Create a kind communications plan by coordinating your marketing

As a digital agency, we have worked with clients of all sizes. No matter the size, though, we see that our clients often have difficulty organizing and strategizing across their agencies. Each vendor requires time and input from similar stakeholders, works on timelines that may not match, and will often come to the table with different priorities. This is all okay, and can provide great opportunities for dialogue, but the situation can also result in a process that generates less-than-ideal campaigns and results.

The goal of agencies is to allow our stakeholders to be wildly successful and meet or exceed their professional goals. We all want the best for our clients. So, how can agencies work together? By positioning an agency as the agency of record.

Coordinating agency and vendor priorities

When things go smoothly, it’s magic: deadlines are met, creative feels right, copy floats, and the target audience feels connected. It feels exactly like it should.

Coordinating efforts allows you to have clearly defined roles, responsibilities and expectations. Priorities are clearly identified and everyone is aware of each other’s tasks and what is required to move projects forward. Redundant work is near-eliminated. Decisions can be made faster, with more confidence. The campaign feels cohesive and intentional, and is received as kind and on-point by its intended audience.

But to get to that point, there needs to be incredible coordination and effort. This can be done in-house by a stakeholder, or it can also be done by an agency of record.

Benefits of working with an agency of record

An agency of record can be many things, but for us at Bend, being the agency of record means we are responsible for being the first point of contact and coordinating vendors, campaigns, and marketing efforts. It’s our responsibility.

Centralized campaign management for consistency and efficiency

By centralizing campaign management, companies can have a better understanding of their campaign progress, how it is being tracked back to overall business goals, and what success looks like. Having a single touchpoint of responsibility and accountability can bring cohesiveness to a project that is just too difficult for most in-house stakeholders to manage.

For example, brand consistency and messaging can be brutally difficult to keep together if different teams are responsible for each execution point. Having one group have an eye on everything, even post-launch, allows for the comfort and clarity that a stakeholder can bring to their C-level.

Customized strategies tailored to your unique needs

An agency of record is your team that deeply understands your business and its needs. At the end of the day, the business's success is the agency’s success. Therefore, an agency of record is your number-one advocate across all vendors. They will help weed through the discussions and questions, the touchpoints and journeys, identifying what is most likely to bring success for the business and how that can be exploited and extrapolated.

For kindness-focused businesses, this means working with all vendors to ensure campaigns, messaging, images, and stories align with their brand values and intended impacts. Once results come in from an asset or campaign, those results can help drive the optimization efforts, all aligned with the brand values the agency of record advocates.

Simplified vendor management and accountability

Working with an agency of record does not mean you get to hit go with your vendor team, and all will be good. There will still be check-ins and accountability, but the agency of record is poised to be the group that supports the vendors as they do all they can for your business. If something arises, the agency of record can be the first to identify what is happening and collect the necessary information to fix or escalate the issue. Performance is tracked and monitored, with opportunities for optimization shared across vendors. It’s no longer vender versus vendor but vendors coming together to create a truly unforgettable campaign experience.

Best practices for coordinating vendor activities with an agency of record

Each vendor relationship is going to be different, but some specific steps and items need to be identified for a successful agency of record environment:

Establish clear objectives and expectations

The key to a successful engagement is having objectives and expectations that are agreed-upon and documented. This allows everyone to move forward with their tasks and projects understanding how the outcome will be achieved (and reviewed). When setting objectives and expectations, be sure to do the following:

• Document qualitative objectives

• Identify how these qualitative objectives will be reviewed and determined

• Identify quantitative goals

• Identify how these quantitative goals will be tracked, reviewed, and documented as successful

• Outline reporting processes and any gaps that are known to exist

• Define responsibilities for each vendor and team

Create a comprehensive project timeline

Having a cohesive, comprehensive timeline allows vendors to understand what they are working towards and how it is a part of a bigger environment and engagement. Slippages in due dates and budgets become obvious and their impact is easily identifiable once a timeline has been set.

Foster open communication and collaboration among vendors

Collaboration and communication, and the openness of it, must be clearly set by the business and activated by the agency of record. This includes identifying who are primary points of contact at each vendor, how communication should be done (and escalated), and what platforms will be used for collaboration.

Platform collaboration can be one of the most difficult to define, particularly when there are business who only allow specific tools to be used. Be ready to compromise here, as much as possible and required.

Regularly review and analyze performance metrics

With defined objectives and goals, set up regular check-ins to review how the project is going and the performance of campaigns. These should be regular enough that changes and optimizations can be made but not so often that there is lost value with additional busy work. This all depends on the scope and budget, but work to find that middle ground.

Adapt and refine the strategy based on results and feedback

With results coming in, this is where the agency of record can do its best work: identify who and how can optimize the campaign. Maybe it’s creative. It could be the ad placements. Maybe it’s the on-site experience. But having all of the data coming into a centralized location allows for fast, actionable insights.

Kindness through collaboration

At Bend, we are used to working and coordinating with vendors of all types. We have a list of things we don’t do for clients and instead rely on others to help support. Over the years, we have found that coordinating and collaborating across vendors is the best way to have incredible results from your campaigns and experiences.

If you’re interested in finding ways to bring together your campaign efforts, align vendors, and save time and money, having an agency of record is key. And Bend is here to help.