that do not want to manage a piecemeal team. It’s a benefit for smaller companies until you’re large enough to make your own worth it (Disney). For example, Universal uses multiple agencies for different campaigns.

Advice:
Try to avoid lengthy contracts. Agencies try to get you to sign a longer contract, but try to take it project by project.
Costly retainers. Retainers can be high, and be aware that an agency has many clients; they’re not always working on your attraction.
Some will charge an hourly wage and others charge a fee on top of the spend. Example, for $10,000 spent on Google ads, they will take 10% added on top. The agency manages the ads so you don’t have to worry.
Craft your RFP and outline exactly what you need.
What’s campaign distribution?
What specifically do you need?
Sit down with at least 5-10 agencies; treat this like hiring employees (both in terms of testing and in terms of cultural fit).
It’s OK to wait if you don't find a good fit.

There are three broad functions to cover: Media Buy/Placement, Campaign Strategy, and Creative.


Wrap-Up:

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