How To Make The Most Out Of Your Agency Relationship

We all want to deliver great work and achieve our initial set-out goals. Partnering with like-minded suppliers and agencies is a large part of it. In our experience, a great client and agency relationship is a collaboration between minds on the same wavelength.

This collaborative partnership helps us avoid the pitfalls of mismatched goals, lack of team utilisation and poor use of our essential marketing budgets.

So, how do we create a collaborative partnership?

It’s a bit more than just relationship management. In our experience, we’ve found there are four basic qualities that everyone must bring to the table to lay the foundation for something great.

It’s one of those facets of business that can seem more art than science. But in reality, it comes down to the very same things that it takes to have any meaningful relationship. In this article, we’ll delve into the skills, attitudes and mindsets everyone should be bringing to the table.

1. Be transparent

Trust is built and maintained through an open and transparent relationship. To successfully collaborate, it’s important that everyone involved understands the finer details of what’s going, from the overarching goals to the minute execution elements.

This will empower team members with the information to critically think through problems, be more engaged with their work and understand the role they play in the larger scheme of things.

Put your feet into the shoes of a graphic designer, can you imagine how much better it is knowing that the JPEG you’re creating is a part of a huge integrated marketing campaign compared to your studio manager asking you “Hey, can you make me this JPEG for client X”?

2. Be genuine

Insincerity can be spotted a mile away, you wouldn’t want to work with someone that doesn’t care about the company or project, you’ll feel like you’re putting in all of the effort while the other person is only putting in 50%. This draws close parallels to how we do marketing for brands and companies – it’s pretty unlikely you’d buy a product from a company that doesn’t really care about you.

By being genuine you’re openly expressing that everything you do is in the best interest of the brand or project you’re working on. Each time you work with your agency, they can tell when you actually care about your project, seriously.

With that extra inspiration, they’ll go the extra mile to make it outstanding. This also helps to bring the agency into the fold to have complete trust in your decisions and aligns them to work in the best interest of your brand, projects, and goals.

potential of the partnership.

3. Smarts

This may be an obvious point but worth noting. Clients come to digital agencies for intelligent thinking and state-of-the-art skills. A good agency should live to deliver that for clients, but it’s not a one-way street. A good client and agency relationship should be a meeting of great minds. If both sides aren’t bringing their best, that’s when things can go off track.

In other words, what you put into it is what you get out of it. Of course, a good agency has got your back at every turn. But a sustained period of not bringing your best will limit the potential of the partnership.

4.Be a collaborative team

This is the most important pillar of building a great relationship. Keep your focus on forming a cohesive team that works well together. By building a cohesive and collaborative team, you’re creating a space where people are able to make the best use of their special skills and bring as much value as possible to projects.

We’re not all talk either. Check out how we walk the walk and flew 20,000 miles for our clients biggest event of the year. Or when we flew to present at a conference to help some of MYOB’s leading Australian and NZ business partners learn how marketing and more specifically local area marketing could help them grow their businesses.

If you’re after a standout marketing agency who prides themselves on these qualities and constantly strives to deliver great work, check out our comprehensive list of capabilities where we can really help awesome businesses and brands shine at the crucial points they need to.