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The Digital Marketing Podcast
Guide To Working With Digital Agencies
00:24:28
Daniel and Ciaran talk us through the highs and lows of working with agencies to support you with your projects. A great agency relationship can make an enormous difference to what you can achieve, but these relationships rarely happen by...
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to the Digital Marketing Podcast brought to you by targetinternet.com hello and welcome back to the Digital Marketing Podcast.
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B
My name is Kieran Rogers and I'm Daniel Rolls.
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And today, Daniel, we're talking about managing agencies.
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B
So this is a subject that is quite close to both our hearts, having both ran agencies and also been a client working with agencies as well. And there's definitely a relationship that needs to be formed. This is not a one way thing where you as a client must do something or you as an agency must do something. There's learnings on both sides and I think there's a lot to being a good agency and there's actually a lot to being a good client as well to make it work. So I know you're quite passionate about this, so I'm going to hand over to you for a second.
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A
I am quite passionate about this because actually I've seen it work really, really well and I've seen it work really, really badly. And that's really where this episode came about really. I really wanted to share some of my learnings on how to make it well. Two things really, how to make it work really, really well and how to avoid it turning sour and going really, really badly. So I think we sort of going to divide this up into two sections really. Daniel, I think the first thing is signing up and choosing an agency and just kind of going through some of the agency gotchas. There are some really great agencies out there and there's some slightly shabby ones if I'm honest. And some of them aren't, in my opinion, upfront enough with their clients. And that can lead to a lot of misunderstanding and just plain old bad feeling and wasted time and stuff really. So I just want to share with you a few of those things. So one of the first questions that I think any organization should ask is do we work with many different agencies or just one? And Daniel, I know you've got some views on this. It's an interesting one because there is no right answer.
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B
I think in an ideal world you would work with one agency that had expertise in all the different areas of digital or non digital you wanted to work on. But there's also some downsides to that. So first of all, it's unusual to find an agency, there is an expert in everything. So it's that kind of thing of, you know, master of everything. No, not really. That doesn't really occur. So I would say quite often you can't do that. There are full service agencies out there. But they're not always great.
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But every agency says we are a full service digital marketing agency. And actually the reality is they're not.
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They're not necessarily. It might be you're working with an agency and they've actually got lots of freelancers or they've got lots of other agencies working with them, which is actually fine as well. The more full service and agencies, the bigger it tends to be as well. In some cases, unless you've got a small team of people doing everything, which is their kind of jack of all trades, it's not always a great thing. So you say, well, okay, well this isn't going to be possible. We're going to work with lots of other agencies then. Well, then you've got a management problem of managing lots of different agencies, which can become a real pain in getting them working together as well. So there are some techniques for doing that. You can have a lead agency where one lead agency manages all the other agencies, but it can become quite political because they want the money and they want to try and get as many tasks themselves. So there are some problems either way with doing this. So I've never found an ideal circumstance. But I would say if you can have a small number of agencies that have explained from the outset must cooperate with one another and they have a good mutual respect, it can work quite well then. But there's still a bit of, oh, he could be doing that task, why are they doing it? So you just got to be a bit cautious of that.
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Yeah, there is. I think if you manage expectations from the off, that's good. Very often you can inherit these situations when you move into a new team, whereby, well, you know, the, the marketing team use this agency for that and the social media team using another agency for the other. It's no different from managing different teams within your own organization. You just do need to put the legwork into communicating properly between all those different moving parts and that becomes harder. If you're a large organization and you've got lots of different satellite teams working on different things, too many moving parts can, can be a bad thing. I think if you're in that situation and look to see what in house skills you have and whether you can pull some of these elements in house and a lot of times you can, you know, it won't have been necessarily reviewed and there'll be people sat on your team who maybe previously did that job within an agency and they're just, you know, they've just been bypassed with it.
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B
Can I share a pet peeve? Yeah, new marketing director comes in, new digital director comes in and they change the agencies every time. Because I've worked with these agencies, I'm going to bring these guys in. I think it can be really damaging because two reasons. One, the existing relationship, if it's working well already and there's some good roles in place, you might be just backstepping for no real reason. Also, I mean this isn't really the commercial organization's concern. If you're a big company and it's a big agency, there are lots of people probably working specifically on that account. You are causing carnage at the other end that you're probably not aware of where people are losing their jobs, people are being transferred and that's not your problem. The commercial outcome is kind of your key focus, I guess. But I would just think long and hard before just coming in and just feeling you have to change things because you're new. Actually a good review process and a bit of listening first would tend to be better just because people are very keen to make change as quickly as possible to make their mark. But actually you might be slowing yourself down. So I'd just be cautious.
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A
There's a middle ground on this which I've seen work quite well and I work for an organization where new, new digital marketing director came in and actually what he did was he served notice on all the agencies and at the same time invited them all to be part of the next pitch. And I thought that was quite a creative way and actually to give him his due, he actually went with a number of the agencies that we're already working with. But what it did a couple of things at the time I thought it was a bit harsh, but actually the reality is it meant that he had a full understanding of all the agreements and terms and conditions on what was set up for to work with the agency. And it reviewed all of those process and kind of had a bit of a kickstart and a refresh. And it also caused the agencies to sit up and start behaving like you should do. If you've got a brand new client, if somebody senior has just taken over effectively, you know, you've got to re establish those relationships. I thought it was quite clever, but in particular the whole contract thing and contract start dates and terms and stuff cleared that all right up straight away off the bat. And I thought that was, that was quite smart.
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There is a sad realistic thing to think about a little bit in the agency world as well, which I experienced and is not a good thing, which is the client that shouts the most, gets the most attention. So you quite often got, if you're an agency you've got one small client that just is an absolute pain and they just make constant noise. But they end up getting more service because of that because they're trying to stop there from being a problem and you're trying to deal with any problems. And it means you might end up with a lot of your resource going that direction as an agency. But the problem is it doesn't lead to a good long term relationship. So although that you're getting lots of attention, you're actually building up a lot of resentment within the agency for dealing with that particular person or kind of company. So it's realistic that you've got to think as an organization, let's make a big fuss, let's be really difficult, let's get loads of attention. It's probably not going to build a good long term relationship. But it's also down the agency to manage those kind of situations as well. And I think in smaller agencies we're quite often and I was very guilty this of being poor in managing those people that made the most noise but actually didn't provide much value to the agency and certainly weren't really helping anything in the long term.
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So big agency or small agency, Daniel, what would be your view on that?
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I think you never want to be a small fish in a big pond. So I think unless you are a massive client and you've got a big big spend, I wouldn't necessarily go for a really big agency. Now there is a big argument. The big agencies can be full service and they've got loads of great people and so on. Not going to be important enough to them from a billings point of view. So I would like to be generally a big client for a small or medium agency and if I'm a small organization I would always go for a small agency because the relationship is easier to manage in that point of view as well. What you don't want is everyone else is spending £20,000amonth and you're spending £1,000amonth. You're just not going to be prioritized because if they lose you, they're not really going to care. From a billings point of view and bearing in mind the way the agency world has to work is there's a certain resource in terms of having people and there's a certain money that's coming in and one has to pay for the other and make a bit of profit on top. So that's always going to be the world. And the reality is that you need to think about what happens if you were to change agency. Would they care that much? And if they wouldn't, then you're never going to get the level of service that you're really hoping for as well. Now, as part of that, I think you also need to think about some realities of project management. How good is the agency actually at project management? They might be brilliant at delivering technical stuff or design, wherever it may be, but if they're poor at project management, everything will be late and it will damage the relationship as well. Are you going to play your role within the project management as well? Are you going to meet your deadlines as a client doing those kind of things as well? The level of utilization is an important question to ask as well. So you have a team of 20 people and in any particular period of time you can achieve a certain amount of work. So there's only a certain amount of work that you can actually achieve. And there'd probably be someone in the agency whose job it is to manage the projects and work out the percent utilization that you're getting. That is, if I've got 10 people in a day, I can get 10 people days done in that particular day. So 10 kind of man days done. Now the reality is that what percentage are they working on? The higher the percentage they're working on tends to come to the more problems you have. And I know a lot of agencies work at 110 or 120%, which means essentially unless one of two things are happening, one that the staff have to do more hours than they are normally in a day or two, or they're billing for stuff that isn't actually getting done, then you're going to have problems. And it causes all sorts of stress within the agency, the under resource nature of the agency and it just causes lots of headaches. So just, just look at that, look at the project management skills. I would also go through and work out the difference between the pitch team, the people that come out and sell you stuff, and the people that actually do the delivery. So, and even with account managers, is the account manager actually connected? Do they have a technical knowledge of what's going on as well? Because very often you get a pitch team that are amazing and they're yeah, that we're going to go. These people, they really want to do and they've said yes to everything. And then the actual build team are completely stacked up with work. They don't really know what they're doing. They're really junior. And there's all sorts of problems that can occur. So you need to know who's actually going to be working on your account.
- [10:55]
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Definitely. Personal recommendations are always a good thing. But I would always, every time double check. So any agency will tell you of organizations that they've worked with. Just pick up the phone and speak to those organizations and ask them opinion. I never found anybody reluctant to do that. It's quite a normal thing, but it's, you know, it's just fact checking really. They just shouldn't have anything to hide. And actually if they're, you know, I'm sure if they're billing them out as, you know, people they've done a lot of good stuff for, they'll get a good opinion but do get a sense of whether you know that the things they've done for that organization are going to be similar stuff that you're going to be doing with them because obviously you can get some false reads otherwise. I think there's a couple of gotchas when choosing an agency that I think are really important and by gotcha, the kind of man traps or landmines you can tread on that are really unnecessary if you're wary of them. One of these is make sure you understand what's involved within your monthly management fee. It's very easy for sour grapes to arrive because you've got misconceptions on what's being included and what's not. Handover fees is another one. And Daniel, I know you've got experience, tell us, what is a handover fee in the agency world?
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You see this a lot in pay per click campaigns where I sign a contract with you for six months and you run my pay per click for six months. And at the end of the six months I might not be that impressed or I might think I could do this myself, whatever it may be. And for some reason I then end the contract with you and say, right, I like my account, please. Because we've done all these building of ads and they go, yeah, yeah, but you don't actually own the account. You say, well, it's on our login. Yeah, but the reality is that in the contract it says there is a handover fee. And therefore if you want all of the ads that mess up and the historical data, which is what you really normally need, you need to pay a handover fee. I've seen handover fees from £500 to £20,000.
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Wow.
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So when a very large client had been working with a paperclick agency and they said, yep, no problem at all. Would you want historical data? It'll be 20k please. And they were. They end up having to pay it because the fact is they needed the data and it was in the contract.
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And it's a nonsense because that data. There's no reason why it can't be. I would always own the account. And you should make that very clear.
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If you've got, you've paid for this work to be done, you shouldn't then have to pay for the work to be handed over. I don't think think it's just one of those things. It's a way of sneaking more money into a contract. But actually I've never seen it be a good outcome that people are happy about it. So it's probably not a great idea.
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And always scrutinize and question any notice terms on the account. There could be so much ambiguity there. You know, it might say a month's notice but is that a month from when you hand in your notice or a clear working month or calendar month or is it 30 days a month.
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On the end of the next month?
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Yeah, which, which I've seen and yeah, it's a painful, painful thing to have. So make sure you're really clear on all of that before you go in. And then really what I want to do is to move on to just some general good practice. I think. You know there are a number of things that I found work really, really well with an agency. 1. So I'm not going to try and explain these too much. I'm just going to lay them down as rules that you should all follow because I found them very effective. And if you, whether you agree or disagree that that's fine. This is how I would, would do it. So agree meeting agendas and stick to them. That's a biggie. Particularly if they're quite a creative agency and you're quite creative. You can find these things moving in all sorts of weird and wonderful places. You need to really make sure time is money with agencies. You need to make sure you're really focused on what you're needing to do. Don't get me wrong, you have some fun as well. It's important. But do stick to the agenda and, and results because all of these things need to be measured. Agree with them that they will always flag up any help that costs extra as a cost. So there's never any surprises. It's the easiest thing in the world to get carried away. We're talking about we could do this, we could do this, we could do this and you go, yeah, great thinking. It's all part of your monthly management fee. And at the end of the month you suddenly get billed X amount extra. That's nasty. I always go to the nth degree to make sure this is very clear when setting up an agreement or with an existing contract that you're, you're, you know, you're taking over, have that difficult conversation, make it very clear, look, if anything's going to be outside of my monthly fee, you need to flag this up and send a proposal so that I can then send you back a purchase order or formulate. Lots of different organizations have different ways of doing this, but formulate it so there's a structure around that and anything outside that structure, it's not going to get paid for, it's not going to happen.
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I think I'd cover the other way as well, where if you are creating tasks and just reams and ream come out of ideas, things to do all the time, and then expecting it to be part of your account management, you've got to be realistic about what's included. So from the definition outcome, it needs to be there a limited number of hours or a certain number of tasks or whatever it may be, but define it really clearly because otherwise you get this weird situation where the client saying, can we do this? Can we do this? I expect this to be part of my account management fee. And by saying no, it's creating a bad relationship.
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There's a phrase you need to learn in agency speak and they say that's out of scope. Now, in layman's terms, what out of scope is no, you're not paying for that, you can't have it. So anything that's mentioned as out of scope can be put into scope. If a particular project has time deadlines, then it might have to exist outside of that or you're not going to meet.
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Because scope creep is a big problem in development projects.
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Exactly. But, but out of scope just basically means that that wasn't really kind of costed up. So it is really important if you're going into any more detailed projects that all of these things are documented and written down so you have a good understanding of that. Write up all meeting notes with actions and agreed dates. Now a lot of good agencies will do this for you, but if they don't do it, and I think you'll probably find they start doing it for you, shamed that they haven't followed up properly. It's one of the easiest things for your account manager to let slip and it can lead to all sorts of misunderstandings. There's nothing better than making sure you've checked that what you thought was agreed in the meeting is what they thought was agreed in the meeting and vice versa. So that's one sure fire way of doing that. And it also means that when you have your next meeting you can review this and follow up.
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I think those collaboration tools we've mentioned in previous episodes come in here as well, that having a mutually shared platform like Asana or something else where you can put those tasks in works really well because then there's clarity. What hasn't, hasn't been done.
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Make sure you agree all lines of communication and agree out of hours contact details for both you and them. This is a really important one. When things go south and don't go to plan very often, I find they tend to happen out of hours normally all about half past seven on a Friday when you can't get hold of anybody. And it's really important that you have an option for that but explore it before that actually happens because there's nothing worse. And I speak from experience trying to get hold of everybody and not having the right details and it won't, it'll be too late by that point, you know, the horse has bolted. So yeah, make sure you cover that.
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I think expected response times are really important as well that you know, if anything involves hosting of websites or website problems or social media mess ups and those kind of things, you know, I want this fixed now is great, but if contractually it says we've got five working days, what's actually going to happen? And that can create a lot of pain as well. The smaller the agency is generally the more flexibility you tend to get as well because people will go out of the way to try and fix things where a big agency, lots of staff, you know, you're not always going to get that kind of response. So I think these contact details and some agreement from the outset. Is it okay to phone at 7:30 on a Friday? Will you actually, will you respond? So just discussing some of those things.
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Through is always really important and vice versa. Make it clear when it's out of hours for you, how to get hold of you. I mean I've even gone to the extent with some projects of giving backup telephone numbers and to my shame, I've even given my wife's just in case if it's really critical because she's normally with me and can, can reach me if I'm for one reason something's gone wrong. So yeah, don't leave any of that to chance. Hopefully it'll never have to swing into action, but when it does, you'll be really glad you sorted it out. Don't be afraid to tell them when you're unhappy and why. There's nothing worse when you're working within an agency or somebody suddenly serving notice and you're like, whoa, whoa, where did that come from? I thought it was really going really, really well and nine times out of ten it's just because the person feels a bit awkward and don't really want to give you negative feedback. A good relationship's built on honesty and you know, honesty should cut both ways really. And that, that kind of leads me onto my next point, which is you really need to listen to your agency. It's one of the, it's one of the biggest problems if you have a whole team of experts and you know you've got a good method, you tried and tested of doing things and you get hired as an agency and the marketing director just has his own way and doesn't, doesn't listen. It's, it's not good. You're probably not the right agency for them and they're not ever going to be a really great client because they'll demand results but you won't be able to action on them because this conflict is just bad. So do listen to the agency. If you've got people within your team that disagree, have that conversation and expand on it and explore the points of disagreement and come to a conclusion. Tell them in advance if you're going on holiday, especially if you are the main contact with that agency, it's really often overlooked. You wouldn't do that to your co workers, don't do it to your agency. In many cases they could be managing some of the most important things for your business. Certainly if you're an E commerce business and you have paid search, it can be incredibly important and that goes hand in hand with keep them up to date with any changes as they happen. Nothing's worse. Managing an account when you're the last person to get told of some enormous change or some event that's happening within the business that you didn't know or some other activity that's going to impact on it. As the agency contact, you need to be really sharp and hot on that. Sometimes you will find out late or things can change at last minute and that's okay as well. But I would always urge be a little bit apologetic when that happens and make sure they realize it's not the norm. If you're constantly managing things like that. You're going to have to relook at your processes because it's really not fair on them. And I'd say, you know, work with them like you would a member of your team, afford them the same respect. So often agency relationships can sour because people just treat an agency like a sort of a paid servant to do their bidding. And that's not a good relationship. And I'd kind of go one step further than that. And I've always found this really, really great way to work with agencies, which is to, you know, work really hard on becoming their favorite brand or customer. You know, it actually doesn't take much, but if you're dealing with a very busy agency, it will always get you the lion's share of the good stuff from them. You know, don't, don't forget to thank them for good work. A simple thank you, not talking about showering them with gifts. Although in a lot of cases that might not be such a bad idea, but just a simple thank you. Or when a job's well done, you know, acknowledge it and big up the particular team members with the agency head of department or CEO, depending on the side of it. That little level of personal attention can go a long way in strengthening those relationships. You really want those people to want to work hard for you and to deliver the best. And actually if you build on a really great relationship with them, I've never found that fails to work.
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We had a situation. We don't work as an agency but as a kind of learning agency. So we'll help organizations upskill their teams and we kind of work in partnership and one organization we work with in particular has really embedded that in. So we get to go to a lot of their internal meetings, see what's going on and going, changing and we've gone out of our way. We've kind of over serviced it from the point of view of just trying to do additional kind of work on it. And they work as a business development team for us now. They go around this huge organization and oh yeah, we know this great agency, you could work with them. They're actually getting us loads of work. So it's once it works and it is that kind of great relationship. It tends to work both ways. I think it's a really important point.
- [23:03]
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So I hope these top tips and guidance notes are helpful. Love your agencies, you know, manage them effectively. If they're not right for you, be honest with them, let them know, see whether they can make a difference and, or just plain move on. But either way, you know, you should value those guys. They're experts in their field and they can give you so much, so much more if you just get out of the way sometimes and let them.
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Also, I'd say that as there is an art to being a great agency, there is an art to being a great client as well. So agencies do a better job, clients be better clients, and we'll leave you with those thoughts. So speak to you again soon on the Digital Marketing Podcast.
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A
Thanks for listening to another episode of the Digital Marketing Podcast brought to you by Target Internet. If you'd like to get more information on the show, get hold of back issues of this podcast, or get details on any of the links we mentioned, please visit our website at www.targetinternet.com. if you've enjoyed the show, we would love to read your feedback. Please rate us in itunes or even better, write us a review. Or if you have any questions, please get in touch. We'd love to.