Working effectively with any key agency stakeholder without coming to blows, including your digital marketing agency, is imperative. They are, after all, an extension of your business and your marketing team. Growing a client’s business can be stressful, as there’s insurmountable pressure on digital marketing teams to be forever optimizing campaigns due to the amount of transparency associated with digital mediums – and fair enough.
With insights, comes first hand how successful campaigns have or haven’t been. But without data – you cannot enhance campaigns, improving the end result. This is why it’s so important for clients and their agency partners to build strong partnerships. Success takes time. Success requires learning. Success needs trial and error. With the digital landscape and the inner workings of digital optimization, success gained with this medium is no different, irrespective of the type of digital activity taking place to be it social media campaigns, SEO, PPC, display or remarketing.
If you want to bring in an agency partner to help reach your business’s growth targets, you must expect there will be some positive and negative moments. It’s like any relationship really, be it professional or personal. You also have to be comfortable with letting your agency make seemingly large decisions surrounding your digital marketing strategy. They are the experts in this field. That is after all, why you have employed them.
You may even challenge their strategies, especially if the outcome is not as desired but trust me, most agencies need and enjoy spirited debate and involvement from clients. We asked a digital marketing agency in Melbourne their thoughts on the matter and they agreed with us, as they pointed out, they want the same positive outcome as their clients, feeling it’s far more enjoyable working with passionate people as it breeds greater success. They also added their job gets easier and more successful once the client is ready to work as a partner.
Here’s a couple of pointers to help keep your relationship with your digital marketing agency running as smoothly and efficiently as possible:
Be open and transparent with your digital agency
If you want the best result from your agency, share what’s really going on with your business and even let them in on what the culture’s like. It helps them know how to best deal with team members, particularly tricky characters. Agencies require long standing relationships with their clients in order to survive in their business too and for them to do their best work. Your digital agency is going to be open and honest with you with regards to campaign results, so to improve them – be transparent with your company’s runnings and even profit margins.
You’ve gotta be ok with trying new strategies
The advertising and media landscape is forever evolving and this is purely now due to the digital age. What worked a year ago – even last week, may not work today. To maximize your marketing spend, you have to be open to trialing different strategies so you can amplify the ones that work, are relevant to your intended audience and trim the fat. There are no guarantees in advertising and marketing. That’s why you must continue to believe in trial and error. This is the same for any medium by the way, not just offline ones.
Be fully committed to your aspiring and progressive goals but be patient for results
Fact: digital marketing needs time to build and gain traction. You also need to ensure your creative is strong, engaging and includes a formidable call to action or hook. This means your creative team or agency needs to work closely with your digital marketing or media agency so all parties are on the same wavelength.
Without strong hooks, your marketing will need more time and money invested in it to gain traction. No one wants that. Don’t waste marketing funds by producing campaigns that are soft. Go hard. But learn from your results and insights. These insights if used properly will also help you understand what you need to be doing with your entire marketing mix and how you can improve what you’re doing with your above the line channels.
Smart marketing agencies know they need to produce ROI’s for clients as quickly as possible. Chat with your agency regularly about your progress and work with them constantly to make your goals a reality.
Just don’t expect miracles overnight.
Quality marketing is an investment that requires hard work, patience, time and positive working relationships.
