These days, there are more ways to reach your customers than ever before – but engaging them effectively and creating genuine connections has become increasingly difficult. Brands are now competing on multiple channels to get their slice of the cake, which means implementing a robust communications strategy is key to building brand awareness, driving sales, and setting yourself apart from the competition.
Given the sheer number of outreach channels available, it’s normal to want to outsource some of your communications and leave it to the specialists. But this poses another problem: Who do you hire, and for what function?
Public relations, content marketing, digital marketing, social media marketing… As if all these terms weren’t confusing enough, for a brand that needs to outsource all these functions to different partners, it can be tough to draw the line between one job and another. And beyond that, once you have all your agency partners on board, how do you make sure they work together effectively to launch one cohesive campaign?
If these questions sound like ones you’ve been asking lately, here are some key points to consider when engaging multiple agencies to effectively drive your communications goals:
Analyse, plan and discuss
- Before signing on any new partners, review your campaign plans and ask yourself these questions
- Who is my audience?
- Where do they hang out and consume information?
- What format might work best?
- What are we trying to achieve?
- How much money can we spend?
- How do we measure success?
While these are questions your future agency can help you answer, it’s good to give them some thought and prepare a great brief before you head out and look for your new partners. The clearer the brief, the more accurately the agencies will be able to develop proposals and costs –and the quicker you can get your project off the ground.
Be transparent about your needs
Once you’ve engaged a potential partner, be transparent about your needs and your goals.
Do you need to drive product sales? Do you need to build brand awareness, or perhaps credibility? Do you need to increase your instagram followers by 200% in the next 6 months?The clearer you are about your needs, the better the agency can advise you on the services they offer. This, in turn, sets the stage for better business results.
A lot of agencies offer the same services, such as content generation, digital marketing, public relations and branding, but you may have a specific agency in mind for a certain service and another for a different one – hence why you likely would be choosing to work with multiple agencies rather than one.
But because of this, it’s advisable to be careful and clear about the service you are engaging them for and the deliverables expected when selecting your partners so that you avoid any confusion with other agencies you might be engaging.
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Foster organisation, collaboration and teamwork among the agencies
Once you’ve selected your partners, you then need them to work with you and together. This is sometimes the tricky part — because a lot of communications agencies offer a similar selection of services, it is not uncommon to sign ‘competing’ agencies. However this is normal, and everyone involved should act as professionals.
But in the event that there is animosity or a tension in the air, especially in the early stages of working together, the fastest way to overcome this and get everyone working together is to make the campaign’s end goals very clear to everyone involved. To foster collaboration, facilitate multi-agency brainstorms where everyone has a say, is involved, and can bounce ideas off of each other.
Share successes and have fun!
It’s not always easy managing multiple agencies for a single project and campaign. However, the more seamlessly the agencies can work together, the easier your work becomes.
While it can be a messy ride sometimes, it’s important to celebrate success together and enjoy the journey.
Not sure what services you need and which agencies to engage to achieve your goals? Let us help you figure it out. Just drop us a note at [email protected]