If you’re a marketer, you’ve seen it before:
Your PPC agency isn’t driving enough leads. Time to pull the plug.
Your creative agency doesn’t feel creative enough. Thank you, next.
Your PR firm isn’t getting you enough tier 1 coverage. They’re fired.
The revolving door of agencies is a tale as old as time. Sure, some agencies underperform and many have their overpriced, too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen issues…but that’s not always the root of the problem. In many cases, brands aren’t able, or willing, to see that the problem starts with them.
“It’s not you, it’s me”
I once worked with a client where they fell into this vicious cycle of hiring and firing agencies every 3-6 months. The marketing team was aimless and underperforming until a new CMO came on board and fired all the agencies they were working with, brought new ones in or moved things like brand in-house.
But even with the fresh blood, the same problems kept popping up:
The way the brand told its story was inconsistent
Performance marketing wasn’t seeing hockey stick growth
From Facebook ads to landing pages and social media assets, the look and feel of creative wasn’t cohesive
PR coverage felt stagnant.
Within 4 months of the new CMO joining, they were ready for another change-of-the-guard across their PR, creative and performance marketing agencies.
Agencies need a clear picture of what success looks like
The way this company managed its agencies was with a “not this” approach. They shared an endless stream of what the brand was “not” without examples of where they saw the brand heading.
That left a lot up to interpretation. Agencies didn’t have a clear picture of what success looked like, so as they started doing the work, the results never felt good enough to the client:
The PR team would secure coverage, thinking it was a win, but the client’s feedback was that the publication wasn’t good enough.
The social team drafted post after post for social, getting as creative as they could without a detailed style guide or on-brand assets to work with, but the posts were not in line with the brand.
The CMO’s point of view: if we’re paying these agencies, they need to bring us the ideas. They need to tell us how to tell our story and give us the roadmap to driving growth.
But if you’re having a hard time figuring that out yourself, asking a third party with limited time, multiple clients, and a fraction of knowledge about your brand is a risky business.
To put it lightly: it was a real mess. And it was around this point that I came on board to help the team build a plan and strategy.
🌟 Define your north star metrics before onboarding any agencies 🌟
Just like you would with an internal team, you need a north star to guide your strategy. The same way positive feedback is 10x more effective than negative feedback with an employee (or spouse!), you need to articulate the vision of where your brand’s headed.
This client needed to move away from a “not this” to a “yes, and…” approach, to coach their agencies on how to execute their strategy.
🌟 North stars that are helpful to share with agencies and partners 🌟
growth goals over the next year
target lead volume, signups and revenue over a given period
target acquisition cost
how you want customers to feel when they interact with your brand
detailed Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs)
brands your company aspires to be and why
Brands, not agencies, should own strategy and vision
Agencies shouldn’t define strategy for you. Their value is in accelerating progress towards your vision. They can collaborate and offer up ideas and suggestions, but you know better than anyone what success looks like.
And if you don’t, you need to put heads together with your team (or, shameless plug, a consultant) to define that.
You can’t expect agencies to solve problems only you as a brand can define.
What this client needed was clarity within each of their channel strategies. I worked with them to take a more proactive approach to defining their strategy.
Example: I helped them build a detailed influencer marketing strategy, mapping out exactly the types of influencers we wanted to onboard and how to quantify impact on the business’ most important growth metric (new signups).
That gave us clarity to coach future influencer marketing agencies on what a successful campaign looked like.
Questions to answer internally before hiring an agency
You should be able to answer the following questions before bringing in a third party to own creative development:
What brands do you look up to?
What campaigns have you run that felt successful or representative of where you see the brand heading?
If your brand were a celebrity, who would they be and why? How does that embody the spirit and “vibe” of your brand?
And have answers to these questions before adding performance marketing or PPC agencies:
How do you define your personas, down to every last detail of their demographic and psychographic traits?
Where do they spend their time online and how can your digital campaigns reach them at the right place and time?
What are the most important outcomes you want to see to track success? And how consistent are you in tracking those metrics?
Before adding a PR firm, make sure you know the answers to these important points:
What’s your target list of ideal publications?
What thought leadership topics best line up with your brand so you have a clear direction for your bylines?
How do you know when it’s time to cut bait so your PR team can focus their energy on higher-value coverage?
The wasted cycles and time invested in hiring and firing agencies are a major drain on your team. Getting clear on your strategy and plan upfront can pay dividends over time. That way, you can spend more time investing in real growth vs. spinning wheels.
Don’t get stuck in the revolving door of agencies and make sure you’re clear on your vision and goals before hearing your first pitch. That way, you can move forward confidently towards accelerating growth.
