My friends call me a dork for saying “These guys are the next travel agents” to any industry that drops the ball. The fact is travel agencies had it coming. They were expensive, unreliable and worst of all, did something you could do yourself if you were given access to the information. They didn’t own the vacation property, nor the airline and nor do they go with you. Half the time they screwed up or had such poor service you would rather do it yourself.
So what was their point? They were just gate keepers, and sites like Orbitz, Travelocity and Expedia along with direct to consumer campaigns by hotels and airlines opened the gate to the masses. I know what you’re thinking though: Orbitz and such are the travel agents now. Yes, they are if you consider bundling hotels and flights together, but now Kayak just takes your straight to the airline site if it is cheaper. In either case, we are more informed and pay less for the access to information. If you ask me, travel agents were the epitome of segregated information elitism. They could have done things to prevent themselves from being here now, but their inability to adapt to new media killed them.
And now advertising agencies are doing the same thing. Ad Agencies don’t own the product or brand, they don’t own the connection to the media and they don’t have any tools us regular folk have either.
Social Media is the thorn in ad agencies sides. They call it snake oil for two reasons:
- The mindset of a traditional marketer is the exact opposite of what is needed on Twitter or Facebook. You can’t repeat the same message without being interactive and expect people to read it, or care, or not get frustrated. Why hire people that usually blare one way messages to your customers to run the interactive communication?
- The magic behind the campaign is transparent. There is no glamour in being a top social media worker. It’s like having the title Best Conversationalist With An Agenda. You are going to have to love your product, your customers and your product category. Agencies can’t love them all at the same time.
So run your own social media campaigns. Set up multiple Twitter accounts, get your fan pages and groups up and running on your own. Encourage your employees to use those sites, with some scrutiny, to build more content than the next guy. Sooner or later, you’ll start to see the swell of a community that is a perfect marketing opportunity and by then you’ll know more about them than any agency could figure out.
The best thing about social media, is the instruction manual is in the medium itself. You know your products, customers and their quirks, why trust it to some agency that doesn’t know what you know?
Other agency services are up for grabs too.
Need a logo or graphics you can’t do yourself? Why get 3 to choose from in a agency and pay thousands when you can pay some $200 and get 221 to choose from at contest based hatchwise.com. The logo at the top of this page was produced there and I’ve used it for 3 other company logos. It’s great, cheap and gives me WAY more options. I can collaborate with the designers, message them directly and get really specific on what I would like and designers are more than happy to help out if that means they win the prize.
Need an ad produced? Crowd source. The best performing ads at the Super Bowl this year were ideas from customers, or produced by customers and in some cases written, produced and starred customers. With iMovie, Adobe Premiere and other easy software to use, a little bit of research and some time you can pretty much do anything an agency can, for less, without the attitude.
Why do you think agencies in special niche agencies pop up like new media and interactive marketing? It’s because most other agencies drop the ball in these areas. If you really don’t think you have the skill, then hire a specialized agency in that field.
Finally, we are seeing a tilt towards the small business owner. And that’s the way it should be.
Why? Because those big agencies have not adapted their vision, or their staff, attitude or their mission. And they better if they don’t want to become the next travel agency.
Could not agree more with your assessment of the web challenging any organization or individual with the word “agent” in their title or job description. The key issue is how much value they can add.
Since you use the travel industry as a point of reference, it is important to note that the large online travel agencies essentially eliminated the “order takers” or agents that simply booked the flights and hotels requested by the traveler – something that is now easily accomplished online without a travel agent.
However, the online travel agencies have not yet successfully managed to facilitate the full seven-phase end-to-end travel process (inspire, research, plan, validate, book, travel, share) to the same degree as a quality travel agent (the key concept being quality.)
Great travel agents can provide invaluable assistance with highly complex itineraries, or when something goes wrong. It is always nice to have an expert on your side, especially when the odds are against you.
Bottom line, when selecting an agent (regardless of the business vertical) that individual responsible for the account must a) understand the business, b) actively listen to identify needs c) have access to unique resources and d) apply those resources efficiently to address the needs in a timely and cost effective manner.
One important consideration – Most small business owners are taxed for time. Most need to be focused on successfully operating the business and producing a quality product or service. Also, most small business owners are not as good at developing advertising or promotion as they believe they are (particularly on a consistent basis.) They know their business, but that business may not be marketing.
Good ad agencies can help businesses avoid major mistakes relating to strategy, creative, production, media selection and cost. Bad ad agencies can create major mistakes relating to strategy, creative, production, media selection and cost.
My suggestion, be practical and realistic regarding the core skill set of the small business owner. If help is required, get some. Just get the best help you can afford that provides value and can generate a positive return on investment.
Here’s a blog post I wrote last fall on the topic: http://www.rockcheetah.com/blog/travel-agency/smarter-travel-agents-travel-agencies/ – My assessment, there are great agents out there, and the smartest ones are leveraging social media to expand and enhance their business.