There’s a lot to think about when you’re deciding to work with a marketing agency. While we’ve covered MANY considerations, from agency culture, questions to ask, location factors and more, there’s another important piece that must enter your pros and cons list: the role you, the client, will play when working with a marketing agency.
No matter who you choose to serve as your marketing agency, you’ll want to be clear on what you can expect your roles to be and the importance of not just understanding yours but also those of your marketing agency.
Client Roles:
- Complete Oversight – This is your business, which means no one knows it better than you. While a good marketing agency will always keep that in mind, it’s your job to provide complete oversight on the project/relationship. Make sure everything produced feels on-brand and is an accurate reflection of your business and its offerings.
- Frequent Communication – As with any relationship, communication is the key to a successful relationship with your marketing agency. It’s incredibly important to be open and honest with your marketing agency. Also, don’t be shy requesting the medium you’d prefer to communicate through. Whether by email, phone call, or another avenue, regular communication is vital to ensure the services you’ve hired them for are carried out how and when you intended.
- Clear Direction – Provide specific feedback whenever possible. Ensuring there’s as little room for interpretation as possible will provide clear direction for your marketing agency. Whether on a design piece, content, or any service you’re working on, it’s vital you are clear in what you want, and often just as important, what you don’t Clear direction will save your agency time and save your business money.
- Careful Review/Approval – When requested, be sure you’re reviewing materials carefully, providing specific feedback that will lead to the highest quality product. Any good agency worth working with will ensure they have your final approval before any marketing collateral goes out the door.
Agency Roles:
- Regular Communication – Just as it’s important for you (the client) to communicate clearly and consistently, the agency you hire should do the same. Providing regular updates on projects, schedule changes, strategy adjustments, and more, it’s vital you’re kept in the loop, so the project/relationship stays on track.
- Coordination – From the budget to the schedule and everything in between, your marketing agency should fill the important role of project coordination. After all, that’s one of the biggest benefits of working with an agency; they manage the project from start to finish, ensuring drafts are delivered, printers are notified, final products are polished and ready for consumption, etc.
- Product Deliverables – It should go without saying but your agency is ultimately responsible for providing the marketing products/services you hired them for. Bringing your visions to life and fulfilling your business’ marketing goals through creative design, thoughtfully crafted messaging, and strategic promotion is their ultimate role.
- Strategy – A plan is important but even more so is knowing when to adjust if something isn’t working as planned. Your marketing agency should constantly evaluate the marketing strategy to ensure dollars and time are being spent in the most beneficial way for your Regular analysis all the tools being engaged, the market conditions, and opportunities for further reach and engagement is an important role your agency should fulfill.
While each agency and business are different, your roles must be considered before you enter that important relationship. This is a good list to get you thinking if the agency relationship is right for you but, we also recommend you visit with a prospective agency about their interpretation of their roles to ensure you’re starting off with the same understanding of how the relationship will play out.
Still not sure if hiring a marketing agency is the right step for your business? Check out our Marketing Agency Resources and these posts too:
Know Your Goals When Hiring a Marketing Agency
What Do You Mean by Marketing? And Other Questions You Should be Asking a Marketing Agency
You Get What You Pay For: Cost Benefit of Hiring a Marketing Agency
What This Marketing Agency Can Do for You
Hiring a Marketing Agency. Retainer vs. Project