7 Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Client-Agency Relationship
If you have a marketing partner, it might be time to ask, “How can I get the most out of my client-agency relationship?”
With Covid-19 interrupting business as usual, the world has had to become more flexible, adaptable, and creative. Now more than ever, organizations need their marketing partners to flex, adapt, and create alongside them. Which makes the question, “How can I get the most out of my client-agency relationship?” more relevant than ever.
Now more than ever, organizations need their marketing partners to flex, adapt, and create alongside them.
We’ve taken the first step by brainstorming 7 ways to get the most out of your agency that, perhaps, you never thought of. (If you have thought of them, a gold star for you!)
First, Broaden Your View of What an Agency Can Do
Before contemplating how to get the most out of your agency, it helps to think more broadly about your agency’s skill set and role.
Look again at your agency’s service offerings. You may discover untapped services or expertise.
Also, don’t assume that agencies can only play a role during big projects, like rebrands or WordPress websites. That might be true for big-box agencies, but boutique firms like Moonlight will help with smaller projects too, like creating business cards.
7 Ways to Leverage Your Marketing Agency
1: Use Your Agency to Support In-House Staff
Your in-house marketing and sales teams are in charge of getting profits and campaigns up and running.
But who helps those in-house teams get up and running?
View your agency as support for your internal teams. Agencies can provide in-house teams with essential marketing needs, like brochures, sales sheets, and email signatures.
We also create marketing templates that in-house teams can customize and build upon. This helps employees communicate key messages to audiences or customers with greater efficiency and speed.
Sometimes it’s a presentation template that sales teams can tailor for individual customers. Other times, it’s a social media graphic that marketing teams can post monthly.
Our client Safewaze, for example, wanted to create their product catalog in-house. But, they needed our help to create the overall style, design, and layout options.
We provided multiple layout combinations their team could use as-is or mix and match to fit their ever-changing product needs. A flexible layout we necessary for their wide variety of products and sub-products. Our templates gave them the power to create with confidence and efficiency.
2: Let Agencies Help You Focus on Important Work
We know in-house teams are busy. They have goals and deadlines to meet. So, it pains us to see them bogged down with in-the-weeds tasks like ordering promotional items or sourcing the right vendor.
Agencies can take on marketing tasks that free up clients to focus on their real priorities.
You know what else pains us? Frustrated clients who feel like they’re spending way too much time on a project. Some of our clients have confessed to spending 10 hours creating a graphic that would’ve only taken Moonlight 2.
When it comes to technical jobs, like web or graphic design, an agency can often do the work faster and therefore more cost-efficiently.
3: Ask Your Agency to Find Cost-Effective Solutions
Speaking of cost, agencies know how to create solutions that get the most bang for your buck.
Marketing agencies have years of experience finding, sourcing, and creatively brainstorming solutions that fit clients’ needs and budgets.
When working with Bake For Your Life, for example, we were able to find and source a product packaging vendor that could print in small quantities.
This helped our client stay within her budget while also sourcing a vendor that could accommodate multiple designs, so her full line of products could be launched together.
As long as you’re transparent about how much you can spend, your agency can help you find the best budget-friendly solution.
4: Ask Your Agency for Advice
If you’re working on a project in-house, you may need some outside help.
You might need another creative mind to brainstorm with.
Or, you might want to check-in with an expert on best-practices to shape your work.
Or, you might want a second set of eyes to proof-read a document.
Bring in your agency as a consultant to help advise on an in-house project. Agencies can give you peace of mind or clear direction, even if they are not taking the lead on the project.
Don’t forget that it doesn’t cost anything to ask your agency a simple question. We get asked for tool recommendations all the time. If the answer is more complicated, we’ll suggest a plan to find the answer.
5: Use Your Agency to Ensure Hard Work Keeps Working Hard
Let’s say you’ve just completed a big project with an agency. You put a lot of time, money, and effort into the project. So, you’d probably be horrified by the idea of letting that hard work slip away.
Unfortunately, we’ve seen it happen.
Websites stop getting updated; marketing materials don’t get updated with the new brand. Suddenly the big project you completed starts losing its impact.
Ask your agency to help sustain the momentum and impact of your investment. Your creative partners have the time and skillset to build upon completed work and inform you of tasks that will keep it from slipping away.
After Charlotte Marathon launched its big rebrand, we made sure that the hard work of the rebrand continued to deliver value across all channels. The following year, we developed new on-brand social graphics, a brand ambassador program, and new ad campaigns that helped sustain the momentum of the rebrand.
6: Let Your Agency Identify What Isn’t Working
A marketing agency is really good at looking at the ecosystem that is “marketing” and seeing how well the parts within the ecosystem are working together.
Let your agency help identify gaps in your marketing ecosystem.
Marketing agencies can identify connections that are weak or ineffective. They can also look at a low performing tactic, figure out what’s wrong, and find a solution. Audits are a great way for agencies to take a comprehensive look at your strategy, website, or content.
Sometimes it takes an outside expert to help you identify what’s working and what isn’t.
7: Let Your Agency Uncover New Opportunities
Want to know the mark of a good agency?
A good agency will share new marketing ideas and suggestions with you, even if you haven’t asked them to.
That’s because a good agency is proactively looking out for its clients’ best interests.
It’s not uncommon for us to email clients out of the blue with ah-ha ideas or recommendations, many of which include things the client can do themselves.
Some clients might interpret this as upselling. But, we agencies think it’s our responsibility as creative partners to uncover new opportunities that will bring our clients closer to their goals.
When Charlotte began its stay-in-place order due to Coronavirus, we wrote a series of blogs with low and no-cost marketing suggestions to help clients keep moving forward. We wanted to at least try and offer some guidance and help, even without being asked.
(Psst… if you haven’t seen them yet, here they are)
Digitizing Your Business During the Coronavirus
Strengthen Your Marketing Amid the Coronavirus
Coronavirus Content Strategy
Assess. Adapt. Connect. Marketing Amidst the Coronavirus
Proactive ideas, versus reactive solutions, are an added value that a great agency provides.
Final Thoughts
Good agencies want to deliver long-term value to their clients. To do that, sometimes they help in new and different ways.
Traditionally, agencies are asked to help accomplish website or branding goals. But just know they can help you achieve other goals too, like saving time and money, increasing efficiency, or making your life easier (and less stressful).
We’re a resource for you so use us!
Want to continue the conversation? Give us a shout!
