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Build a Partnership for Performance with your
Marketing Agency

Jenny DavisHow do you build a successful partnership with a marketing agency? The way you cultivate any valued relationship, with communication and shared insights. Daily collaboration powers a client/agency relationship. The more information you share with your agency, the better they are able to serve you and develop the fresh ideas you want. The most common mistake in this type of relationship is for one to take such an dominant leadership role that the other’s voice is lost. Working collaboratively from the same knowledge base allows you to set expectations, hear feedback, work through problems or fears, and brainstorm ideas successfully.
These are the same things you do when building an internal team of professionals and specialists for any part of your organization. Your marketing agency is an extension of the internal team you have worked so hard to build. As with your employees, making a long-term investment in your agency can benefit your business and foster growth. Similarly, your agency invests in you. They invest their time to learn and understand your business, your vision, and your goals. Their success is directly tied to yours, and their vision for their future includes finding new ways to help fulfill your company’s mission.
For example, have you ever thrown a marketing project together just to get it out the door because you had to do something, then later regretted it because it was done too fast to take into account all of the variables? Bringing in an agency provides the opportunity to break the cycle of being constantly overloaded and therefore reactive. Strategic marketing communications firms specialize in making sure the tactics employed put you in an advantageous position when you go to market. Establishing meaningful goals, working through the issues, and collaborating to develop a plan for completion for each piece of the program are second nature to them. It’s their job.
It’s also their job to make sure that your marketing programs really do help you reach your goals. For example, if you need to educate the market about your particular business solution, and your agency advises you to utilize public relations in that effort, you can bet there will be more than just a press release involved in order to make that happen. A good agency will educate you on the complete process for communicating so that your message will be heard and acted upon, in addition to helping you accomplish your original goal. They’ll also help you ensure that your message is delivered in a fashion that best reaches your audience at whatever point they are in the sales process, whether it’s via a newsletter, an article in a trade publication, an informational seminar, or a blog. And, like any member of your staff, they’ll encourage your input and the sharing of knowledge as it relates to your goals and your target audiences.
So, when you hire an agency to help with your marketing program, remember you are building a team. Here are some starting points for developing that team:
  1. Look for an agency that puts you, the client, first.
    Avoid agencies that want to make you over in their (i.e., the agency's) image. You would never hire an employee whom you found difficult, uncooperative, or otherwise unpleasant. The same applies to your marketing agency. If you are building a team, you should think in terms of an agency that fits your working style and company culture. You want your employees to communicate effectively, follow direction, work through proper channels to resolve conflict, and find creative solutions to your business needs. You should expect the same of your agency.
  2. Be honest with your agency about your marketing budget.
    Don't hesitate to share your budget with your agency. If they know how much you have to spend, they can often be very creative with regard to making every dollar count. If your budget is limited, you can then discuss adjusting your goals accordingly. The best time to know this is going into a project rather than later, in order to avoid being disappointed by unrealistic expectations. A good agency is both realistic about costs and passionate about your vision. If your current agency seems to only care about the money, then find another agency.
  3. Collaborate. Agency/client relationships go a lot better if both sides work together as a team.
    Don't treat your agency as a ”vendor,” but rather as a partner. Communicate frequently. Let your agency in on your future plans, when you’re up, and when you’re down. You can always define what is for public knowledge and what is confidential. Feel free to ask them to sign a non-disclosure agreement if you’re concerned about confidentiality. This open communication should also include the freedom to discuss questions you may have about a chosen business direction or marketing objective.

    Even a good agency can falter if they are unaware of how their programs align with the rest of your business activities and planning. You work countless hours to develop business plans, enhance your offerings, and take advantage of opportunities that arise. An uninformed agency can unwittingly undermine this hard work, while an informed agency can refine the messaging to lay the groundwork for your future, if it knows what’s coming down the pipeline.
  4. CEOs should be continually involved in sharing vision and objectives with the agency.
    Interfacing with your agency shouldn't be limited to junior employees who are unable to contribute to strategic thinking behind the tactical programs that are needed. Marketing programs need to fit into the overarching company strategy in order to be successful. Company strategy emanates from the CEO. If your vision isn’t clear to your employees, investors, or prospective customers, talk with your agency. Since they deal in communicating vision on a regular basis, they can help you articulate it in a compelling manner.

    CEOs should also be quick to share problems or crisis information with their agency. The agency's experience can help you respond appropriately,while preventing small problems from growing into larger problems through lack of appropriate and proactive communication.
  5. Get agreement up front on goals and how performance will be measured.
    A really creative idea is only one piece of the puzzle. That idea also has to work. Collaborate with your agency to define the benchmarks for success in terms of ranges, from rock-bottom to pie-in-the-sky. If your agency understands your goals and benchmarks, they can ensure their solutions work effectively toward your definition of success. Your agency can also help you map out and further refine the steps to each benchmark for both short-term and long-term strategies. You can rely on your agency to think of the ideas you might struggle to develop, while you watch them build upon the business plans and discussions you bring to the table. You are also the sounding board for each other when you need to take a few more reasonably sized steps toward goals, or rev up programs to be more aggressive and avoid stagnating.
  6. Be realistic (and patient) with expecting results from programs that take a while to bear fruit.
    Understand the difference between lead generation and awareness building, how they support each other, and the timelines they require. (See Awareness Building and Lead Generation for more information on this subject.) If you have questions, discuss them with your agency. There is no universal answer to how long a lead takes to become a sale, because it all depends upon your business and how complicated your sales cycle is. Your agency should have experience working with multiple scenarios in terms of sales cycles and different approaches for each situation. This is the experience you hire them for, and what they capitalize on to create new ideas specific to your needs.

    Similarly, programs must be executed consistently to bear fruit. If you're going to do print advertising, be prepared to advertise repetitively in order to build awareness and recall. About the time you think that a campaign theme is becoming worn out, it may just be beginning to be recognized by your audiences. If you have a longer and more complicated sales cycle, it will most likely take several coordinated touches from your marketing programs to drive prospects further into the sales funnel, while coordinating efforts with your sales force. A consistent plan for addressing hot, warm, and cold leads only works if both you and your agency follow it. If adjustments are needed, make them in partnership with your agency to avoid missteps.
  7. Teamwork is fun!
    Building your relationship with your marketing agency should be enjoyable. Spirited conversation is often the inspiration for fresh ideas. One CEO said, “I get the best ideas when we have these open-ended sessions.” It works both ways. If you have built a team that works, you will enjoy working through all of the ups and downs of problem solving and creatively tracking your goals.