1. Helping you make sure that your company’s brands are differentiated. Differentiation means not only what you stand for but also what you don’t stand for. It means being unattractive to some people. Maybe even a lot of people. If you’re going after everyone, you don’t have a strategy that will take you anywhere but down.
2. Helping you make sure that brand positioning lives in everything you do, not just the communications. For example, if you’re positioned as a premium brand, your pricing should reflect that. Your company’s vehicles and offices should also look the part.
3. Being a soundboard for anything you are planning, no matter the area of the business— including pricing, product development, distribution and promotions.
4. Advising on new opportunities to engage with customers, online and off.
5. Being a shoulder to cry on when you want to vent about the world, your unethical competition, a challenging employee or a sales target that keeps looking more and more unattainable.
6. Being a source of information on your categories and an extra eye on marketplace activity including discounting, merchandising, new products, BOGO’s, self-liquidating offers… Your agency should be an extension of your marketing department; not a supplier like the guy providing paper clips, pens and other stationery items.
7. You might want to invite your agency people to be a part of your interview team, depending on the position that you are recruiting and depending on the depth and breadth of your internal team.
8. Tracking and reporting performance of marketing efforts and impact on ROI, especially online.
9. Being at the table for any market research you are undertaking, including the brief to the research house.
10. They should be using your brands, not just in their office but in their homes.
11. They should be telling you what they really think and not what they think you want to hear.
Is your agency accomplishing all of this for you?
