How to Stop Playing the Agency Blame Game
Tell me if this sounds familiar: A marketing campaign comes in below expectations. The client says that the agency made a series of mistakes and didn’t deliver what was promised (and probably went over budget); the agency says the client wasn’t clear about the assignment and caused too many delays.
There is certainly plenty of truth in this client-agency scenario, and often enough blame to go around. But my advice is: Doctor, heal thyself!
Having recently worked with several companies who are running agency reviews, I am struck by how often the companies themselves don’t deliver what they need to for an agency to be successful. At a time when Marketing organizations need to consider dramatic changes in their operations, they are often setting unreal expectations and asking agencies to essentially work miracles.
A typical RFP for agencies these days has requirements that include creating non-stop flows of content for social campaigns, wide ranges of display ads for different target segments, mobile trigger programs based on location data, and attribution behind it all that justifies every penny spent. Oh, and yes, the agency has to lay out their exact service structure and cost estimate, which has to be under the client’s allocated budget, a number that rarely seems like it is enough.
On both sides, though, this RFP dance is seriously flawed. The agencies don’t really have enough information to make sharp cost estimates, the clients have not set up the right organization structure to manage all of these new channels, and the budgets are way too locked-in to accommodate the flexibility needed to adjust as results start to come in. Workflows in the client have not been rebuilt to accommodate a faster pace of test/learn/optimize, briefs rarely have enough information about target measurements to gauge their impact, and the IT infrastructure at the client, especially in areas like content management, customer databases, and attribution tools simply cannot scale to cover what the clients wants.
A recent ANA survey highlights the issues, stating that only 27% of agencies agree that clients provide adequate briefs, and even only 58% of clients agree. The procurement side of many clients wants to push agencies into taking more risk in sharing on outcomes, but only around 50% of both clients and agencies agree that performance-based pay motivates agency performance.
Marketers are the ones who have to take some responsibility for this. With so many changes going on in their channel environment and in how they aim to manage customers, marketers need to create their own “playbooks” for how they will launch campaigns, manage “always-on” programs, and track impact. Of course, these will never be static, but defining some core processes, running training bootcamps on a regular basis, and providing clear templates will help. Practicing how to create briefs, sharing them across the organization, and then making them available to new marketers coming into a company will raise the bar for departments that tend to have a lot of turnover. In fact, we’ve seen great efficiencies in marketers who are creating these disciplines – as much as 20% cost savings in spend and halving the time for programs to get to market.
So before throwing the spear out to start an agency review, even if it is merited, take a hard look at what it will take to make yourself the client that can inspire the on-target work, greater efficiency, and faster response times needed to breakthrough and drive the growth you seek.
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[Image, Chris Vreeland, Flickr]
CEO at Roots Resources
9yContinuously adapt consumer behaviour change which is the only constant.
GE
9yI just think that it depends on our willpower. But everything is just under my guess. Thanks for providing us useful information!
Owners Engagement Adviser
9yGreat clear explanation but almost impossible to implement while preventing your team from throwing each other under the bus when cracks start forming in your plans. As a general contractor working with 10 to 15 specialty consultants for Uber high net worth clients, on tens of millions of dollars in high-resolution architecture, the buck stops at the builder. I wonder if the buck should stop at your sales team business development experts not PR, marketing or agency. As a career salesman in the building industry, finding the balance in cutting up the buying cycle into segments creates huge riffs between the lifecycle of The sales process in building something or any other kind of service or product delivery model. Coming from someone with limited exposure to agencies and PR firms. I would recommend the business development team set the creative challenge in front of your marketing/PR /agency which than forces them to work organically on a rollout strategy. This team runs the budget and then delivers the packaged plan back to the business development team, Who becomes responsible for its success or failure. The Salesmen should make the most money but have the most skin in the game!
Veteran | Mentor | Entrepreneur
9yWhen the company fails to be able to measure or they have roadblocks that prevent tracking marketing and sales metrics, the relationship will fail. Knowing your numbers is the most essential, 101 task in marketing, sales, operations and accounting. Measurement is almost always performed in accounting, most of the time in ops but rarely applied to sales and most often applied incorrectly to marketing or there is no measurement at all.
Global Account Manager at Vendemore
9yBlame is a strong word, when you engage with any agency it should be a Partnership, as such both Partners need to set up for success, the agency are the Subject Matter Experts, so should be able to guide their Partner on what is required from the start to achieve the success metrics agreed. Great Project Management and Communication is paramount. Please never throw a brief over the fence and expect great results.