It might seem like stating the obvious, but as a creative agency, it is in our best interests to keep our clients happy.  We want to do the best for our clients, deliver them work that gets them jumping for joy.  Why wouldn’t we?  I mean, to stop caring about our clients would make no sense at all.  So, here at Beechwood we work hard at building relationships with our clients, but like any brilliant relationships, they rarely just happen, they rely on the commitment of both parties.

Here are our top 5 tips for achieving a long, harmonious and fruitful client-agency relationship.

1) BE WILLING TO SHARE

Don’t think of your agency as an external party, treat them as an extension of your own marketing team.  By sharing important business information with your agency and maintaining regular and open communications, your agency will have all the facts it needs to make informed decisions in planning your marketing communications.

In the most successful client-agency relationships, there is trust and complete understanding of what is expected of each other and a mutual determination to achieve the same goals.

2) BE BRIEF

We know that writing a brief can sometimes be a pain and we understand that you are busy, but we promise you that the pain will be worth it.  Writing a thorough brief can save time and money in the long run.  The clearer the brief is, the less opportunity the agency has to misinterpret the campaign objectives and waste time developing solutions that are off the mark.

3) BE OPEN TO NEW IDEAS

As a business it’s very easy to look at what marketing activities your competitors are doing and do something similar.  A good agency will work with your business to really measure what activities you are already doing work well and identify those which aren’t working so well.  Listen to your agency and let them suggest new ideas that could work for your business.  Just because your competitors aren’t doing them, doesn’t mean they won’t work.  Chances are, being different will put you ahead of the competition, not on the same level as them and before long they’ll be following your lead.

On a similar note, it can take hours of thought and development to create something new for a client…only for it to be glanced at and dismissed in a second.  Next time your agency presents you with something you don’t instantly love…we ask you to stop, look and consider.  Try and imagine how it could work and keep an open mind.  We often put our creative ideas to the overnight test… why not give it a try.  If you aren’t sure about an idea, leave it and return to it the next day and look at it fresh.  If it still bothers you, then give your agency a detailed explanation of why it isn’t right, so they can learn from the feedback and improve.

4) BE A CHAMPION

Be prepared to champion your work.  After weeks of planning and development, it is time to share the campaign detail with a wider audience.  Of course, someone is going to want to change something.  Be ready to consider suggestions and opinions, some of them will be valid, but also be ready to answer the critics.  Believe in your work and stand by it.  It is impossible to satisfy everyone and in trying to so, all too often, what started out as a powerful marketing campaign, get’s watered down, losing its integrity and bite.

5) BE KIND

If great ideas were easy to come up with, everybody would come up with great ideas. Here at Beechwood we put a lot of time and effort into coming up with great ideas, sometimes we come up with an idea that surpasses all expectations, and occasionally (though, not often we hope) a bad idea might even be generated.

If you have to task of saying “no” to your agency, please do it kindly.  We can learn from constructive criticism, but unexplained rejection can be demoralising.   No one likes to see their hard work sent to the bin.

And of course, we also like to be thanked every now and then.  Knowing we are appreciated, not only boosts our morale and encourages our creativity, but it also generates the kind of loyalty from us that will ensure as an agency, we will always go that extra mile to ensure we don’t let you down.