The Client-Agency Prep Plan for a Great Year

CMOs always want to get a new year off to a great start.

Sound management of an agency or agency roster is a key to the Brand’s (and CMO’s) success. Good clients get good agency work. There is a linear relationship between being a good client and getting good work. And good agency work can be the linchpin to a successful year.

Net, being a good client is a core marketing responsibility. What can a marketer do to make sure their team and agencies are ready for a fantastic year? How can CMOs and their agencies kick off the year in a way that increases their mutual odds of success?

Take stock of your situation. Review the following list and ensure your client-agency relationship is ready for success and to highlight opportunities to achieve a better return on agency investment.

1. Renew your client-agency “vows”

Once upon a time, the client and agency got “married”. They decided to work together in an ongoing relationship. Over time the business has changed, priorities have changed and many of the people involved have changed.

Renew your vows to each other! Define the principles that will govern your working relationship.

2. Business Need Alignment  

Is there client-agency alignment around the basics that drive a successful marketing investment:

• What is the primary business impact needed as a result of the agency’s work?
• What level of agency talent do you expect on your business and are you willing to pay market rates for that talent?
• Is there clarity regarding your future business needs?
• Is your team analytically defining the best mix of strategies and investments that drive both short- and long-term success?
• What is the client & agency’s holistic technology strategy?

3. Brief the agency on the annual marketing and business plan

Share the plan for the year. Discuss the challenges, what is expected and needed and what is ahead. Engage the agency team even deeper in your business.

4. Review what you know – and need to learn – about your customer

Marketers and their agencies need to represent the voice of the customer to the organization. Your customer doesn’t stand still – so make it a priority to better understand your customer every day, week and month of the year.

Is there a formal plan to learn more about your target audience?

5. Develop rolling 30/60/90-day plans and commitments 

Do this now for the first quarter and thereafter on an ongoing, rolling basis. Identify the key efforts needed and who from the client and agency is responsible with clear due dates. Publish this plan and use it as a living document to track and sense progress.

6. Schedule top-to-tops now 

The calendar is the enemy! If it’s not on the calendar it doesn’t get done: the modern marketer is pulled in so many directions from business issues and staffing challenges to digital transformation and data and Martech initiatives that it is easy to miss some of the basics in leading and managing key client-agency relationships. A routine, well planned and managed top to top call between the top marketer leading the agency relationship and their agency counterpart can be the secret weapon to greater effectiveness and results. You can read about how to structure the ideal top to top call here. Schedule your routine top-to-top calls now to maintain momentum and keep communication flowing.

7. Ensure SOW Alignment 

Are you aligned on scope? The SOW needs to be a clear and detailed document. That is just the starting point, however. A critical aspect of highly effective client-agency relationships is the mutual understanding of the SOW and shared expectations on what the SOW means (and doesn’t mean!) regarding the activities and deliverables that the agency has signed up for. Does this softer side of SOW alignment exist between the client and agency?

8. Plan for Skill Development 

Does the client-agency team have clear plans to ensure skill development in key areas:

• Strategy Training
• Strategic Insight Development
• Creative & Media Evaluation Training
• Feedback Training

9. Client/Agency 360

Is an annual client-agency 360 a norm for your operation? The client-agency relationship is about the performance of both the agency AND the client. The role of the client is every bit as important (and perhaps more so) as the role of the agency. A proper 360 approach includes the agency evaluating the client (in addition to the client evaluating the agency).

The ideal approach includes both qualitative feedback and quantitative grading and is administered by an objective and experienced third party. At Mercer Island group we have performed hundreds of these 360 evaluations, have a disciplined and thorough process and have norms available for context. The key is to make this a planned, annual effort. Clients need to know what role they play in their agencies’ effectiveness. Clients that are attentive to how they can be better partners get better work from their agencies.

10. Make sure the basics are covered… with distinction

In such a stressful environment, it’s easy as a marketer these days to lose sight of some basics. And doing well at the basics can mean the difference between success and failure. There are a number of basic processes and tools that serve as the foundation for a productive client-agency operation. Is your team ready with excellence in the following areas?

• Marketing Calendar: Does the agency have clear line of sight to the client’s marketing calendar? The Marketing Calendar helps the entire team plan their workload and visualize how the year unfolds. It’s a key tool for complex organizations to ensure that everyone is rowing in the same direction.
• Workflow: Is there a clearly delineated workflow that takes into account both client and agency responsibilities? Campaign workflows and RACI are the starting point to ensure everyone that touches an effort touches it at the right time, with enough lead time to deliver outstanding work. Do you have campaign workflows developed for campaigns of differing complexities and investment levels?
• Briefs: Are your strategic briefs complete and presented/shared in client-agency work sessions? The client brief is not the same thing as the creative brief that the agency creates. The client brief is one of the most important documents that a marketer creates and includes measurable business and target audience objectives, key strategies, insights that can be leveraged and defines the deliverables needed from the agency. Great clients share their brief during an interactive work session with the agency to ensure shared understanding and expectations.
• The “Must See” Call: Do you ensure agility and efficiency with a regular “Must See” call? There is too much work and too many other pressing issues demanding CMO attention for the CMO to see every ad or communications tactic that airs. There are core efforts that need the CMO’s buy-in and involvement like new campaign ideas, major broadcast work, and significant investment decisions. The “CMO Must See Call” is a routine creative review call with agency, the CMO and all other client levels in attendance that keeps critical work on track and helps the CMO build effective proxies.
• Inter-Agency Team (IAT): Do you have an IAT with a clear charter and processes? Many marketers work with rosters of specialist agencies. The IAT is a key approach that helps extend the client’s vision and ensure the entire agency team is working together.
• Approval Processes: Are they clear to the entire team and embedded in tactical work planning?
• Timelines: Are timelines built with recognition of the time necessary to deliver great work?
• Annual MSA Review: Have you reviewed the MSA together to be sure it is up to-date and meets the needs of both parties? Most corporate MSAs lack important client and agency protections. And, even if your corporation has a marketing agency specific MSA, it is likely out of date if it was last updated before 2020. The world of client-agency MSA best practices have changed dramatically in the past few years and continues to change. Most corporate MSAs lack critical protections for the client in areas like media supply chain transparency, digital effectiveness, audit rights, data ownership and other areas. An annual review will benefit both the client and the relationship.
• Agency Compensation: Have you had conversations with your agency focused on ensuring the scope and their compensation are well matched?

Bonus Suggestion: Routine Business Conversations 

Is there a defined cadence to continuously update the client-agency team’s mutual understanding of the state of the business?

Many marketing and agency executives immediately dive into marketing strategies or tactics without a complete understanding of the business issues involved. A clear understanding of the company’s business issues should always be the starting point for any effort. Is the overall business issue sales related? Market share related? Is it about competition? In our experience, executives that can have more productive discussions regarding the firm’s business issues are more successful because they bring that understanding to their key projects. The ability to have these business conversations is an important skill for marketers and agency executives.