Hiring A New Ad Agency? Here's Why Chemistry Matters

 

With so many stellar options available to today's marketers, choosing an advertising agency can be an overwhelming task. Whether digital, print, social or experiential, advertising is a viable part of a marketing plan.

 

Hiring a new ad agency? Here's why chemistry matters.

 

Getting started

 

Before deciding on an advertising agency partner (and even before the request for proposal (RFP) process), a company should prepare by considering resources available and what they hope to achieve. For instance, what staff resources are available to you and what are their strengths and weaknesses? You'll also need to understand your budget limitations. How much money are you willing to dedicate to advertising?   

 

Why chemistry matters

 

The RFP process will help you understand an agency's areas of strength, creative style, past successes, as well as practical information like cost and team member responsibilities and strengths. It will be more difficult, however, to understand one important key from an RFP – chemistry. Proper chemistry with your agency is crucial because, at times, you will need to have tough conversations with your agency team. For instance, in cases where creative has missed the mark, financial resources or priorities change, or when deadlines are missed or sensitive information needs to be shared. In any of these cases, you want an agency team you can talk through challenges with.

 

Additionally, your agency will function as an extension of your team, helping to guide you and partner with you in making decisions that directly affect your brand and the project as a whole. Choosing an agency that is a good cultural fit will serve you well throughout the life of your project, by ensuring a smooth working relationship. For example, if your small company prides itself on having an internal culture that is approachable and nimble, working with an agency that has a more formal communication process, has cumbersome practices or that is inundated with larger clients may not be the best fit.   To assess chemistry, set up face-to-face meetings with the agencies who have risen to the top of the list during the RFP process. You'll want to make sure the team members with whom you will be working are actually in the meetings so that you can get a feel for the personalities of your exact team. Ask questions to understand how they've worked with clients similar to your organization or projects similar in scope. Some additional questions might include:

 

• What projects have you worked on that didn't work? How did you handle it?
• Tell me about a successful client relationship.
• What is your client communication process?

Working with an ad agency can be an exciting experience that can help you reach important organizational goals such as gaining brand recognition, increased market share and revenue. In addition to negotiating the technical aspects of an agreement and understanding your potential agency's areas of expertise and creative process, assess partnership chemistry to get the most out of the relationship. 

 

 

  

Source : articlesbase.com