Keeping the magic alive in your agency/client relationship

You know what it's like when you first get together with someone - you see a bright future, you make an effort to impress, you do things to show how much you care. It's the same with agency/client relationships.

Do you still feel loved by your agency? For all our clients who are reading this, we hope the answer is yes. The fact many of you have been with us for several years, much longer than the industry average, might be a good indication.

Vertical has been in business for 20 years and in that time we've had a remarkably high retention level. As you might expect, keeping the magic alive over time takes a mix of science, chemistry and honest endeavour. Like any good partner, you need your agency to be both practical and thoughtful. In this article we explore what makes an agency a good long term prospect and show where things can go awry.

Chemistry

No relationship will go the distance if the chemistry isn't right. Paul Barlow, Managing Director said, “We always encourage new customers to come here and meet us. It's important. Naturally we can deliver ads, digital mailers or PR, but will you enjoy working with us? Are we your type of people? Are you sure we'll be as passionate about your business as you are? You can only answer those questions when you meet someone and find out if you click.”

When we click with a client, we take great care to learn all we can about them. The better our understanding of our clients, the better we can deliver against their objectives. After all, if someone's genuinely interested in you, you expect them to ask a lot of questions, and our 'immersion session' audit does just that. In contrast, if you appointed an agency and they didn't spend time getting to know you, you'd be worried right?

Thinking long term right from the start

All too often agencies start a relationship with a client by thinking "Well, it cost us £20k to win the account, how quickly can we recoup that?" Clients know when this is happening, although it can be hard to prove, and it doesn't inspire confidence. How can you trust the marcomms strategy an agency recommends if it seems their real preoccupation is with their own bottom line, not yours?

Paul Barlow continued, “Right from the word go we look to create a long term relationship with each client. We never start with the mindset that we might only have this piece of business for a couple of years so how much can we make from it in that time. We focus on delivering the best possible results for our clients. If you do a great job, people stick with you.'

Freedom

Being a full service agency has always stood Vertical in good stead with clients. We don't have to push clients down any particular media route in order to generate income, and they have access to all elements of the marketing mix through Vertical. This gives us the freedom to create the most effective plan to achieve their objectives. And once that plan is agreed, we roll up our sleeves and ensure we deliver.

Pushing the boundaries

As our existing clients know, we like to constantly push creative boundaries. For example, when we're designing an ad, our creative team may come up with four or five concepts. Three might be what you expect to see, but we'll always throw in a concept or two that are designed to take you out of your comfort zone and provoke discussion. After all, you don't pay us to think inside the box. And we'd never sell in something that we didn't believe in.

Going international

How internationally focused is your agency? Increasingly, companies are doing more business aboard. Europe is closer than it's ever been, and the global market is much easier to reach now. At Vertical we've had 13 years of international experience, running PR and marcomms campaigns in Europe and the USA. So, as clients expand their operation beyond these shores, we're able to help them move into new territories with great success.

Paul Barlow: “We believe it's our job to keep up to date with emerging trends. Many clients in commercial, technical and industrial sectors don't have big marketing budgets. Therefore, they need an agency that acts as a bolt-on marketing department. At Vertical we consider this as part of our role.”

The next big thing

When was the last time your agency brought a new marketing technique or new technology to your attention? Vertical has always worked hard to stay at the forefront of marketing tactics and tools over the years, repeatedly bringing new ideas to the table to show our clients what's out there.

Paul Barlow: 'We were knocking on customers' doors in 1996 to design websites for them. As far back as 1998, we gave customers a seminar on digital marketing and its future, because we could see it had huge potential.'

Over the last ten years, we have seen digital convergence create lots of new marketing opportunities. Today, clients have a huge choice of both the traditional hard copy media, plus digital media in all its guises, and they rely on us to make good recommendations.

Honesty and trust

Perhaps these are the most important things for a lasting relationship. Whether we're offering sound strategic advice, providing transparency on how your budget is being spent or challenging a brief in order to make it better aligned to your needs, you can always expect honesty from us.

Paul Barlow: 'When we put together a programme of activity, we always think - if this was our money, would we spend it in this way? And if we don't believe something is worth the investment, we’ll always speak up.' As we said at the beginning, trust builds over time. 'Very often clients start working with us on a tactical project. Then through the process they get to trust our ability and want to do more with us. Once we've won their confidence, they're happy for us to contribute at the strategic planning stage. Relationships built over time like this are always stronger for it.'

A word from the client

We asked Harry Quinn from Alpha Wire to give us his three main reasons for still using Vertical after 12 years.

Number 1 - The people. I can trust the team and have built a relationship that means Vertical has become our 'Virtual marketing department'.

Number 2 -The quality of work. Design concepts are always impressive and thought-provoking and PR is always compelling because of their understanding of our business and the various drivers that influence our market.

Number 3 - Speed of Service. The ability to deliver to deadlines and respond at a moment’s notice is a great asset to Alpha Wire. We often have to respond to requests with very short lead times and my agency is always able to support these.

A future together

Paul Barlow: 'In business, I don't think you lose a client if you make a cock up. Everyone's human and makes mistakes. I think you lose a client when they perceive that you no longer care about them and their business. At Vertical, we're still as passionate about our clients after 12 years as we are after 12 months.'

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