Increase your agency profit – 3 steps to becoming a marketing partner!

I recently attended a Second Wind creative agency financial management seminar in Chicago and one of the many valuable recommendations for small to medium size agencies to increase profitability was to become a marketing partner with clients.  Today’s clients are reaching out to consultants to help them improve their planning processes. As the competitive landscape is constantly changing it is important to market your agency as more than just a vendor.

1. The first step to becoming a marketing partner is to try and be involved in your client’s planning process.  What are their goals? Outline the strategies that they would need to take in order to meet or achieve each goal.  Once the strategies are established then you can help your client outline the tactics or actions to take.
2. The second step is to learn more about your client’s distribution channel.  Learning more about where their products are manufactured and what the distribution channels are will help you determine whether offering incentives somewhere along the pipeline could help to increase sales and increase profitability. Becoming a marketing partner could also involve assessing reward structures that are in place for the sales team within your client’s company.
3. The third step is to be organic.  Agencies have always done a great job at putting forward novel brand strategies and this is still very important today. To help your client build a stronger brand it is important that the core message is unified across different media outlets.  The customer will then have a consistent picture of what the brand is all about and it will be easily remembered.

Please share any other thoughts or ideas you may have about how to become a marketing partner with your clients.

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