Ouch! Do You Really Think That?

What You Think About Your Ad Agency and What You Can Do About It

A recent, national survey¹ revealed that businesses harbor some not too flattering opinions about their marketing agencies. The three most commonly (and predictably) cited complaints were:

• Agencies are overpriced
• Agencies are not knowledgeable enough about client businesses and markets
• Agencies don’t react quickly enough to client needs

There is an effective tool to turn these complaints into compliments. But first, let’s address these criticisms, starting with the second and third complaints.

Agency Expertise and Focus

While cost, quality of staff and breadth of services are typical criteria for agency evaluation, your agency’s ability to quickly come up to speed on each and every project may be the most important factor in determining how much value they can deliver. How smart is your agency? Do they know your businesses, your markets, the way your customers think? Is your staff burdened with copy rewrites and idea generation that you want your agency to handle? Many agencies claim they can do it all, and some can. But finding one that focuses on your type of business can result in high quality deliverables at a fair, if not inexpensive, cost. Answering these questions may help you in your evaluation.

• Does my agency specialize in my type of business?
• Do they have other clients similar to my company?
• Does their account staff have practical, business experience?

The best relationship is one where your agency feels and acts like your own marketing department. This type of relationship often develops from a market and industry intimacy that existed even before you began to work with them.

Sense of Urgency

Three things you and your agency can do to work toward better responsiveness include:

• Get to know your agency’s personnel. Working directly with those responsible for your projects can minimize delays and reduce the chance for misinterpretation.
• Communicate milestones and deadlines clearly. Most agencies employ computerized job trafficking systems to prioritize work. Identifying deadlines early in the project allows for proper resource allocation and timely delivery.
• Evaluate your agency’s ability and resources to perform your work. Gary Sears of Camelot Media Group² notes that significant in-house capability brings the flexibility, availability, quality controls and streamlining required for meeting client deadlines, not to mention in a synergistic and effective creative process.

While these steps may help you toward meeting defined deadlines, an agency’s ability to react and respond with the urgency you need on a daily basis is dependent on the quality of their staff. Customer focus, attitude and aptitude are intangible traits. But if you detect a genuine sense of responsibility, resourcefulness and work ethic at your agency, you’re headed in the right direction.

Price vs. Value

Is the $85 / hour national average too much to pay for the variety of services offered by small to mid-sized agencies? It is if you don’t receive equal or greater value in return. Pricing complaints generally come on the heels of projects that require numerous iterations, missed deadlines and the shifting of the creative burden back upon the client. Too often, the client is required to write and rewrite copy leading to the common “I should have done it myself” complaint.

If you’ve addressed agency knowledge and responsiveness, the cost of services may no longer be an issue. Encouraging and demanding that your agency know your business and your customers’ needs will result in value that far exceeds the price paid.

Agencies typically mark up outside purchases by 15 percent and, at first glance, this is an easy target for savings. But be careful not to quickly dispose of the value you may be receiving. Does your agency get three or more quotes for printing projects to ensure the lowest cost possible? Do they insulate you from quality, delivery and billing issues with suppliers? Does your agency perform quality research, manage editorial calendars and bring preferential placement opportunities in the trade press? If you answer yes to these questions, think twice before asking to work directly with outside suppliers.

A Simple Performance Measurement Tool

In most cases, your agency works with many people in your organization. Developing and distributing a simple survey³ will give you the feedback you need to improve and refine your agency relationship. Web-based survey tools make this process simple and affordable while usually delivering surprisingly high response rates. Work with your agency to develop a survey and have them distribute it to your staff. Some example questions might include:

• How would you rate the QUALITY of the services obtained from Agency XYZ?
• How would you rate Agency XYZ’s ability to meet your DEADLINES?
• Please complete the following sentence. Agency XYZ’s associates ________ RESPOND immediately to my requests.
• Please rate the VALUE of the services you obtained from Agency XYZ.

Make sure the respondents have easy-to-select criteria and areas for entering free-form comments. Just as important, share the results with them. You almost certainly will learn about critical areas that can be improved or discover new ideas for generating greater value from the relationship.

¹Survey conducted by Second Wind. Second Wind is a North American network of small and mid-sized advertising agencies and related firms that share access to critically needed business information and resources.

²An Ad Agency Doesn’t Have To Break The Bank, Dayton Business Journal.

³Please contact us for a sample survey and results tabulation.