The Five Reasons Why Your Smartest Competitors Say No to DIY and Choose an Expert Advertising and Marketing Partner to Get to the Next Level

We live in a Do-it-Yourself (DIY) business world. Right now, business leaders are doing their own accounting, handling their own HR, and managing their own advertising and marketing. It’s a DIY party. Everyone’s invited.

Except for one thing: for the vast majority of business leaders, the “D” in DIY doesn’t end up standing for “Do.” It ends up standing for “Doom.” Why? Because doom is precisely where the DIY route sends them – and their business.

Who’s To Blame?

The blame for this doesn’t belong to business leaders who take the DIY approach. It falls squarely on those cartoon-filled “Instant Expert” books and the rash of business “How To” articles littering the Internet – the ones that make things seem simpler, quicker and cheaper than they are.

Yes, it’s one thing to be informed about a topic, and provided with tips, insights, strategies and ideas. We support that. But to be taught a technical skill as essential to a business’s success as marketing and advertising is an altogether different animal. That takes years of experience, knowledge and vision. And the DIY-route just doesn’t go there. As mentioned, it goes to doom.

A Bit of Disclosure Goes a Long Way

Yes, this may seem a bit biased. After all, CastleCS is indeed an experienced, knowledgeable and visionary marketing and advertising firm. And so our pessimistic outlook on the DIY-approach may seem on the self-interested side. We accept that. However, that’s not what we’re about (and once you get to know us, you’ll agree).

We’re simply sharing what our clients have told us – the ones who were lured into the DIY trap and needed us to help them escape. We’re telling you what they would want you to know: DIY doesn’t lead to ROI. In fact, it leads to SOS.

Unconvinced? Good! We’re not trying to convince you of anything. That’s not our goal here. Rather, we simply want to help you understand why your smartest competitors are saying “thanks, but no thanks” to the DIY route, and are instead choosing an expert Advertising and Marketing Partner.

Reason #1: Your smartest competitors know that an expert Advertising and Marketing Partner provides end-to-end solutions.

One of the scariest thoughts that DIYers have is the one that goes: “Uh oh, this is bigger, costlier and riskier than I thought. Help!”

Frankly, your smartest competitors don’t have this thought, because they’re getting end-to-end advertising and marketing solutions. They’re not worried about gaping strategic gaps, inapplicable tactics, or out-of-date products and services.

Instead, they’re making one call, dealing with one contact, developing one relationship, and enjoying the cost, time and quality advantages that only comes from having an end-to-end Marketing and Advertising Partner.

Reason #2: Your smartest competitors know that an expert Advertising and Marketing Partner takes an investment portfolio approach. 

DIYers are lucky if they spend $1 and get $1 in return. Most often, the scales are severely tilted – and not in their favor. That $1 is lucky to bring back $0.50.

Your smartest competitors don’t spend $1 to get $1. Rather, they spend $1 to get $5 – because their expert Advertising and Marketing Partner takes an investment portfolio approach.

That is, their Partner integrates a carefully-selected mix of services and products that achieve the highest payoff in the shortest amount of time. Call it an investment approach, call it ROI, or just call it good business.

Whatever name you use, it’s clearly rewarding – and it’s where the smart money is going.

Reason #3: Your smartest competitors know that an expert Advertising and Marketing Partner is clearly cost effective.

DIYers are led to believe that this approach is cost effective. Unfortunately, the folks who led them to believe that are nowhere to be found when it comes time to tally up the final bill. It’s no wonder that DIYers lie awake in bed at night wondering in horror how the decimal place jumped a few places to the right.

Your smartest competitors don’t have these kinds of “lie in bed at night staring at the ceiling and wishing for a time machine” moments. Instead, they’ve leveraged their expert Advertising and Marketing Partner to get preferred agency-only rates.

It’s like they’re paying wholesale, while their competition pays retail. How can the competition…compete? In the long-term, they can’t. And in the long-term, they don’t.

Reason #4: Your smartest competitors know that an expert Advertising Agency and Marketing Firm Partner has their ear to the ground.

The DIY approach assumes that the advertising and marketing world is static. That is, it figures that what should work today, should also work a few months from now when it comes time to turn a plan into action, or to manage an ongoing campaign.

That assumption can be quite wrong, and when it is, it leads to cost overruns, poor results, loss of customers and market share, and diminished competitive advantage.

The advertising and marketing world changes fast – because consumer tastes, marketplace demographics, and a whole host of economic and other indicators change even faster.

Today’s best-selling advertising and marketing books fill tomorrow’s bargain bins. Technologies, best practices and methods are used, and then used up, at blazing speed. Frankly, the business world has never seen anything like it – it’s unprecedented.

Your smartest competitors don’t worry about staying up to date with the latest tools, technologies, thinking and insights – because their expert Advertising and Marketing Partner is doing it for them. So they rest easy knowing that they have a direct line to the leading edge, and will ride the wave of tomorrow’s best practices, while their competitors struggle to stay afloat using yesterday’s obsolete systems.

Reason #5: Your smartest competitors know that an expert Advertising and Marketing Partner takes them to the next level.

Let’s start with this: both DIYers and their smartest competitors want to get to the next level. That is, they want to create a High Performance Environment (HPE) – which is one where marketing strategy, digital advertising, and staff training all work together to create ongoing, elite-level excellence and profitability.

The difference, however, is how each side attempts to get there. One is headed in the right direction. The other…not so much.

DIYers are so busy DIYing, that they can’t focus 100% on running their business. In the simplest terms, that means they aren’t contributing to their business in the most valuable and profitable way possible. Their time, their focus and their vision is distracted. And that’s just the start! As mentioned above, DIYing is also not cost effective, not risk intelligent and not quality assured.

Your smartest competitors aren’t struggling with any of this. They’re strategically delegating key tasks and activities to their Advertising and Marketing Partner, and freeing themselves up to concentrate 100% on running their business. This focus, combined with cost-effective, quality assured and results-based advertising and marketing, creates their HPE, and takes them to the next level.

The Consequences of Inaction

So you know that your smartest competitors are saying no to DIY and choosing an expert Advertising and Marketing partner – and you know why, too.

But what you might not also realize is that they’re doing it right now. They aren’t waiting for you to get into the game, so that you have a fair contest and see who’s best. That’s how things work in sports and elections. It’s not how things work in business. There’s no start and finish line in business. There’s only a succeed or fail line. And your competitors are on the move. Tomorrow they’ll be further ahead than today.

Admittedly, that’s not a comforting thought. But sometimes the best friends in life are the ones who tell you what you need to hear, and not what you want to hear.

However, even as chilling as the consequences of inaction seem, you have reason to feel confident and optimistic, because unlike your smartest competitors, YOU have an ally on your side that will not only rapidly get you into the game, but will cost-effectively put you in the lead: CastleCS.

CastleCS: An Advertising and Marketing Partner Since Day One

At CastleCS, we’ve been an Advertising and Marketing Partner since we first opened our doors. We were years ahead of the curve back then, and we’re years in the lead right now.

Indeed, while our competitors tried — and still try — to dazzle with hype and buzzwords, we smile (politely, of course) and let our systems, strategies, solutions and results speak for us. Why? It’s simple. We’re the Advertising and Marketing Partner that clients KEEP.

It’s what we do. It’s who we are. And it’s where we take our high performance clients. We turn DIY into ROI.