Be honest…you’d love to see your face on the front cover of this PROMO issue. It would be nice to be named PROMO’s Agency of the Year. Why? Because it would increase awareness of your agency, generate new business pitches, increase revenue and make folks at other shops jealous. Perhaps most of all, you would like to be judged “the best.”
It’s nice to hear you’re doing a good job, but (isn’t there always a “but”) being told you’re the best carries a risk: the risk of spending too much time patting yourself on the back, instead of watching it.
So, for those of you who were not named Agency of the Year, take heart! You’re in the position to try harder. And the first step is to judge your own performance.
So why weren’t you named Agency of the Year? Are revenues too small? Did you lose more clients than you gained? Did you lose your creative director when he sold a screenplay to Hollywood? Are you thinking, “There’s no way I’ll ever be a top agency,” so why bother trying to snag the top spot?
Maybe you won’t be named Agency of the Year in 2005 by PROMO’s editors, but you will be thoroughly judged by one group of marketing professionals: your clients. Many CPG companies conduct formal annual reviews of their agencies; some aren’t as structured. Either way, they judge you. If they’re happy with your work, you get to keep their business, and grow it. If it’s judged inferior…well…good luck. While reviews are painful, immediate loss of business is more so.
If you’re a little hard on yourself, you can avoid others being a lot harder. Conduct your own annual review focusing on each client and the agency as a whole. Begin by determining what measures of success to use. Use the measures that either the PROMO editors or your clients use. If your client conducts an annual review, use its tally sheet for an internal audit. If you have no idea how you should be measuring yourself, ask.
As an ex-client, I’d be impressed by an agency exec who told me that he or she wanted to make certain that the work and service I received were top-notch. I might ask for the results of the review (be prepared) but I would feel assured that the agency cared about my business.
Evaluate on three levels: account management, creative and price. Your clients probably do the same.
Account management, though often given less attention than creative, is important. Remember the game “telephone,” in which a phrase is whispered to a line of people, until the last person says out loud what he has heard. How often the final phrase was never the same as the first? How “Don’t feed the cat” turned into “Mona sewed a hat?” The account manager interprets for the client and gives direction to his internal creative department. A good account manager makes the client look good.
Strategy is key — but turning objectives into an FSI or event program requires more than a good creative brief. This is where the “arts” and the “smarts” come together.
Finally, there is price. Unfortunately, as clients’ budgets get cut, and goals become more ambitious, there is less available to spend on “non-working” capital. The price/value relationship remains important; even a small amount is too much to pay for bad work.
So, after you mentally congratulate the 2004 PROMO Agency of the Year, spend some time thinking about how to keep your own clients happy. Do that, and the award is sure to come.
Sara Owens is VP of VSI Targeting Systems. Reach her at [email protected].
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