“OK with design. Except to change 2C to 4C. Hope you can absorb cost in view that we are likely to award you the design job of the XXX event”

This is a trying time for both the clients and agencies, where everyone must manage their cost carefully and wisely. I can understand the client needs to tighten their budget but from which angle should our agency look at this scenario?

1) Why should we be absorbing the cost? They have their headache, so do we.

2) OK, we will absorb the cost in view of the past support of this client. When time gets better, they will surely support us.

3) OK, we will absorb the cost in view that the client is likely to award us the future projects. At least we know that the client will not abandon us.

4) OK, let’s talk to our printer to see if they can help. If the printer can drop his price even further, we’ll do our best to break even and not make a loss.

5) OK, We know the printer is already giving his best price and we are actually putting more time than quoted on this job. The only way is to explain to the client nicely that we cannot.

Actually, we are a little shy to press down the printer’s price. He is already doing his best and squeezing him any further will be a little unreasonable.

Anyone wants to give an opinion?

The annual report must go on press on Good Friday – yes, it is that urgent that our printer is prepared to work on a sacred day – and yet, amendment is still triggering in. We would just roll our eyes and said “not again” if it’s the accountants and auditors emailing us a new set of financial data and figures for the 15th time.  We had enough experience with auditing houses to know that frequent data changes are the norms. It’s the senseless change of photographs that’s making us boiling. That corporate HQ building was shown in our draft since day 1. Yet, after countless of revision over the past 5 weeks, the client decided that the said building was “not nice” yesterday.  Of course, the cafe’s lighting was too dim too; we must digitally touch it up to make the room brighter.  2 hours ago,  the group shot that graced the back page should be removed. My AD finally lost it after keeping cool and mum all these while, “What the heck am I supposed to use to fill up that empty space?”

My printer had the unglamourous job of working on Good Friday through Sunday so that we can deliver on Monday. Yet, I wonder how we are going to get everything ready by tomorrow with so many last minutes request.

In fact, my AD just gave me the title of this post. He was shrieking, “Why are they rocking the damned boat now?”. One of our freelance guys quipped, “That’s why they are called CLIENTS”.

Hmmm, this is just one of those memorable days in the agency.

Let’s take a look at your budget. You have $20,000 to spend? That’s a big budget! Really cool! Now… let’s see what kind of campaign we can come up with. To start, we need a really great Creative Concept. What self respecting marketing campaign goes without a creative concept? Then of course, we just have to have that huge full page advertisement in the most prominent daily. Maybe a short burst on the radio or television would be good.

With $20,000? You could not even get out of the door with that campaign. Let us put things into perspective. You have a marketing campaign to run, and you need to see results. So, you need to have a solid marketing concept, then you need to have a great marketing plan to execute that marketing concept. So, besides the creative concept (it ain’t free!), the marketing plan and the execution, then you have to create the visuals and get down to the actual print work, online stuff and so on. Now, if you want to know the RESULTS, you will also need to budget some kind of market survey. This is needed to see a before/after scenario. Otherwise, your marketing campaign is over, how do you know what the results are?

As a small marketer, you need to be aware that you are constrained by budgets. You do not have the hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on an elaborate marketing campaign. Just to raise consumer awareness using a traditional advertising campaign will require a frequency of exposure that will likely make it beyond the reach of most small to medium sized companies.

But all is not lost. Direct Marketing is a very powerful and often over-looked tool in the marketer’s arsenal. Your marketing campaign can be made so much more targeted and results more grounded by employing direct marketing in the campaign.

A quick definition, direct marketing as we are talking about here, refers to any kind of direct response marketing that is targetted to an individual (as much as it is possible to do so). Examples of direct marketing would be

• Flyers mailed to a customer
• Email campaign
• Coupons

Of course, there are other direct marketing methods, and the above is just a sampling. Why would you want to add direct marketing to your marketing campaign? On the surface, it always looks like direct marketing is much more expensive than a general advertising above-the-line program. Your $20,000 above can easily translate to a few advertisements in several local print media and reach hundreds of thousands of people.

But consider this:

• direct marketing is highly targeted, noise (wastage) is extremely low
• direct marketing allows a direct response
• direct marketing is easily tracked (from a returned coupon, a phone call, a form…)

Your $20,000 can be well spent if you set aside a portion of it to create a flyer with a simple discount coupon and mail it to your customer base. This simple action, would have increased the power of your marketing campaign at many levels. While your print advertisements will reach its hundreds of thousands, the flyer will reach your existing customers. They will USE the coupons, get a discount and actually buy something from you. Therein lies the “results” that your boss is so hungry for!

Better yet, the side effect is that for everyone who has seen the advertisement, but is not a customer, they have no discount coupon! Now THAT will surely spur them to try to get on your mailing list. Suddenly, it becomes important.

Word of mouth now comes into play. OK, before we get too carried away by how exciting a simple direct marketing campaign can become, let’s get back on track.

Your simple print advertising campaign, supplemented with a small direct marketing campaign can yield results for your marketing campaign that would be significant. Don’t get me wrong, it is doubtful that a $20,000 marketing campaign can beat a $2 million advertising blitz, but working within your means, the addition of direct marketing will add a measure of impact that is more than worth its cut of your budget.

Think on it. Happy marketing!

Selecting the right marketing agency to work with you is likely one of the most important decision you have to make in the entire realm of marketing decisions. Your marketing agency is going to be working with you long term (there is no such thing as a “quick fix” where marketing is concerned!) and that relationship has strong bearings on your success.

There are many resources that you can turn to for advise on selecting the right marketing agency. But one thing is for sure, please do not, never, ever, don’t even think about – calling for a few quotes and awarding the job to the lowest bidder!

Most experts will agree that the marketing agency is likely to be the external party that will become most intimately acquainted with your business. Your marketing agency is almost an extension of you, they are your most valuable weapon. How should you then select one?

Several ways to approach this:

• Get a short list of good agencies either from recommendations or reports
• Ask for a portfolio to understand their past work
• Ask for  a proposal and evaluate how to approach this first task
• Do a pitch

There are ways to understand how the marketing agency charges. You need to understand their processes. I would like to suggest that these methods can be found in many places. But as an insider, I can also tell you that there is a single most important element in your selection of a marketing agency that will make all the other elements pale in comparison.

The whole secret lies in one simple word: PEOPLE

You need to know Who are the people on the team that is going to work for you. You need to understand What their skills and specialities are. You must know How they work, their processes and procedures. You have to know When they joined the agency.

Most important of all, you need to know if you like them. This might sound really silly in our modern, hard-nosed business world. But you should know, that talking with your marketing agency is likely the single activity you will do the most of. Talking to them about your vision. Talking to them about your new products, about your launch plans, about your competitors, about your ideas, about their ideas, about deadlines, about costs…. You will most likely TALK more to your marketing agency alone than all your other staff combined. Now, imagine spending all that time with someone you can’t stand the sight of.

The second most important point of decision is TRUST. Some how, you  need to build trust with your marketing agency. You are going to reveal a lot about your business to them. They need to know this in order to be effective partners in promoting it for you. You must trust them. They must trust you.

I believe that this two points are the most important in any client/agency relationship. You must like each other and you must trust each other. All other things can be worked out. Really.

Future posts, we will explore some of the more mundane methods of selecting the marketing agency. This will of course include a checklist, how to call a pitch and so on. In the meantime, this should stand you well. Get with someone you like, has a good reputation and is trustworthy.