And what you can do about it
If I were an agency, I’d be worried. According to a 2019 British survey, 63% of the companies asked don’t believe agencies deliver the value they promise. It’s obviously a tricky relationship.
But as a manager, you should also be worried. It is, after all, a “relationship.” And while agencies typically get the blame, the company is actually the strongest party. The company can hire and fire at will. The company judges if the project was a success or failure. The agency’s role of “the customer is always right,” makes it difficult to steer a ship in the right direction if it gets off track. As in any relationship, more power gives more responsibility.
There are lots of reasons why client/agency relationships fail. Maybe it wasn’t a good fit. Maybe the agency wasn’t accountable enough and didn’t focus enough on the value of their deliverable. But there is also a lot you can do from the company's side to ensure success..
Here are 4 avoidable reasons why agency projects go sideways.
1. Budgets not clearly defined
Lots of projects with new agencies start with an agency pitch. Inexperienced marketing managers are often afraid of being overcharged, so they keep their budget close to their chest. Instead, they ask the agency to tell them what it will cost based on a vague brief (after all, they don’t want to discourage the agency’s creativity!).
It’s typical to pick two or three agencies and ask them to pitch the project; sometimes paid and sometimes not. This situation contains a built-in conflict. The agency wants to impress you with their creativity. In fact, getting the job depends on it. Without knowing the budget, they aren’t going to underplay their abilities.
An inexperienced marketeer may not have a good idea about the feasibility/affordability of a presented concept. For example, an agency could come with a stunning brand identity with 6 gorgeous photos included in the price. But if you choose that concept, every image you use from now until the end of time will cost 2 days of photoshopping (ow!). Sooner or later you won’t be able to sustain the concept, and it won’t be remembered as a success.
Likewise, if you pick an agency based on a concept that is out of your budget range and then agree to downscale, the entire project often carries the dark cloud of disappointment over what might have been.
Most agencies can deliver a good campaign concepts that cost DKK150,000 and upwards. So no matter if you are hiring them for a product launch or to deliver a steady stream of content, do everyone a favor and show your cards from the beginning. Take the conversation upfront about what your budget will mean for the outcome. Make sure all agencies pitch to the same budget. If your budget is too low for some agencies, it allows them the courtesy of bowing out without wasting time from either party.
Don't worry, they are all good at upselling. Expect them to come with a proposal of what they can do within budget, and what they could do if you found additional funds.
2. An unclear briefing process
Creating an agency brief is a bit of an art. You need to spark their creativity with background and end results, but you also need to give them everything they need for practical planning.
Most projects with an agency have four phases. Phase 1 takes the most work from you, but if you do it well, your agency can use their time generating output instead of wasting it on do-overs and administration.
1) Discovery & debrief
Depending on how thorough your brief is, discovery could be a meeting where they ask a lot of questions to fill in the gaps and get a better understanding of what you need. It could be with just you or with key stakeholders in your company. Their discover may take the form of a written document where they re-iterate what they will deliver. Basically, it is to help them make sure they totally understand the project so they can be effective and not waste creative resources.
If you are able to hold internal workshops yourself to do your own discovery of the real needs for the project, you can present a thorough, in-person brief with time for Q&A, and avoid/reduce the discovery phase. A debrief from the agency without discovery could have some writing about the concept, perhaps mood boards, and either a quote with conditions or an estimated budget. As your client relationship grows closer, this stage will become smaller and smaller, requiring less time from both sides.
2) Creative concept
Here the agency works with headlines and visuals to give a general idea about how people will perceive the work. This is often the first real creative work you see from the agency. It is a proof of concept from the brief you gave them, and if all the groundwork was done well, chances are good they will hit the mark.
3) Creative work
Once the concept is approved, the agency needs to create the necessary depth of content. This could be copy, films, animations, illustrations, etc., that will be used in one or more pieces of communication.
4) Application
This is where all the creative materials are applied to the various communication pieces, for example ads, newsletters, whitepapers, downloads, exhibitions, etc.
If you want to get the most from your agency, give them everything they need for each stage of the project before it starts. When you make changes, they need to go back to work already completed, and that costs hours. (It seems like a little thing to say “Oh wait – we need to use ™ instead of ® on that brand name,” but imaginee the time they need to use to fix that. Time literally means money.
At a minimum, the brief needs to include:
The basics about the product/service
Your goal with the project
Your earned, owned and paid communication channels together with your priorities about how to use them (related to your goals)
Market dynamics and customer insights
Competition, and how they address the same/similar topic
The communication period (for example, is this a one-shot-wonder or will it be a campaign running over 9 months?)
About that price tag: If the brief and debrief don’t have clearly defined processes and objectives, the agency will need to work with estimates and hourly rates, because your processes will affect how efficient they can be. I feel sure that inefficiently run projects contribute to the fact that over 40% of the respondents in the survey felt they had been overcharged.
If you agree to processes and outcome, there’s a good chance your agency will be able to give you a fixed cost for delivery, with the caveat that extra costs will arise if the processes are not followed, or additional work is added. You can control overspends by fulfilling your obligations. If the agency is ineffective with their internal hours, they need to absorb that cost themselves..
Clearly defined processes look like this:
When the agency will receive all needed background material for review (but no duplicates or unnecessary material, because that wastes their hours)
Precise description of all deliverables. For example, “newsletter” is not enough. You should describe who is the target audience, what is the purpose, how many webpages/landing pages/videos/pdfs the newsletter should link to (including how many of them are existing/need to be created), if it includes a form, etc.
Defined milestones and dates for delivery to you, including how many days you have to send feedback (which you have edited so there are no contradictory comments from various stakeholders).
How many iterations are allowed. Typically, it is two. The creative concept may have two iterations before you finalize the direction. When the agency moves on campaign development, there is often one iteration for creative work and one for application.
It’s easy to imagine how a detailed debrief and budget helps both the agency and the client. Let’s say the creative team would like to use 2 people for 2 ½ days to come up with a concept (40 hours). It makes sense and if you were working on open-ended hours, this could easily happen. But if the budget is limited, the agency may take a more managed approach, for example by allowing a ½ day for 2 creatives to brainstorm, 1 day for the copywriter who hands off to graphics who also gets 1 day, and finishing up with a ½ day for them to finalize it together (32 hours). Working together for the entire process could produce a more creative result, so if you can afford to work with hourly pricing, you can allow the agency to optimize on creativity. But if you can’t, you will still get a great result and save 20% on that part of the project.
By the way, if you’re working with a fixed budget, I recommend to reserve 10% of your budget for unforeseen expenses.
Once the project rolls, good ideas keep flowing and you may find you need something no one had predicted. That costs money, so by reserving an amount of your budget to allocate to additional bells and whistles, you stay in control and prevent overspend.
3. Agency project management
For an agency, profitability is all about effective use of time. Budgets are smaller than they were 10-15 years ago; here is one of the dire consequences:
Most clients can readily see the need for creative individuals specializing in visuals, text, video, ect. But they resent paying top dollar for a project manager; that’s the kind of work they know how to do themselves! So if the budget is pressed, the project manager role is often scrapped, downsized or filled by an inexpensive and inexperienced staff member.
But the project manager role is vital. Managing creatives is literally like herding cats. There is a distinct pecking order at an agency and only project managers with status have a chance at managing senior creatives. An inexperienced project manager will struggle to get the best out of the team. Not only are project managers responsible to ensure the creatives don’t blow out too many hours in the early phases, but they are also your guide to translate that mysterious, creative world into your concrete business objectives.
During budget negotiations, if there isn’t room for a proper project manager, the agency will nearly always flag this and bring up the discussion about you doing most of the project management yourself. A good in-house marketing project manager can accomplish a lot towards a project’s success, but you will lose the person who keeps the creative team moving forward in-sync and staying effective. And remember you won’t use less hours than they do; your hours are just hidden. Most people don’t realize exactly how time-consuming the business-side of creative projects are because companies don’t count hours the same way agencies do.
Unless it's a boutique agency where one of the creatives does the project management, moving forward without a proper project manager is a path with pitfalls. Sure, the project will get done. But be ready to to be flexible, and remember to take this into account when you pass judgement on whether it was a job well done.
4. Hands off approach
Often the “agency relationship” is managed by a director, but every day projects with the agency falls to marketing staff. If the director isn’t conscientious about keeping everyone informed about strategy, feedback and even slight course variations, the people doing the work can get blindsided or feel like they are working in an entirely different universe. And believe me, this happens for agency staff, as well. If you “own” the relationship, be sure to work actively with your team and keep them informed.
As well I’ve experienced there is often a psychological barrier for staff to overcome about not owning projects because, after all, the agency is being paid to do the job. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard colleagues say something like “They need to do something creative.” And then they are disappointed that the result was a bit off target or didn’t rock their world. Without information, insights, feedback and ideas, the agency will rarely pull a rabbit out of the hat.
There are other reasons things can go wrong, such as agency losing personnel, not choosing
an agency with adequate skills, or being too small of a fish to qualify for excellent customer service.
Let me leave you with this. While it’s always easy to play the blame game, it’s far better to step up to the plate and become a good partner to your agency. You’ll be amazed at the results you can accomplish together!
See available workshops, including "Finding the perfect agency."
Survey conducted by Pixelfield.
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