Navigating the Evolving Marketing Agency Landscape

The marketing agency landscape is undergoing rapid changes, especially with the enhancements in AI and technology over the last year. Agencies need to keep pace with these changes, as brands are increasingly looking to us to help them navigate through an ever complex world.

Yet, you also need to make sure it stays true to who you are, so the value you bring to clients is relevant to your positioning and purpose.

In a recent conversation I had with Tina Fegent (FCIPS) and Adrian Mooney , I explored current client challenges, and identified areas of focus to help both your growth and ensure your agency/client partnerships thrive.

The Challenges Clients Face

Predicting and measuring the impact on a client’s Pamp; L is key

Budgets are under increasing pressure and scrutiny as every investment is critiqued to ensure it delivers an ROI. This is easier when you are a media agency or using digital channels, but clients need all agencies to help understand the predicted ROI of our ideas, our creativity and our broader strategic nous and the impact it will have on consumers behaviour. If they have this insight, it makes it easier for them to invest.

Once you have made your forecast, make sure you work with your clients to help them plan and ring fence the budget that will help the client invest this more effectively. This includes looking at the data to help measure towards the predicted ROI.

The overwhelming array of choice v time

In reality, dealing with marketing agencies only takes up 5-10% of a client’s time. With a plethora of agencies to choose from, clients often feel adrift in a sea of options. Selecting the perfect partner becomes less about availability and more about alignment with brand ethos, the value and insights they bring, and the people who will be involved in their business.

Clients are looking for agencies to be super creative, patient, have an understanding of their business, confident in front of senior people – including the CEO – and relevant, providing high value insights that help them in their day-to-day job.

Staying Relevant in the Modern Marketing Agency Landscape

Collaboration is king

In this competitive landscape, one size doesn't fit all. Agencies need to tailor their offerings to stay relevant to the clients they are looking to attract. Clients are open to talking to you, but you have to earn the right to walk beside them. You need to understand their business goals, challenges, competitors etc.

This means that you need to look at ways you can support the client, whether it is with insights or opinions that are unique to you. They are looking to learn from agencies, to help them learn and develop understanding in new advances.

To earn this right, you have to go beyond the services you offer; agencies need to be thought leaders and look at ways you can engage and inform clients with insights relevant to them, and pertinent to you.

Your own collateral needs to be personal

Your content, needs to reflect who you are, be opinionated and relevant to you. This takes time to work on and has to be different from your competitors.

Clients are looking to understand you and to know who you are. They use your website as one key channel to get this information, yet so many agency websites let themselves down. They become impersonal and make it harder for a client to engage with you. To make your website personal, the client needs to know who they are contacting. Do not have a hello@ contact email or a form that they don’t know who they are speaking with/ emailing. We are a people industry and it is easier to reach out to someone if they know who they are talking to. Taking personal aspects away makes it easier for a client to go elsewhere.

Make sure you can be found by clients

Clients, when searching for a new agency, will often look for three key things:

1.???? Good people: Have they worked with you before or have you built enough trust with your approach to be given the opportunity to work with a specific client?

2.???? Good work: Your work and how you showcase it has to be key. Your case studies, your video reels have to inspire clients, give them information about you, how you work, the challenge you solved and the results of your great work.

3.???? Referrals: Clients trust referrals a great deal – whether it be from a fellow client, a procurement team or consultant, an intermediary or another agency partner.

Do not forget about procurement

Treat procurement as your friend and not your enemy

Procurement are a key part of any relationship an agency will have with a client. They are there to support the marketing team at delivering the best results, with the right agencies. But are also wanting to work with the right agencies and partners to deliver the results needed in more efficient ways. You need to learn from procurement as they can really provide input to help you improve your approach.

You therefore need to:

-?????? Know who the procurement person is, their role and challenges they are facing

-?????? Be willing to listen, engage and learn from them. They have expertise in helping you become more efficient

-?????? Engage with them, like you would a CMO. They are looking to learn, so do share content, invite them to procurement only events/ roundtables etc.

-?????? Help them do their job better. Look at your website. Does it give procurement the information they need to know you and recommend you into an RFP process?

-?????? They are trained negotiators so ensure you / your team have the appropriate negotiation skills to ensure that you both get what you want

Remember, procurement people do talk to each other about agencies. If you get a bad reputation, it will spread further than you think.

Partnering with the Right Agency

Have the right team in place

Clients look for more than catchy pitches, or agencies wheeling out a pitch team who are the best presenters. They want to see:

-?????? the team that will be working on their account

-?????? that your agency aligns with their core values

-?????? that you demonstrate audience understanding

-?????? deliver good work

-?????? Are a cultural fit and have good chemistry

-?????? Are all involved in presenting, have a role to play and can handle tough situations

-?????? Is the team empowered to respond? If not and you have individuals who override other team members, it won’t look good and will make the client think about whether you are a cultural fit

-?????? That you understand data

-?????? And that you deliver good value

Don’t put the client off

The cookie-cutter approach - In the current marketing agency landscape, generic approaches often spell doom. Clients crave bespoke solutions, tailored to their distinct challenges.

Autocratic behaviour - You have to trust the team to deliver. If you are too dictatorial, the client will get frustrated and look to move their business elsewhere.

Be true to your values - Agencies need to stick to their values and be true to who they are. Clients will see through disingenuous approaches.

Be responsive/ proactive - Clients are looking for agencies that are responsive to them. This could be from responding to a query they have or adapting your thinking to a new challenge they might face. I am not advocating that you should respond to a client at 2am in the morning – if they expect that level of service, should you be working with them? – but it is about being flexible to the client’s needs.

Clients are looking to us to be proactive about their business. They want you to focus on helping them meet the marketing and business challenges they face. They want you stepping in to help them, rather than waiting for them to come to you.

The Golden Opportunities Lying Ahead

Shaping brand growth

The future calls for agencies to be more than service providers. The opportunity goes beyond measuring brand equity/ ROI. Clients are looking for agencies that can actively help plot out? their code for growth. How do you use data, deploy media, executions that will work, emotive messages that will land about their product? Brands need help with this and this is a big opportunity, so you need to approach specific targets if you can help them in plotting their ‘code for growth’.

From service providers to educators

Clients need agencies to be educators. It will help foster deeper client relationships. Clients need our expertise as they struggle to stay on top of the latest thinking, opinions and opportunities.

Find ways to share expertise with your clients, show your thinking and bring points of inspiration, specific to the client that will help elevate your agency from a mere vendor to a valuable partner. Clients are looking for this thinking and if it is relevant to them, will enable greater access and the ability to start a deeper relationship with them.

My final thought

Agencies can be notoriously inward focussed and unaware of what is happening in the wider industry. This disconnection from the broader industry can make agencies seem out of sync and not relevant. Make sure you are staying on top of key topics that can help you keep your clients informed and on top of the shifts occurring.