Marketeers’ success or failure depends a lot on right selection of agencies. But how to choose one out of many?
A big question or confusion in front of Marketers ? 🤔
Which agency/partner to finalize out of many options, for a particular work like performance, content, CRM tool, attribution etc. Will the chosen agency work well & deliver results. A lot of stakes are dependent on this decision. If decision is right – You shine, but if wrong, then it can be really devastating
I follow a 4 step process. This process is not a standard process but over the years of experience I have developed this & it works quite well.
Step 2 :- Hunting (searching for leads of right partner/agency)
Step 3 :- Evaluation (Judging the agencies/partners got from step 2 one by one)
Step 4:- Closure (Paper work, stakeholder management & final go ahead)
Let’s see all these steps in detail one by one
Always categorize the work/task/project which you want to outsource into either of 2 categories
âž¡Big work which involves more stakeholders, more cross team dependency, deeper & long term impact, good complexity like deciding a CRM tool or an attribution platform etc.
âž¡Small work which doesn’t involve many stakeholders, less (or no) dependency, short impact, lesser complexity like making a YT film, choosing affiliates etc.
This step is quite important as this will be a key in decision making for other steps
Step 2 :- Hunting (searching for leads of right partner/agency)
Let’s divide this step into 2. First is evaluation on ‘MUST HAVE’ parameters & another is “GOOD TO HAVE’ parameters. Further ‘MUST HAVE’ parameters can be divided into ‘HARD’ parameters and another is ‘SOFT’ parameters.
1.1 ) MUST HAVE : HARD parameters :-
I use a self made framework which is “SEE PPT” (without any preference order)
âž¡Support :– Quality of support by an agency/partner. Poor support can lead lots of trouble & can be detrimental on ROI. Do ask for what are SLAs, size & construct of customer success team, TAT, response time and quality etc to solve the issues. Do see that one account manager is managing how many accounts. One person should not be overloaded.
âž¡Experience :- Check for whether agency has enough deep domain experience for the work. Do they understand the minute nuances? What’s their depth of knowledge, whether they will be able to handle complex & unwanted situations. Do they sound more salesy or genuine. This will build trust & confidence in marketeer’s mind which is very important.
âž¡Expertise :- Look for expertise in the industry/sector. They should not be “Unchi dukan pheeke pakwaan”. Remember fancy ppts and colourful excel are not the best way to judge. Look for authentic case studies & success stories.
âž¡Profile :- Look for profile of founders, their team in detail, ethos & culture of agency etc. This will define their DNA. Do direct and deep reference checks ( V imp).
âž¡Pricing :- This is very important & a deal maker or breaker step. Always ask for pricing model & understand that in detail keeping a long term view in mind. Many a times pricing is kept lucrative initially but can be whopping high in few years. Don’t fall for this prey & do your calculations well. Ask for itemized breakup & benchmark them with other players. If possible, check with your peers. Check for start date of billing, ask for free pilots, check for any markup year on year etc.
âž¡Turnaround time :- Timing is everything in Marketing. Marketeers work on tight schedules & hence might feel pressure to make things live. While judging an agency/partner look for the time in which the entire campaign/project can be made live.
1.2 ) MUST HAVE : SOFT parameters :-
Soft parameters are genuine followups, hunger/ passion to work, involvement of leadership team & personal connect. Decision making is both science & art. One has to judge on factual parameters and also on behaviour parameters & hence comes the importance of ‘soft parameters’.
Passion & hunger to work on a project is quite important. Sometimes big & famous agencies don’t show that hunger & passion to work while they are good on all the above ‘hard parameters’ while smaller startup agencies show a lot of hunger & passion to take a project. One can surely give a chance to these talents.
Never do deal with junior guys in agencies/partners & always see whether the top/senior leadership is involved in the project/task. This proves the ‘seriousness’ of the agency & builds more trust.
Lastly personal equation plays a very important role. This makes the work easy & smooth
NOTE:- Now on practical grounds, these all parameters doesn’t hold equal importance e.g. if you are hiring an affiliate partner you will look more on pricing and turnaround time but less on support. But if you are looking for an attribution platform, you will pay extremely high attention on support, experience, expertise and less on other parameters.
Ideally one should make an evaluation model with all parameters, give weightage to each parameter & then calculate a score to choose. I have made an automated template which you can download from here (Plz don’t copy or circulate this on open forums)
2.1 ) GOOD TO HAVE parameters :-
It’s always good judge more parameters which are less important but still have relevance like employee strength, location of agency, funds raised etc.
Step 4 :- Closure (Paper work, stakeholder management & final go ahead)
Once you have boiled down to one agency/partner
âž¡Make a robust paper work (always. Be vigilant). Proper and detailed SOW, all tracking parameters, reports formats, payment terms should be properly attached to legal agreement. No ‘bhai chara’ here unless and until it’s a small work. Remember only email are official way of communication & not others like whatsapp etc.
âž¡Involve cross functional team like finance, legal, product etc to avoid any later excuses. All stakeholders should be aligned for a big work. This will reduce your later surprises.
That’s it. You are done now! 🙂
Do let me know your thoughts and also what’s your way and style of finalizing a partner/ agency. Do let us know.
