Freelancer undertaking projects I love, working with people I enjoy and respect. My focus is on big picture thinking, story work and messaging plus sharing my expertise in presentation skills and understanding communication styles
Trying to figure out which agency will be the right ‘fit’ for your company can be like trying to pick the right school for a child. You can physically go to the school and have a look around. You can meet the Principal and talk to other parents. But you won’t know if your child will be happy there until they start attending. You just have to make the best call you can at the time. Figuring out if you will like working with a particular agency is very much the same.
The best way to get intel on an agency is to talk to their current and past clients, and you can probably find the client list you are looking for on the agency’s website. An agency should also be prepared to give you contact people you could call (as referees) should you wish to check them out further.
Agencies are as different as they are numerous. If it’s not possible to get first-hand feedback, here are some tips to help decide whether an agency will be the right one for your company.
First and foremost you are looking for a service provider. The output that an agency can supply is more important than how well you get on with the agency owner, Account Manager and creative team. However (and it’s a big ‘however’), if you don’t get on with the people you are doing business with, it’s likely to be an unpleasant arrangement, and life is too short for that! Therefore, when you are selecting an agency to work with, the services they supply are #1, with how well you gel with the team #2, following close behind.
Are you looking to establish your first agency relationship? Has your marketing strategy changed which means that your requirements for specific capabilities and skills have changed? Is senior management requesting that you find a new agency supplier? Does your procurement policy dictate you change agencies every few years? The reason you are looking for an agency will affect where you look, how you look, and the type of agency you need to target.
What short and long-term services do you need an agency to supply; what do they excel in producing, and do the two align?
Are you looking for a ‘generalist’ agency that can work across a selection of channels with ease, and provide a wide range of creative expertise under one roof? Or, are you looking for a ‘specialist’ agency that has built its reputation on one or two key services?
Size is an obvious difference. Working with an agency of six people will feel chalk-and-cheese to working with an agency of 200. The two agencies will operate differently, interact differently, plus the team output capability will be vastly different.
With a small team, you’ll get to know everyone. In a large agency you’ll likely forge a relationship with your account management team, but may only rarely meet with other agency team members, and you may prefer this arms-length type of business relationship.
Large agencies are often not interested in working with small clients. There may be too much effort required for not enough money; or their process-driven, people-heavy structure is not geared to offer a cost-effective solution for smaller budgets. The converse may also be true, whereby a small agency may not be able to (or wish to) work with larger clients, though it’s easier for a small agency to resource up if required and so may be more open to having that initial conversation.
It’s important to note that the size of an agency may help you with the quantity of output or the breadth of expertise, but it is no indicator of the quality of work that you could receive.
Who owns the agency? An ‘independent’ (indie) agency is privately owned, and the founder/owner of the agency typically works in the business day-to-day. Most of the agencies and companies on Agency Who’s Who are in the ‘independent’ category. A small-to-medium sized team run by a Managing Director will have a different vibe to a network agency run by someone who may or may not be personally invested in the business outcomes of the agency.
A network agency is part of a wider ‘group’ of agencies. They are often large (although sometimes there are smaller agencies within the group) and the group will have multiple offices, both in your own country and internationally.
If your company is a multi-national, it’s highly likely that you will be required to use specific agencies that your off-shore-based head office selected under a globally-negotiated deal. These agencies will likely be part of a network group.
An owner-operator agency will be able to make decisions quickly, whilst a network (or Board-controlled agency) will likely be bound by red tape, processes, and consultation requirements (but the results may be more robust). [Refer to ‘One agency or many?’]
‘Design agency’ vs ‘independent agency’ vs ‘advertising agency’ vs ‘1-to-1 agency’. Understanding categories (or labels), such as these, will help you to understand the services an agency offers. You’ll also get a feeling about the size of the company, and maybe also catch a glimpse of the ethos of the agency. On Agency Who’s Who you will find over 70 different categories of agencies and companies to choose from.
The culture of an agency will flow from the top down. The values, personalities and business decisions of the agency’s directors/owners will permeate throughout the whole company.
You will often be able to see the outworking of a company’s culture through their website. Have a look at the list of clients – are they corporates, SMEs, or start-ups? Are they sporting codes, events, high profile retail or charities? Are they clients known for being edgy or predictable?
What type of work does the agency produce? Does it align with your values, or is the work pushing the boundaries of your ethical, moral or religious comfort zone? The clients and work produced will be a good reflection of those running the agency and the company culture.
You probably have more than one agency partner. If you require your agencies to collaborate together, will your new agency work well with other agencies in your roster? Is there any cross-over of services that could create a competitive clash? Getting the chemistry right and defining boundaries across your agency roster is crucial in ensuring you are not just exchanging one problem for another.
Knowing for sure whether an agency’s pricing structure will fit within your budget will only happen after you have started dialoguing with them, and asking them to quote on projects. When you are in the phase of checking out possible agencies, you won’t know for sure whether an agency will be in your budget-ballpark or not, or whether you would receive good quality work, but there are ways to take an educated guess.
One way is to go back to the agency’s website. Are there clients listed that are of a similar size and type as yours? Is the type of work that they show similar to what you require? Do you like the quality of the work you see? Do they seem project-based or campaign-based? Does the agency seem large or small (the number of staff an agency has can sometimes be an indicator of pricing level)?
The price will ultimately determine whether or not you can afford to use a particular agency (or whether an agency can work within your budget), and so price becomes a pivotal part of the agency selection process.
Are you looking for an agency to be a real ‘business partner’ for your company – one that will treat your business and marketing objectives like their own? Or are you looking for a ‘production partner’ – one that is happy to work on an order-in-deliverable-out basis? Neither is right or wrong depending on your requirements and their service offering. You can usually find out an agency’s strengths by asking relevant questions and astutely interpreting the answers.
Do you think you are remaining impartial, unbiased, and unemotional when you select your agency? Think again.
Choosing a production supplier – order in, product or service out – can be a clinical B2B (business to business) decision based on quality, price and reputation. However, choosing a business partner needs to go deeper and have a measure of emotion involved.
If you look around at a selection of creative communication suppliers and their clients, you may begin to notice something interesting. Whether the supplier is a one-man-band or a large group, the personality of the agency will most often align with the personality of the client. For example, if the client (as a whole, or the marketer specifically) is a conservative believer in traditional communication, then they will not (no matter how hard an agency tries to convince them otherwise) end up with a push-the-boundaries agency. Similarly, an excited, boot-strapping start-up will feel constrained working with an agency that is not as nimble-minded as they are.
That is why you should base your choice of agency on more than just the size, charge-out rates, quality of work, or the channels that it offers – that’s the ‘procurement’ side of the process. You also need to gel with the people within the agency – especially the agency owner or manager, and the Account Manager with whom you’ll be working most closely. You need to understand an agency’s history and values to see if your client/agency synergy will work. If that doesn’t click, move on – dealing with ongoing clashes in personality or ethos isn’t worth the hassle.
‘Finding the right agency’ is an excerpt from ‘How to Tango with a Tiger: a marketer’s guide to working with creative communications agencies’ by Sarah Ritchie (2019), and used with permission. Tiger is available to purchase in New Zealand and Australia HERE, and internationally from Amazon.
Freelancer undertaking projects I love, working with people I enjoy and respect. My focus is on big picture thinking, story work and messaging plus sharing my expertise in presentation skills and understanding communication styles
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