When it comes to driving business growth, turning your attention to marketing stands out as one of the most important strategies to company success. We’re reminded of Peter Drucker’s famous maxim, “Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two—and only two—basic functions: marketing and innovation.” Not only is it pivotal to pushing new customer relationships while retaining the attention of old ones, but effective marketing strategies can differentiate your business from competitors, which drives sustained brand equity. Yet no company has unlimited marketing resources and many often rely on outsourced partnerships to develop their marketing efforts. This begs a question for company leadership: What should be the key factors when choosing a marketing agency?
As an integrated (aka full-service) agency that’s been in business for over 50 years, we've heard and seen it all. In this edition of PositionistView, we're exploring several key qualities such as capabilities, portfolios, and overall transparency to examine when selecting an agency to work with. Along the way, we’ll look at excerpts from Dick Maggiore’s book, The CEO’s Number One Responsibility, to understand why positioning strategy should always be at the forefront of any marketing decisions.
1. Start by Defining Your Needs
The first step in discovering the best marketing agency for your company is to establish what kind of agency can meet the needs of your business. Just like any other businesses, marketing agencies are all unique, whether in size, cost, or expertise. Likewise, knowing your “musts” as an organization will help you determine the “musts” for an agency.
There is one “must” that stands out among the rest. A marketing agency must keep your company's difference in focus. As Innis Maggiore Chairman Dick Maggiore explains, “Your customers know that your quality and service are pretty much like the next guy, so they are taking this opportunity to strongly negotiate price … The solution comes from finding your difference and then living it.” If an agency can’t understand your difference, how can it meet any of your needs?
2. Creative and Strategic Alignment
The marketing agency you choose should be one that can best demonstrate your brand’s tone, style, and values in a comprehensive and holistic manner. Creative and media strategies are best accomplished when a marketing agency and its approach align with your business objectives.
To find a partner best suited with all facets of your company’s goals, we recommend looking for a marketing agency that emphasizes the importance of positioning. Effective positioning strategy naturally aligns marketing with an organization’s competitive difference on which the brand identity is established. This ensures that every campaign has a central message that is backed pragmatically by long-term business objectives and common client experiences.
3. Portfolio and Case Studies
Every marketing agency wants to tout its expertise or knowledge, but an agency's expertise is only worth its weight in evidence. When choosing a marketing agency, consider its portfolio of work and case studies to review. Any agency can claim that its strategies pay dividends, but good agencies will ensure they can point to how every step of the marketing process was engineered to gain mindshare.
4. Full-Service Capabilities
A full-service agency is one that provides marketing services across the board without the need of outsourcing to other organizations. While your organization might choose to loop in other marketing channels for a variety of reasons, choosing a marketing agency that can provide all necessary services ensures that your marketing objectives are addressed with an unbiased approach. In other words, if a PR firm is looking at your challenges, guess which solution it will offer? PR. But perhaps the solution would be better found in a digital marketing campaign? That’s where a full-service agency will come at the challenge with minds wide open.
As a full-service agency, we’ve seen the advantages firsthand. From conceptualizing to delivery, guaranteeing that a business’s position and message is conveyed properly throughout all marketing channels builds the strongest foundation for long-term success.
5. Understanding Your Target Audience
Every agency talks target audiences, but without a comprehension of positioning, few truly understand the prospect. An agency’s best attribute is to provide the voice of the customer and get its client outside of internal politicking and “doing business with itself.” “With increased preference or loyalty, market share must increase, and, along with that, profitability, due to economies of scale,” Dick Maggiore addresses in his book. Only a marketing agency that understands this connection can assist in generating this loyalty.
“We have termed it preference positioning … Choosy mothers choose Jif. Lexus built its business on claims from J. D. Power surveys on customer satisfaction preferences,” Maggiore goes on. Positioning requires familiarity with your target audience more so than generic marketing strategies, as it entails aligning the entire strategy with the meaningful difference your audience loves about your product. At the heart of positioning is an understanding of the Customer. It’s one C of the four-C filter Innis Maggiore uses to discover a client’s position and focus its marketing.
6. Proven Track Record
The difference between determining an agency has good case studies and ensuring an agency has a proven track record lies in its longevity in the industry, as well as its clients’ ability to consistently reach their long- and short-term goals. While Innis Maggiore is proud to celebrate 50+ years in the business, we’re even prouder to have clients that have been working with us to accomplish their goals for nearly as long. Our longest-tenured clients have been with us for well over 20 years; our longest has been with us for more than 45 years.
Your success with an agency depends greatly on whether the agency itself has been successful. Only by melding all the previously mentioned conditions can an agency survive in the marketing industry. An agency with longevity is an agency that sees results!
Carefully Choosing a Marketing Agency
If you read PositionistView often, it might be no surprise to find this checklist chock full of requirements that are easily met by finding an agency equipped to market your position. This is no accident; positioning isn’t just about quick and clever marketing. Rather, your organization’s position is what gives your product purpose in the eyes of the consumer, and what drives its success in both the short and long-term. Any company can establish a brand, but only one that can position that brand in a competitive marketplace will survive. If you’re interested, check out our page about brand positioning to learn more about OUR difference.
Are you in the process of choosing a marketing agency? Do you feel equipped with a position that will stand out in your industry? If you’re not sure, we’ll help you find out with tools like our Appreciative Discovery® process. Contact us today and make choosing a marketing agency one of your easiest decisions ever.