The year is about to wrap and pretty much everyone needs a break before diving into the new year and its challenges.
Small gifts of chocolate, coffee and a spirit or two have been arriving at Mercer Island Group. So thoughtful and so unnecessary!
Clients and agencies will often treat their partners to year end gifts large and small. It’s a lovely tradition. But what do clients and agencies really need and want from each other?
Here’s a list of gifts that clients and agencies can give that will really make their partners happy!
15 Gifts Clients Can Give Agencies
Most agencies would LOVE any of the following gifts from their clients:
- A client-agency 360
- Routine “top to top” calls
- More face time with decision makers
- More patience
- Better strategic marketing written briefs
- Better strategic marketing briefings
- More time to do great work
- A client team trained in how to evaluate creative, media & PR plans
- A client marketing team trained in how to deliver more effective feedback
- Fair compensation
- Involvement in key discussions
- More time together away from the office and more in-person meetings
- More overt appreciation of the work and effort
- Shared successes
- Assume best intent
15 Gifts Agencies Can Give Clients
Most clients would LOVE any of the following gifts from their agency:
- More proactivity
- More patience
- Greater agility
- Better value
- More transparency & less self-dealing (principal buying etc.)
- Deeper customer, competitor and brand insights
- Better questions
- Better trained staff
- More expertise
- More knowledge sharing of new technologies and approaches
- More learning from other clients
- Ways to deliver more impact for the same budget
- More appreciation of the client’s role in the agency’s success
- Better creative, PR and media work
- Assume best intent
Bonus: A Gift that both Clients & Agencies Want
Clients AND agencies need a fixed digital media supply chain.
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.
