Nine Keys to Getting the Most for Your Marketing Money
1. Ask your questions Begin your agency relationship by sharing your business goals — as concretely as possible — with your agency. If you don’t have an in-house marketing director, your agency can translate your goals into marketing strategies and tactics that will be the blueprint to achieving your objectives. If this is your first time working with an agency, go over the contract fine print upfront. We try to do an Agency 101 with new clients to explain how we bill, how the project will flow, what the processes are. Don’t be shy when asking about advertising terms, some of which are right up there with Aramaic. 2. Throw back that curtain Once you have committed to an agency relationship, treat the agency as a partner. We are not the printer repairman; we’re an extension of your marketing team. An agency can help create some remarkable shifts in your business, but not if you keep us at arm’s length. Throw back that curtain and share what’s worked in the past and what hasn’t. Give us access to your team. Let us listen in on your customer calls and evaluate all of your touch points — your reception area, proposals, receipts, signage, ads and Web experience. A good agency wants to be challenged and held accountable for results. 3. Do your homework Our vice president and brand strategist Suzanne said last week that market research is the new black for small businesses. Yup. We are seeing many more small- to midsize clients letting us conduct market research than two or three years ago. They have fewer dollars to spend on advertising, and they want to get the strategy and message right the first time out of the gate. Keep in mind that there are more cost-effective ways to do market research these days: Twitter monitoring, online surveys, etc. 4. Buy fresh As an advertising acolyte, I attended a creative conference in San Francisco in the ’80s when the advertising iconoclast Ted Chin spoke. He outlined to a rapt audience his “quotations from Chairman Chin.” The one that burned in my brain was, “Sameness is Lameness.” Let your agency know you’re open to big thinking. Paying an agency to execute preconceived notions is not a good use of your money. 5. Think big Big ideas make people nervous. That’s how you know you’re on to something. How can you tell the difference between a big idea and a big bust? First, check the idea against your strategy: Will it deliver your target audience? Will it achieve your communication goals? Is it true to your brand? Will it create an emotional bond between your company and your target audience? Bolster yourself with the reminder that marketing the same way you always have will get you the same results. Imagine that room full of insurance executives when someone first pitched the idea of a duck’s being the central advertising component for Aflac. 6. Talk to your agency One of the strangest client relationships [...]