Clients manage thousands of agency reviews and selection processes every year.
These processes are incredibly important. The right agency partners in any area from creative to media, PR or performance marketing can be business multipliers. Getting the search “right” is important for the client’s business and sometimes even for their career. There is a great deal at stake.
And no one trains anyone how to approach an agency search. It’s not an everyday job for a marketer. Many marketers will go through an entire career without leading a search.
Success begins before the review!
There are 5 key decisions that need to be made to set a review up for success.
Decision 1: Be sure the challenge is an agency challenge and not a client challenge.
Maybe the agency problem is actually a client problem. Be certain before you run your review. Check in with your agencies about your processes and behaviors. Conduct a 360 gauging the experiences of the agency as well as your client team. An agency change will not improve poor client behavior, processes, timeline management or feedback. The key is to be sure that a change in agencies will actually yield better agency performance.
Decision 2: Define the business impact you need from your agency.
Start at the end: what will be different about your business in a year after you’ve chosen a new agency? What needs to be different? How will the agency’s impact be measured? In essence, start by defining success. That definition will provide a consistent halo over every aspect of your agency search.
Decision 3: What’s your budget?
Without a clearly identified budget, it will be hard to build a list of potential agencies to consider. And good agencies won’t participate in a review without a clearly identified budget. Budget clarity is critical.
Decision 4: What’s the scope you need for the available budget?
What services and deliverables are necessary to deliver your expected, needed outcomes? Any good agency will want to know both your budget as well as your expectations of the deliverables associated with that budget. This combination is a core component of how agencies size up an opportunity and a client. And without this detail, many good agencies will pass on the opportunity.
Decision 5: What skills, capabilities and culture will be necessary for the selected agency to succeed?
What key strengths are necessary for the agency to play its part in your success? What is the right agency’s culture like? Creating a “needs assessment” that captures the softer side (culture) and harder side (capabilities, track record, experience, etc.) is important in order to make sure the entire client team is aligned regarding what the ideal agency is like.
Make these 5 decisions before starting your agency review.
You’ll run a tighter, more efficient and effective review.
And here are 15 resources that will help with your agency review:
How to run a modern agency review in a few quick sprints
21 Pitfalls clients can avoid in their next agency review
How marketers and agencies can win the tissue session
Better agency feedback delivers a better agency review
How clients and agencies can make the most of references
Managing an effective agency transition
How to evaluate agency proposals
Simple ways a client can be more appealing in a review
The best clients ask agencies the best questions
Steve Boehler, founder, and partner at Mercer Island Group has led consulting teams on behalf of clients as diverse as Ulta Beauty, Microsoft, UScellular, Nintendo, Kaiser Permanente, Holland America Line, Stop & Shop, Qualcomm, Brooks Running, and numerous others. He founded MIG after serving as a division president in a Fortune 100 when he was only 32. Earlier in his career, Steve Boehler cut his teeth with a decade in Brand Management at Procter & Gamble, leading brands like Tide, Pringles, and Jif.
Mercer Island Group helps marketers and agencies succeed. Company leadership is as much at home with marketers and their C-Suites as in an agency’s boardroom. With marketers, Mercer Island Group is a top 5 agency search consultancy covering all types of agency relationships (creative, media, web, PR, experiential) and assists marketers with marketing organization structure, workflow and critical skill development (briefing, creative evaluation & feedback, etc.). The company also supports leading and aspiring agencies with positioning, pitch and strategy training and pitch support.
