Getting To The Bottom Of What Clients

Think Of Agencies

Advertisers are increasingly frustrated with ad agencies.
A new online survey among 1,900 business leaders in marketing, media, and procurement by my
firm, Avidan Strategies, a marketing consulting firm, reveals that their view of agencies
performance is dim. Clients are being asked to deliver more with less and are seeking a better,
faster, cheaper attitude from agencies.
Corporate America is questioning the return on their advertising investment, and agencies
continue to struggle to prove their value. There is an impatience for efficiency and effectiveness,
and there are higher expectations of accountability.
In this consumer-led environment, the proliferation of media choices has brought about a
fragmented marketplace as well. Many clients have upwards of 20 agencies and marketing
service firms, creating rosters of microspecialist agencies. As specialization continues there is
a need for coordination through integration.
Agencies need to be become more proactive in experimenting with different business models.
Todays agency models are constructed to suit the agencies, not the clients. Agencies need to
redefine their value proposition in terms of commercially driven business building ideas. They
need to embrace measurement and integration as an intrinsic part of their offering if they want to
be perceived as having a higher value by marketers. It is high time to acknowledge that the
economic model of agencies is broken.
Big agencies handle the majority of advertising dollars, but they dont articulate a better value
proposition to clients, and 73% of the panel believes that small and medium size agencies are
more creative. The advertising holding companies fair even worse, and 85% think that they have
not improved service to clients, and view them as inefficient and unable to overcome internal
territorial disputes.
One respondent commented about a holding company, [It] hasnt really done it for us, while
another concluded Not only did any of the agencies involved know what the other was doing,
but they also split the fee in such a way that each agency felt like they were not fairly
compensated. So we got pushed to the back of the line. We finally had to manage the agencies
ourselves, which was not what we were promised upfront.
Relationships are fraying and turnover is accelerating. Agency tenure has been declining steadily
as clients continue to consolidate, with 51% declaring that they have been reducing their roster in
the past 3 years, and 44% say it is still too big and they plan to consolidate further. Asked what
type of agencies they plan to cut back on next year, most, 69% mentioned digital agencies, and
48% creative agencies.
The survey reveals a fundamental tension between clients operating in the current tough
environment, with the sense that agencies are not pulling their weight. When asked what recent
changes in marketing influenced them the most, 55% of clients pointed to growing demands for
accountability as the main factor, with increased scrutiny of results by the CEO and the board.
Yet, accountability is their main area of frustration with agencies 71% point to it as the area
that agencies need to improve most.
Another area in which agencies fall short of expectations are the skills required for delivering
integrated communications. Most marketers would like their agencies to lead integration
between all brand communication partners. However, when asked about agencies ability to
execute, 72% of marketers report that agencies are inconsistent and need to improve, and 24%
say that, agencies are falling short and not doing a good job.
Aside from a general dissatisfaction with the performance of agencies in the areas of
accountability and integration, there is also an overwhelming consensus among clients that
traditional agencies have not yet found their digital footing. A substantial 46% of marketers think
that agencies are struggling in transitioning their business model to incorporate a more digital
platform, and another 36% observe that agencies are making progress acquiring digital assets but
find it difficult integrating them.
Given that agencies fail in areas that clients deem critical, its not surprising to see a growing
inclination among clients to call agency reviews. When evaluating agencies, 90% point to the
quality of the creative ideas and strategy as the most important attribute while 74% say that
understanding the clients business is essential, 56% point to integration and coordination, and
48% are looking for implementation and follow through from agencies.
An overwhelming majority, 77%, believes that clients should conduct a two-ways assessment, in
which the client evaluates the agency and the agency evaluates the client. Over half, 58%,
believe that an agency evaluation should be held every 12 months, while 38% believe in semi-
annual evaluations. When asked what is the best way to compensate agencies, 82% of clients
point to a fee plus a performance based bonus.
Clients identify a number of areas where they need to improve as well. First and foremost, 82%
see a need for better briefs, while 67% see an opportunity to align client/agency teams better;
almost half of the respondents, 47%, believe that training is necessary, while 41% say that clients
need to do a better job of fighting silos at their end.
When it comes to an agency review, 78% say it is triggered by business performance issues,
while 63% refer to changes in marketing leadership, 59% to dissatisfaction with the creative
work, and 56% pointed to general relationships issues. Only 7% point to compensation/fee issues
as instigating agency reviews. Asked who should be the hands-on manager of agency reviews,
37% opt for a function head in marketing (e.g., agency relations manager, or marketing director),
while 32% say the CMO (acknowledged as the person to make the final agency decision), 24%
point to search consultants. Procurement is becoming a more important part of agency reviews
with 47% expect them to participate in the process.
Agencies need to reevaluate their value proposition, and evolve their economic business model
in ways that will strengthen the partnership with clients. The alternatives are clear: maintain the
status quo and sustain a slow descent to irrelevancy with cuts in quality as margins erode; or,
improve margins, and attract and retain top talent by making their offering more relevant to their
customers needs.

Questionssss
Media planning doesn't involve traditional sales, but you must get clients to buy into your
recommendations. Here are 60 questions to begin with. Asking the right questions is often as important
as giving the right answers. Asking the right questions not only arms you with the information you need
as an agency to create a successful social media marketing strategy and media plan, it gets the client
thinking along the same lines as you. It helps them to look at success in the same way you do and aligns
your priorities. So in this week's column, I thought I would relist some of my favorite questions we ask
when we are pitching or on-boarding a new client for media planning and social media marketing. Of
course, many of the questions can be applied to any agency service. Some of these questions seem
obvious. But the reality is that many of these questions are never asked - we often assume that we
already know the answers. Also, if you are on the client side, these are questions you should be asking
yourself and using to prepare agency briefs. (Please know that I am 100 percent sure I am leaving many
questions out, so email me any you think I should have listed and maybe I'll put them in a future column
- of course I will make sure to give you credit!)
Service/Relationship
1. What qualities and behaviors do you want to see in your agency team?
2. What qualities and behaviors do you not want to see?
3. What is not working about your current vendor relationship or in-house solution?
4. What are common mistakes and misconceptions agencies make or have about your business and
brand?
5. Do you have a wish list of initiatives that are not part of this program but you would like to see come to
fruition in the future?
6. How do you measure the quality of your agency relationships?
7. What are things you would like to see your agency take more responsibility for or go over and above
the call of duty on?
8. What is the most often you can meet with us for status and planning meetings?
9. Do all the people in your company who need to know what we are doing understand what we are
doing?
10. Are there any training or informational seminars you would like us to give to different groups in your
company (online media, search marketing, social media marketing, etc.)?
Goals/Metrics
11. What are your metrics for success? CPM, CTR, CPC, CPL, CPA, ROI, page views, engagement time,
brand recognition?
12. How about for social? Fans, followers, chatter, shares, social site traffic/leads/revenue, etc.?
13. What is the most important action on your site? What is the least important action on your site?
14. What will make this campaign successful in your eyes? How about in your bosses' eyes? How about
in your sales team's eyes?
15. Do you have any historical or current benchmarks for these metrics we can trend against? (Often, for
example, a client is at a $50 cost per action and they are hiring you to get it to $25.)
16. Can you elaborate on things you have tried in the past? What worked well and why do you think it
succeeded? What didn't work and why do you think it failed?
17. What is your average margin on a sale or what is your average cost of goods sold? What are the
expenses that go into the cost of goods sold?
Tracking and Reporting
18. How do you currently measure ROI?
19. What tracking systems and social reporting systems are you using now?
20. Are you able to trace offline actions and sales (call center, retail, post-lead conversion) to online
investments? If so, how?
21. Are there any security compliance regulations we should know about that will make it hard to get our
tracking code onto your site? If there are, who should we start talking to now?
22. Are there any in-house reports or dashboards you will want our data integrated into? If so, can we see
them so we can deliver data to you in the right format?
23. What can we provide you to help express your success within your company and promote the good
work that you do?
Media
24. What media properties do you know you want to be in? Why?
25. What properties do you know you do not want to be in? Why?
26. What are your geographical constraints?
27. Are you asking for online value added placements with your offline media buys?
28. Do you have any proposals from media reps that contacted you directly?
29. Do you want to have a media day to meet with the reps of the larger properties we are buying on?
Social
30. Why would anyone want to be your friend? Why would they want to connect with you, listen to you,
and share what you have to say?
31. What fears, compliance issues, and workflow issues are holding you back from doing more social
media marketing?
32. Do you have a companion steady state social advertising budget?
33. What social properties do you have up and running?
34. How do you handle naming conventions, URL conventions, and management for various brands and
regions throughout the world in order to avoid clutter?
35. How do you encourage your employees to produce great content that expresses your company's
expertise, good corporate citizenship, and human side?
36. When you produce content, where do you centralize and archive it?
37. What are the internal and external sources of content around your industry? Staff experts, industry
experts, blogs, media, government agencies, etc.?
38. Who is managing social now?
39. Can you describe your workflow and approval process related to your social publishing?
40. Do you have an internal training and policy on how employees talk about the company and brand on
their social platforms?
41. How do you handle password management for all your social properties?
42. How do tweets, status updates, and other posts get created and approved?
43. Do you know what types of posts and content spark high levels of user engagement?
44. Do you have standard operating procedures and rapid response legal/customer service resources for
moderation?
45. What are some of the bad things people might say about your product or brand and how do you
address those issues in the real world?
46. How are you measuring success in social media now?
Audience
47. Who are your target customers broken down by product?
48. Do they have any seasonal or geographic buying patterns?
49. Please provide all the customer analysis data you can to us?
50. Who are your best customers and what do they have in common?
51. Who are your average customers?
52. Who are your worst customers?
53. What are common mistakes and misconceptions consumers make or have about your business,
products, and brand?
Messaging/Offers
54. What are all the benefits of your products broken down by product and target audience? How do you
help people?
55. What are all the offers you can realistically make to your different audiences broken down by
audience and product? What can we give them right now?
56. What has worked and not worked in the past for a benefit and offer messaging standpoint?
57. Can we see all the creative (banners, search ads, email, and landing pages) you have ran in the last
couple years? Do you have the results for these various executions?
58. Can we talk to your sales people about what closes a deal? Can we hear a pitch from your top sales
person?
59. Do you mind if we secret shop your competitors and hear their pitch?
60. What makes you different from your competitors? Why are you better? Why was your product
developed?
Now it is important to note that you do not need to ask your client this whole list of questions or give them
a questionnaire to complete before you meet them. The last thing you want to do is give clients
homework.
This is a list for you to complete gradually over the course of several conversations, emails, and
meetings. However, once it is completed it is nice to send them all the questions you have asked them
and what their answers were - just for "clarification" of course. They will love this document, guaranteed!

5 QUESTIONS YOUR AGENCY SHOULD BE ASKING -

What questions should your firm be asking? Below are five that indicate whether you have a good agency
partner one that is looking to evolve their campaigns as your marketing and sales strategies inevitably
change:
What are your sales and marketing goals for the next quarter?
If your agency doesnt ask you this question, how will they position your products and services correctly,
and to the right audience? Your goal may be to gain market share in consumer electronics trade space,
but your firm may be spending all their time pitching your product to parenting media. Or, your goal is to
increase sales from IT decision makers, but your agency team is spending all their effort on Facebook.
Both parties need to be working in the same direction, so be sure your firm knows which way you are
headed.
What is your retail strategy and new retailer (reseller/distributor, etc.) timeline?
At BLAST, we know how to position our clients as valuable partners to their retailers, while at the same
time helping them look attractive to new, potential retailers/resellers/distributors. Utilizing social media
channels is an excellent way to amplify a retailers in-store or online promotionfor your products, and
retailers love to see partners making an effort on their behalf. Retail trade press and promotion should
always be part of the overall campaign outreach and your agency needs to show an interest in this aspect
of your business.
What is your primary goal for creating a social media presence?
Deciding on which social media platforms to engage with consumers depends on what yours goals are as
an organization. It doesnt make sense for every company to have a Facebook fan page, nor does it
make sense to only focus on growing your number of channel followers/fans/friends/connections without
qualifying those people.
Before you hire an agency to execute social media efforts on your behalf, make sure they ask you the
central question of WHY you want a presence online is it primarily for customer service, do you want to
use your followers as a focus group, or are you looking to target CEOs of SMBs? Each answer has a
different social media strategy built around it; one that will show measurable and quantifiable results if
executed the right way.
What type of award opportunities would you like us to pursue?
Whether its a product-, company-, or executive-targeted award, its important that your agency knows
which types of awards will help leverage your organization and/or its products to the right audience. Why
have your agency spend time writing lengthy award submissions? Winning an award can help your
organization make the transition from start-up to established, while other types of awards can
help increase your companys visibility to potential investors (if this is a goal of yours), or position your
executives as leaders in your industry, to name few.
Who would you like us to leverage as the organizations expert?
There are many opportunities to utilize the expert knowledge of our clients executives to get the
companys name in the news and regularly appear throughout social media channels and were not
talking about the canned executive quote found in a press release. Having regular discussions with our
clients gives us insight into the topics about which they are most comfortable speaking, as well as new
messages theyd like to communicate to the press. Bylined articles, Q&As, speaking engagements, Top
Ten Lists, reactive pitching and commenting on their behalf on LinkedIn discussions are all tactics we use
to further saturate the public with our clients messages and expertise in their various industries.
A client recently said that one of the things he likes best about working with BLASTmedia is our
entrepreneurial spirit a sense of how crucial it is to be timely, results-driven and adaptable to the
changing needs of their business. Bottom line, you need to hire an agency with people who know how to
get you where you want to go, and that will never happen if they arent asking the right questions (and
more importantly, listening to what you have to say.


18 Questions an Inbound Marketing Agency
should ask to its Clients ?
By Pushkar Gaikwad on February 18, 2014
/With 0 Comments
If you are an inbound marketing agency offering inbound marketing services, you probably want
to have a set of questions ready to ask to the clients to understand their requirements better
as Inbound marketing efforts need to be planned in advance. Since it caters to a specific target
group, its important that the client and agency align themselves to the same philosophy as they
try to achieve through their campaign. In order for you (the agency) to successfully execute an
inbound marketing campaign, here are 18 questions you may want to run by your client before
undertaking the effort -
You can following categories for your questions, Target and Goals
1. Who is Your Target Audience ?
The very purpose of an inbound marketing campaign is not to have an instant mass reach but to
segment and target the core consumer base. Thus, the client needs to be very clear in terms of
defining who their target audience is.
2. What Goals you have for the inbound marketing Campaign ?
If the objective is to yield immediate financial returns or witness a splurge in traffic overnight
then inbound marketing may not be the best strategy for them. By its nature, inbound efforts aim
to engage a customer. At the same time, knowing the objective will provide you with a roadmap
to implement the campaign. Is it lead generation ? Is it pushing sales by 20% ? Whatever it may
be, unless you dont know what the specific objective is, you will not be able to satisfy them.
To Summarize, here is the list of 18 questions you can (and should) ask to the Client
1. What are the marketing channels you are currently using?
2. Which marketing channels has given the best ROI?
3. Who do you want to reach with your online marketing? Who is your target market?
4. Is your audience online? Do they actively use the Web / Social Networks?
5. Where are the majority of your target customers located? (local, regional, nationwide)
6. Who are your competitors ?
7. Who are your current customers?
8. What are the demographics of your target customer base? (age range, profession, male/female
etc.)
9. What is your current statistics for the following?
Lead Acquisition Cost:
Lead Conversion Cost:
Annual Customer Value:
Lifetime Customer Value:
10. What are the expectations for your online marketing? (In the first six months generate
$50,000/year in online sales or generate 20 qualified leads per month, etc.)
11. What is your monthly marketing budget range that you have in mind?
12. What is the positioning you want to adopt for your brand ?
13. Are you going to supplement the campaign with push marketing techniques ? (banner ads,
video ads, etc)
14. Do you have an existing list of email database ?
15. What is your content strategy ?
16. How would you define your target audiences profile ?
17. Is there any particular campaign that you liked ? If yes, then why ?
18. What other marketing strategies are you adopting so that there is a sync in all marketing
activities ?
If you know any more such questions which you can (or should) ask to clients, please post it in
comments and I will add it in the list.