Choosing creative agency services

Many marketing agencies boast about their creativity, innovation and ability to push boundaries. But getting your marketing right isn’t ONLY about making your organisation look cool and distinguishing you from the competition. It’s about capturing the interest of potential customers and encouraging them on their journey from unaware to purchase.

But how do you go about finding an agency that will help you achieve this? Here are a few tips to bear in mind…

1. Have a particular project in mind but be open to new ideas

Even if you’re looking for a new creative agency to come in and transform your approach to sales and marketing, it’s a good idea to have a specific project in mind when you first make contact. This will make a solid foundation to start from, which will help you gauge the way an agency works.

Common starting points can be a brand review, product launch, website, events, video or a sales campaign. Consider an activity that will help to prove the agency’s strategic worth.

However it’s also worth being open-minded and willing to listen to an creative agency’s advice and ideas. You might find that you end up engaging them to work on a completely different project from the one you’d first envisaged. As long as there’s a clear strategy behind the decision, that’s OK.

Whatever project you chose to start out with, make sure agencies know that your end goal is driving sales and that that’s how you will judge their success.

2. The brief and the pitch

The detail in an agency brief varies considerably. You could consider asking the agency what their brief would look like based on what they know of your company and the sector in which you operate. See if the agency can impress you either by how close they get to the brief you have in mind or by proposing a perceptive variation. There are only so many marketing models; the agency should be able to suggest to you a 'straw man' strategy.

NOTE A: The paradox of the all-encapsulating brief is that you are about to ask professionals for their advice so the advice shouldn't be explicit in the brief. If you are not sure what's wrong with you, you'd be unlikely to tell a doctor to prescribe Medication X. Okay, marketers are not doctors, granted. But you could gain a lot simply by asking the prospective agency what they think of your opportunities for growth.

3. Weigh up your options

Do thorough research and come up with a shortlist of agencies to consider. Take care not to ask too many agencies as it only results in confusion, a lot of cost and wasted effort on the parts of too many people.