"Unprofessional companies in the advertising market undermine the image of companies that do a good job."

Marcom presents an interview with Taleh Karimov, head of sales department.

Promises to companies and the level of service.

Currently, more than 100 advertising agencies are represented on the market. Some of them are agencies that have appeared in recent years, while others have been functioning in the market for a long time. Companies face some problems when interacting with many agencies. For example, most problems arise when updating or re-creating web pages. Upon receipt of the order about the site, the agency informs the customer of the time it takes to complete the task, not taking into account the amount of work, customer wishes, technical nature of the order and the status of the work performed. By the end of this period, the agency cannot submit the finished site, and if it does, then various technical problems arise. This not only causes customer dissatisfaction, but also undermines the image of professional advertising agencies.

So why are the websites of some companies not updated or even missing?

The site is a business card of each company. Given that time is money, companies should update their sites as much as possible so that the client can perform various operations through the site or receive detailed information about the service without going to the company. I usually visit the website of the company I will meet to find out more about it. If the site does not suit me, then my first suggestion to them is to reassemble the site. After this I am confronted with the first hurdle. Usually I hear from people dealing with this issue the following:

“We built our website 5 months ago for a huge payout, but we cannot update it due to difficulties with the admin panel.”

“Since it is difficult to manage the admin panel, we redirect the information for updating to those who built it. They update the site when they have time or ask for an additional fee. "

I can also expand this list. After such cases, even if you go to the client with the largest portfolio of cases, it will be difficult to convince him of the professionalism of your company. It’s because some unprofessional advertising agency has caused this client material and psychological damage, and he will not believe anything from what you say.

What should companies pay attention to when choosing an advertising agency in order to avoid such situations?

A professional advertising agency that is responsible for its image should first of all improve its website. This is necessary because the client will first look at his site. Another important point to consider later is whether the company has its own web designers and programmers. In most cases, “advertising agencies” get the job and transfer it to a third party. These third parties are freelance employees. I do not support third-party use of the site. There are several disadvantages to this:

There are very few freelancers in Azerbaijan who can manage their time (time management). In most cases, a person works until late at night and, due to the enormous amount of work, cannot concentrate on the task. This also leads to the fact that the client is ultimately dissatisfied and each time the design changes.

The person who participated in conversations about the site passes this information to a third party already slightly changed, which in turn leads to customer dissatisfaction and loss of time.

Also, a person who participated in conversations about the site, because of a misunderstanding of the philosophy of the company whose order was accepted, does not quite understand what information on the site is paramount and which is not.

Some large companies order their work to advertising agencies abroad. What is the reason for this decision?

Unfortunately, I have come across such cases. There are many objective and subjective reasons for this. Large companies transfer part of their advertising and marketing affairs to local agencies, but they fail to achieve the desired results, and they turn to external agencies, thereby jeopardizing the image of professional agencies in the local market. Transferring orders to foreign agencies also has its drawbacks.

The language barrier - it’s difficult for the client to explain exactly what he wants;

In many cases, the inability of a foreign agency to fully understand the local market, the lack of understanding of the company's philosophy often does not bring success.

Subsequent support also leads to the payment of additional funds and untimely execution. This list can be expanded.

What steps should be taken to get out of this situation, and what steps are you taking?

The way out of the situation is to support the company’s employees, invest in them and focus on “time management” for timely and high-quality execution of orders. As Marcom, we first explore all the marketing channels of the opposite side and think about what services we will provide the other side at the initial stage. After that, we develop a comprehensive offer for this company. One site is not enough to increase sales of the company. This work also includes PR, SMM, digital marketing, offline marketing. As a company, we also train new employees for the advertising market so that we do not have a shortage of personnel in future projects.