Download How do I: Select a Marketing Agency?

How do I: Select a Marketing Agency?
Need some help on marketing but not sure where to start? There many marketing agencies offering
various types of service. This guide will help you understand the different types of service available and
how they could add valuable support to your business.
It’s a jungle out there – so many agencies, promising so many things, using so much jargon that you
would be excused for thinking you had been transported to some strange marketing planet. Yet, in
essence, it is all quite simple….your business needs some particular expertise and you want to find an
agency that will deliver that effectively, efficiently and, ideally, in a pleasant manner. The key to finding
this is in understanding what you need and what agency can best deliver for you.
BUSINESS BENEFITS
Using a marketing agency can provide a number of business benefits, including:
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An objective viewpoint and experience in other markets.
Specialist skills which do not exist within the business.
Cost effective resource with expertise in particular areas or projects.
GETTING STARTED
The first thing to do is to interrogate the business need. What is the problem that needs to be addressed
or the opportunity to be exploited? This may be a general area e.g. the business needs to export to a new
market, or develop its core range. Or it may be quite specific e.g. a brand is losing share with a key
customer, or you want to build sales amongst a particular target audience. The problem or opportunity will
generally fall into two areas - Strategy or Execution.
STRATEGY
Strategy is the foundation of building a business. It requires looking into the future and developing plans
that will take you in the desired direction. All your marketing investment and executional plans will be
built upon this strategy so it is critical to get it right. Inspired strategies require creative thinking e.g. with
an increasing number of people reaching the office well before breakfast time, how do you get them to eat
breakfast? Solution: a cereal bar they can take with them.
Successful strategic planning will focus on benefits not products e.g. Persil sell care not detergents. You
will find a more detailed summary of the strategic plan in How do I: Write a Marketing Plan.
There are a number of types of agency, which may be useful in the strategic planning stage:
Marketing agencies can provide key planning skills like brand positioning, portfolio planning, competitive
and consumer trend analysis.
Strategic marketing specialists may combine this with creative thinking and idea generation.
Marketing consultants will provide a one to one strategic focus coupled with knowledge of service
agencies that may be required at the implementation stage.
Market research may also be needed to augment your analysis and thinking at the strategic stage. This
could range from creative focus groups for new product development to a quantitative study of a
particular sector.
EXECUTION
Most marketing agencies provide skills in one or more of the marketing implementation fields. Each will
provide strategic input relevant to their particular field as well as the resources and skills to implement
plans in-market. As marketing becomes more and more intrusive, the traditional disciplines are merging
e.g. design companies moving into advertising and advertising agencies providing research. Listed below
are the main specialist areas you may need to consider for your business.
Advertising: is “paid for” communication to a target audience. Agencies will develop and produce
advertising for all media - radio, press, posters and television being the most common. Typically, the
agency will be resourced by account management (who provide the first call interface with the client and
manage the account needs), planning (who develop the creative brief and focus on relevant brand and
consumer data), creative (who develop the adverts in script and visual form) and production (who manage
the production of the final advertisement). Each agency will have a credentials presentation that will
include their best advertising. It is worth asking to see the work that has been produced in the last year,
but is not in the credentials presentation, as this can be equally informative for your initial screening
purposes.
Design: uses graphic visualisation to represent the brand and its values. Design agencies will provide
design expertise, principally for Packaging, Commercial (e.g. shop or restaurant interiors or exteriors) or
Communication (see direct marketing below).
Direct Marketing: is the targeted communication to a specific segment of consumers. This increasingly
popular tool is most evident in the rise in use of store cards and the explosion of direct marketing that has
followed. Direct marketing skills are available through specialist direct marketing agencies, promotion
agencies and some design agencies.
Market Research: there are a number of types of agencies, which provide market research. These
include Full Service (which can provide most types of research), Qualitative (e.g. focus groups and indepth research), Quantitative (e.g. Omnibus), Fieldwork (providing personnel for e.g. street
questionnaires), Data Processing (to process hard information) and Specialist (providing particular
research methods or areas of expertise). For more information on this area, see the How do I: Select a
Market Research Agency? guide.
Media: these agencies plan and buy the appropriate media for your advertising. The advertising agency
produces the poster and the media agency buys the poster site for the duration of the campaign. Within
the media agency there are two principal functions: planning and buying. Planning works with the client
brief and market data to develop the optimal media plan. The buyers then negotiate the best price to buy
this plan for clients. There are a number of types of media agency. Many advertising agencies have their
own media departments and so can offer their client a full service from creative to in-market. There are
also large, multi-national media agencies who have the advantage of using a significant total client budget
with which to negotiate competitive media deals - the risk being that you become a small client among big
clients in a very large pool. Finally, media independents offer clients more hands-on client management.
New Media: these agencies are principally involved with the development of websites and internet based
marketing.
Promotion: these agencies deal with a variety of consumer and business targeted promotional activity.
They cover a range of skills and will develop on-pack promotions, in-store activity, field marketing and
media based promotions. The promotional agency should manage all aspects of the campaign from
creative concept, production, in-market and response handling.
PR (Public Relations): this activity focuses on developing understanding of the brand or business by its
target audience. It traditionally generates communication in a less direct manner than advertising i.e. not
paying for media space but generating coverage through interesting, creative story ideas and developing
valuable relations within the media. The PR agency will also advise on how stories should be presented to
the media and the target audience including crisis management where this is necessary.
Sponsorship: of an event, team or activity is a means of gaining publicity and developing brand values
by the association with that event or activity. There are many specialist sponsorship agencies e.g. for the
sport and music industries. However agencies such as advertising, media and promotion may also present
and develop sponsorship opportunities.
Trade Marketing: these agencies work closely with the key retail and grocery sectors. Specialist skills
offered include merchandising, category management, sampling and field marketing.
SELECTING AN AGENCY
Once you have agreed the area of marketing skills the business needs, the next thing to do is to write the
project brief. Writing the brief will allow you to gather all the key elements of the project and secure
agreement from the necessary internal people before progressing.
The brief should contain the following information:
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Background on your company and brand.
The marketing objectives which this project aims to support.
The specific objectives of this project.
Target audience information.
Any background research or data which may be relevant to the project.
Any executional mandatories or limitations e.g. a packaging brief may contain pack
format requirements.
Timescales.
Budget outline if you have a clear understanding. If not, it is acceptable to seek cost
guidelines as part of the response to the brief.
Tender or not? If your company has no prior agency experience then tendering can be a very efficient
way of quickly kick starting a project. If new to a particular area of marketing, it is also an informative
process, which allows you to benchmark responses to help inform your judgement. However, for agencies,
it can be a time consuming and costly experience. Therefore a certain degree of prudency should be
exercised e.g. tenders should be limited to three or four agencies and, where possible, limited to outline
approach, timing plan, budget and agency credentials as opposed to completed creative work.
Shortlisting: When trying to decide which agencies to invite to tender the easiest way to decide is to
draw-up a shortlist based on pre-agreed selection criteria. Selection criteria may include:
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Sector experience: has the agency worked in the relevant sector before and so can
demonstrate understanding and bring up-to-date knowledge to the project?
Technical experience: how much experience does the agency have in the field you are
interested in e.g. on-pack promotions or sampling?
Personal experience: have you worked with the agency before and had positive
experience of them?
Recommendation: the agency may have been recommended by a colleague or have
worked with the business before. Positive recommendation from someone you know can
be useful input to a project.
Resource: consideration may need to be given to the resources of an agency e.g. do
they have international capacity.
Agency response: in general, you should allow about two weeks for the agency responses. Response will
often be in the form of a presentation by the agency. Before taking each response, it is useful to draw-up
a set of assessment criteria against which all the responses will be judged. A simple system like scoring
important aspects of the response is a good way to capture your thoughts and compare the respective
agencies. Ideally, you should complete an assessment form for each agency. Do not save this until the
end of the process as, at the end of a day of agency responses, it can be very difficult to remember what
you had for breakfast let alone how the first agency faired on account management. Typical assessment
criteria would include:
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Creative skills based on the agency credentials presentation or work that was presented
as part of the response.
Account management i.e. how your account will be resourced and managed.
Understanding of the brief and your market.
Previous, relevant experience.
Timing and budget proposals.
Team chemistry: most projects will take a fair amount of your time and effort so you will
be working with this team and introducing them within your business. You must be
confident that you can rely on the agency team and work productively with them.
MANAGING THE AGENCY RELATIONSHIP
The agency response should form the basis for the project contract. Therefore, ensure you are fully
satisfied with the fundamental elements before appointing the agency. Once satisfied with the chosen
proposal, the project can be progressed. It is worth having a formal “start-up” meeting with the chosen
agency to discuss all the elements of the project and ensure the agency is clear about what is expected of
them. At this stage too, levels of client involvement can be agreed e.g. do you want to be hands-on (what
level of status reports do you require and how often do you want to approve elements of the project), or
do you want the agency to fully manage the project and just report back to you with results and
recommendations (e.g. research)? In general you should approve various stages of the project as it
progresses - the exact nature of these will depend on the type of project.
On completion of the project, it is worth having a review meeting. The advantage of this review is that it
gives you the opportunity to discuss the project process, problems and anything that might be done
differently next time. An evaluation of performance may be given to the agency. Keep this on file within
your company for future reference.
HOW DO I? SUMMARY
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Scope out the business need and agree what type of service is required.
Write the project brief and secure internal agreement to proceed.
If tendering, short-list three or four agencies.
Review responses based on your assessment criteria.
Appoint agency and agree the formal basis of the project at the start-up meeting.
On completion, have an evaluation review with the agency to discuss the project.
OTHER SOURCES OF INFORMATION:
Visit www.scotlandfoodanddrink.org
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INSIGHTS: you can access data on geographic markets, consumers, retailers, foodservice
operators, specific product sectors and more
There are many other How Do I? Guides which can help you grow your business
www.scotlandfoodanddrink.org - The information service tailored to the food and drink industry. To
contact Scotland Food & Drink please call us on 0131 524 8632 or, to access our food and drink
information Helpline, contact us on 0845 601 3752.