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agency – AusGarage http://dev.ausgarage.com.au Automotive Marketing Strategists Mon, 01 Jun 2020 06:08:50 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 http://dev.ausgarage.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/cropped-AG-Initials-32x32.png agency – AusGarage http://dev.ausgarage.com.au 32 32 15 Ways to Get the Best Out of your Agency. (Pts 6-10) http://dev.ausgarage.com.au/15-ways-to-get-the-best-out-of-your-agency-pts-6-10/ http://dev.ausgarage.com.au/15-ways-to-get-the-best-out-of-your-agency-pts-6-10/#respond Tue, 14 Nov 2017 07:28:39 +0000 http://www.ausgarage.com.au/?p=12166 James Payne – Creative Director  

Missed the first five points? Check it out: http://www.ausgarage.com.au/15-ways-to-get-the-best-out-of-your-agency/

6) Don’t strain your advertising through too many levels.

Sometimes the greatest ideas are elegantly simple. It is much like the movie “Inception”, great campaigns focus around planting a simple yet effective idea and letting that grow with your target audience. Allow your audience to make that message their own, relate it to their experiences and thus respond to your key message.

Do you know the best way to ruin a simple strong campaign idea? 9 times out of 10 running it through multiple levels of staff and committees will do the trick. You want opinions, you want to value your staff/board but ultimately you want feedback that will help make your advertising more effective. Consult with your departments, see what issues they face in the market place and compile them prior to commencing the campaign. Ultimately, when it comes to final review. Let the decision be made by yourself or your marketing manager. Make your feedback prompt and concise then let your agency do the hard work and stand behind their product.

7) Make sure that your agency makes a profit

This is a simple one. Whilst agencies will fight for your business during an initial pitch, if they are running at a loss on your account the shine quickly wears off. Whether your account has high billables or not you want your agency on whole (as well as the individuals in it) to enjoy working on your account. The difference between truly effective advertising and not is very rarely down to working “harder” or “longer”. It comes down to passionate creatives investing the emotional and creative energy into great work. If your agency is doing their job they are making you money, it is in everyone’s best interest for both parties to prosper.

On a side note: From experience, if your agency runs on any model that pays a percentage of your ad spend to cover their creative services, it is time to question that. (ie % kickback from media organisation to place an ad) You don’t want there to be any incentive for your agency to promote you raising ad spend unnecessarily. Pay them correctly for their work and get honest, unbiased advice when it comes to ad spend on any campaign. (This does change when it comes to management of PPC campaigns)

8) Don’t haggle with your agency

This is a great time to look internally. Your products and services took years to develop and master. Your team learn and improve daily. Advertising is no different. Each medium changes rapidly, audiences react differently, and production methods change as quick as the technology they rely on.

Whether you like it or not, a successful agency/client relationship requires both organisations to work as a team. You both have the exact same goal, for your business to succeed! During the pitch process you negotiate on dollar figures. It is good practice to have set review periods for pricing, services etc. In between, don’t haggle with your agency. It is a waste of both parties’ time, resources and is a great way to kill morale of what could be your businesses most crucial relationship.

9) Be candid, and encourage candour

Your relationship with your agency can be the difference between success and failure. That doesn’t mean everything has to be rainbows and unicorns though. Mistakes are made, briefs are missed and sometimes you are just on a different page. It is critically important that you speak to your agency with complete honesty. If you receive draft work and note something wrong, let them know quickly and concisely the problem and importantly, why it is a problem. Don’t let them waste time and money guessing what you want and don’t let fear of upsetting the agency hold you back from getting exactly what you need out of your campaigns. This candour will encourage your agency to reciprocate meaning more effective campaigns, better value and better relationships during the good and bad times. Provide accurate feedback based on tangible effects that can be seen in your business not based on your personal emotion or what your friend thought of the campaign.

Side note: This is not an opportunity to play mind games with your agency. No one wins out of this situation. You have hired the agency to help your business, they need positive results for your business to thrive themselves. Speak with absolute honesty, remove the emotion and work together to constantly find solutions to your business problems.

10) Set high standards

No one is more passionate about your business then you. Let your agency know your goals and stay committed to achieving them. If your campaigns are set around small tasks that give you the satisfaction of “value” at the expense of big result campaigns, then it is time to revaluate your approach. It is cheaper and easier in the age of digital marketing to have your daily jobs done in house. Work on the “big stuff” with your agency. Hold them to it and settle for nothing less than the best you can both achieve at the time. (within time/budget constraints) Sell your passion and motivation to your agency, at the end of the day they must sell that very same thing to your entire audience. There is an art to this however, a balance that needs to be maintained for everyone’s sake. You need to be very critical of all work to ensure only the best is produced, that means you need to be just as generous with your accolades.

To create truly amazing campaigns you can never settle, you can also never forget to celebrate the wins!

Points 11-15 coming soon.

Agree, Disagree or want to elaborate further? Comment below

]]> http://dev.ausgarage.com.au/15-ways-to-get-the-best-out-of-your-agency-pts-6-10/feed/ 0 15 Ways to Get the Best Out of Your Agency. http://dev.ausgarage.com.au/15-ways-to-get-the-best-out-of-your-agency/ Fri, 29 Sep 2017 05:49:38 +0000 http://www.ausgarage.com.au/?p=12128

15 Ways to Get the Best Out of Your Agency.

I have recently been re-reading one of the most influential books in the industry “Confessions of an Advertising Man” by David Ogilvy. While the book speaks of an era of advertising that has some profound differences to the current methodology of content marketing, its core lessons are still very much relevant. One chapter that resonates with me in particular is the 15 Ways to Get the Best Out of your Agency. Utilising Ogilvy’s key points I have elaborated based on our experience. I have been lucky enough to have spent years finding what inspires creatives, how to cultivate healthy client/agency relationships and importantly, what gets results. It doesn’t matter whether you are looking for a new agency, have one currently or are new to the game. Have a read, ask these questions for your own situation and make sure you get the most out of your agency.

1. Emancipate your agency from fear:

The analogy over simplifies the situation but the quickest way to explain this is, “the carrot over the stick”. There are plenty of leadership styles in other industries that work effectively. For example, every leader of a sales team I have ever met fits a certain personality type. They are charismatic, passionate and have a tendency to motivate their team by lighting a fire under them and ensuring they are reminded daily what happens if they don’t reach KPI’s. This attitude however, doesn’t work in the advertising industry. In fact, it costs clients & agencies money, time and creates terrible advertising. $10,000 of effective advertising can out perform $100,000 of uninspiring ad placement any day of the week. The best ideas (read: the ones that actually achieve an ROI) don’t come off a conveyor belt, it takes a creative team with the balls to go for it and the relationship with the client to ensure it can be executed correctly.

You have gone through the grueling process of selecting an agency. You have sat through the meetings, the pitch and gone through the process of learning each other’s business. Now is the time to trust each other. Set review periods, whether they be quarterly, bi-annual, it doesn’t really matter. In between those periods however, ditch the fear tactics, be honest and work with your agency to get the best results for your business.

Ogilvy offers these key points:

a) Will the appointment of a new agency solve your problem, or merely sweep it under the rug? What are the real roots of your problem?

b) Has your product been made obsolete by your competitors?

c) Did you dictate the advertising for which you now blame your agency?

d) Is your advertising manager such a jackass that he/she would negate the best brains in any agency?

e) How do you feel about one of your competitors inheriting the secrets which your agency has acquired in your service?

f) Do you realise that a change in agency may interrupt your marketing for 12 months or more?

2. Select the right agency in the first place

You have a problem. Whether it be driving sales, brand recognition, expansion, product research or all of the above. Your agency is there to work with you to solve that problem. You are going to have to deal with these people daily. They are the first people you turn to during the tough times and they should be the first call in the good times as well.

If you are going to have to spend this much time with a team, trust them with your business and put in the hard yards together…. pick the right bloody people. One of the best lessons I have learnt during my time in the industry is work with the right people.

Learn how each other works and how to push each other in a healthy way. The client/agency relationship is always a fine line of pushing each other to achieve things that you couldn’t without each other. Embrace this process, celebrate the wins and inspire each other during the lean times. Find people who are just as passionate as you are, ones who care about your industry. If you wouldn’t invite your agency to your Christmas party then find the one you would.

3. Brief your agency very thoroughly indeed.

You want your agency to be just as passionate about your business as you are. Providing your sales targets and KPI’s isn’t going to cut it. Show them your business, let them learn your product. Grab your best salesman and marketing manager and get them to take your agency on tour. You are going to invest 10’s of thousands with your agency. Make sure they know your product and they know your people. If your agency doesn’t want to buy your products then you haven’t done your job.

4. Do not compete with your agency in the creative department.

Ogilvy: Why keep a dog and bark yourself.

If you picked the right agency, why the hell would you want to try an advertise yourself. You put the agency through the trenches to select them. Now is time to let them earn their money. Client feedback is critical. Talk about what you know. When providing feedback to your agency, comment on your product, your client base and the elements you know better than most. Don’t waste your time commenting on strategy, design or execution. You are paying for a team of people who devote their life to their craft, if you don’t believe they can do a better job than you, find someone else.

5. Coddle the Goose who lays the Golden Eggs

In any business, your product or service is incredibly important. Quality, innovation and value are all big contributors to your businesses success. This is completely in your control. Your agency can’t control these factors. They do affect who sees your product, how your product is seen and ultimately how successful it is. Look at where your company spends. Not just money, but time. If it takes you 12 months to develop a new product with industry professionals, why would you only allow 3-4 weeks for the entire launch campaign. Work with your agency during the R&D process. Let them be just as involved and passionate about your new product/service as you are. This also means that they have time to prepare your audience, to research and to create amazing insights and campaigns that will end up being the difference between success and failure.

Points 5-10 Click Here

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