Would you class your relationship with your marketing agency as totally transactional? If so, we suggest a change of tack. Upgrading to an agency partnership is crucial. When you come together to work toward common goals, you’ll achieve them faster and smash them harder.
The benefits of bringing on a marketing agency
Call us biased, but we think there’s a whole host of reasons you should bring on a marketing agency. Here are just a small handful:
Time – Take marketing tasks off your plate and focus on selling
Money – No need to fork out for an entire in-house team or pricey tools
Trends – Your agency can be your eyes and ears on the ground
Objectivity – Get a fresh, unbiased perspective on your current efforts
Expertise – Access multiple creative professionals with innovative ideas
5 ways to build a strong agency partnership
Now you’re aware of the pros of hiring an agency. Let’s have a look at how you can build and nurture a partnership that helps you get the most from them.
1. Always sing from the same hymn sheet Making sure everyone in both camps are on the same page from day one will have a profoundly positive impact on the longevity of your agency partnership. Being upfront and honest about things like deliverables and project timelines means you’ll be more likely to stay synced up as time passes, minimising any possible frustrations.
2. Collaborating is everything A thriving agency partnership requires input from each side. And while we appreciate you’ve brought them on to free up some time, investing the necessary hours (or days) to onboard them properly will only make the partnership more successful.
Remember, the faster you give your new agency access to the materials they need to get their job done, the better the outcome will be for you both.
3. Speak each other’s language Working together effectively with your agency relies on you being clear about how you like to communicate. Do you prefer a weekly summary email? A monthly Zoom meeting? Or a phone call on a brief-by-brief basis?
The more you’re able to tell your agency about how your business operates, the more equipped they’ll be to develop a strategy that serves up the results you’re after.
4. Don’t have unrealistic expectations You might look at your agency as a bunch of miracle workers. But even the whizziest landing pages and punchiest ad copy can’t resolve deeper, underlying product or offer issues.
So, if it seems like both you and your agency are doing everything right and still not experiencing the fruits of your labour, it might be time for a look under the hood – or even a trip back to the drawing board.
5. Stick with it Once you’ve seen results from your agency, you could be tempted to take back the reins. While that may be the right approach for your brand, you might also want to consider how continuing to build this partnership could help you in future.
From our own experience, we’ve found that the longer we’ve worked with a particular client, the better the results we’ve been able to deliver. This is because the relationship becomes symbiotic once you have a team of experts constantly inside the mind of your brand.
One last thought
Prepare yourself for some trial and error. The first agency you meet might not be the one you end up partnering with, so be patient and find one you truly trust.
Carefully considering what it is that you’re looking for, what your expectations are and how you want to communicate will enable to you to build a strong, lasting agency partnership that delivers.
At bbp, we believe your marketing agency should feel like an extension of your team. We’ve applied that thinking to build and nurture fruitful partnerships with brands such as NetApp and Worldpay from FIS. To see how we can work together, contact us.
Featured image by “My Life Through A Lens” on Unsplash.