“Virtual” may remind you of technology converging to deliver a modern product, an unforgettable experience, that transcends space and time. Across time zones and away from cubicle walls, a virtual agency is a new approach for businesses to receive advertising services without the traditional price tag. A virtual agency is a remote team that meets your business needs at a fraction of the cost.
Since their invention in 2005, the concept of the virtual agency has boomed, leaving many large companies and clients to abandon traditional firms. Let this post give you an introduction to what the virtual agency has to offer. We will demonstrate how a virtual agency can be an essential complement to your business with strategies that overcome traditional barriers to promotion.
What is a Virtual Agency?
An ad agency is not all high-rise buildings and secretive strategy meetings. Work has changed, and ad agencies along with it. Today some of the most effective advertising agencies are remote: they leverage freelancers and leaders in digital promotion wherever they are in the world, tapping resources on-demand.
A virtual agency is an innovation of the technological era. It offers all the power and potency that you associate with traditional agencies, and it includes the same incredible services you want, while making every keystroke, every moment of real work count. From designing the logo you use to deploying AI-drive retargeting campaigns, a virtual agency lives alongside your content: in the cloud, and at the ready.
In contrast, a traditional agency is one that inflates their prices to meet their own needs: overhead, building costs, coffee, etc. It’s one that is not empowered and liberated by the latest collaboration technologies. Instead, like the word traditional itself, it represents a resistance to progress and the adoption of modern tools to meet the modern challenges that businesses face today.
To demonstrate, if a traditional and virtual agency were given the same task, to advertise a new product. Their approaches would be completely different. In the traditional model, the client would immediately start being billed for creative sessions that try to conceptualize and promote their product through a kind of genius intuition. On the other hand, a virtual agency would tap its resources: drawing in ideas and inspiration from around the world and feeding it into a measurable, tracked campaign that gets clicks and optimizes conversions.
Both models produce advertisements and creative assets. The difference that their clients feel is in how they work to accomplish the same goals. A virtual agency encourages freedom from the traditional constraints of an office that lead to stagnation when it comes to delighting clients. In short, it is a model with numerous benefits over traditional agencies through its agility and its digital transformation. Let’s consider some of the top benefits.
1. “Virtual” reduces costs.
The first way a traditional agency loses to virtual agencies is in overhead. A virtual agency pays (and bills) only for what they use. Rather than sink resources into impressive addresses and office spaces, they operate remotely and let their employees worry about what makes them most satisfied at work.
In a virtual agency, office space costs are eliminated or reduced considerably. In addition, staffing costs are reduced by being able to bring in freelancers and professionals on an as-needed basis rather than paying (and billing) to have them full-time. Moreover, IT costs are mitigated by the use of cloud computing and phone services are handled by employees rather than by the firm.
2. It translates into client savings.
Clients benefit from a virtual agency’s streamlined model. Since a marketing agency that operates remotely is able to reduce its overhead costs, a virtual agency can offer marketing services at a more competitive and worthwhile price. Instead of inflating quotes with the cost of full-time employees and corporate headquarters, they can offer the best possible price without sacrifice to the quality of work.
3. Employees and clients are more satisfied.
In a virtual agency, employees are in charge of their own satisfaction. They fully decide what their day looks like and how they will surround themselves with the things they need to get their work done well. Whether that means working from the comfort of their home or a local coffee shop, the outcome is that employees enjoy more satisfaction from the flexibility of the remote agency.
Clients themselves are more satisfied with this arrangement because they are able to reach their agency almost any time from anywhere. Using modern tools to collaborate and communicate, clients tell us they are truly satisfied by the responsiveness and flexibility of the virtual agency. The positive demeanor of our employees who feel in control of their work is just one of the benefits they cite.
4. Work product is more agile and laser focused.
By being able to tap resources on-demand, a virtual agency produces work that is always completed by experts in the given field. No matter the project—whether its a beauty campaign or a car advertisement—the virtual agency is ready with a subject matter expert hired for their real time, not for their benefits and salary. This means that the virtual agency can meet more specific demands of its clients in a more agile and informed way.
In addition to leveraging insight from experts, the work that the agency itself produces is able to be more focused without the constraints of the traditional agency. Nearly everyone is familiar with the pitfalls of office culture. It produces malaise as gossip swirls through the office and poisons the productivity of its workers. Rather than engage in politics or popularity contests, virtual agencies are able to focus on the task at hand for the client.
5. Your customers are more engaged through campaigns.
What do all these features and benefits of a virtual agency add up to? We think they mean that everyone wins. When we are able to cut costs on overhead and unnecessary expenses, our business is delighted. When we are able to offer you the best possible services without the same traditional price tag, you’re satisfied. When employees are able to bring you their best outlook and satisfied experience, the project benefits. And, when the project benefits, your customers will notice the difference.
The point of the advertising agency is to delight your customer with an unforgettable experience of your business and brand. We think that a virtual agency is in a better position to give this memorable moment to your customers because it is less inhibited by the burdens of the traditional agencies cost and culture. You could even say that a virtual agency is the way advertising agencies always wanted to be but couldn’t before the right technologies were in place.
We like to think that. Litening Agency is a force of nature empowered by technology, bringing clients laser focused campaigns that delight more customers. We hope this post has got you thinking about how “virtual” forever changes things for advertising. If you are an established brand or start up, we want to work with you to enjoy the benefits that digital transformation and free enterprise bring to the old idea of the traditional agency.
Decrease your marketing costs, increase your satisfaction with your ads, and create customer experiences that are unforgettable. Contact our marketing consultants or schedule a complimentary 15-minute call with a strategist today to get started.
