Since I started my own agency I’ve had the opportunity to meet countless talented business owners who know their brands inside out. Whether its in F&B, tech or an area as niche as semiconductors, you would expect that the experts in these respective fields would choose to work with an agency that knows their industry inside out correct? Not quite.
While it does stand to reason that a marketing expert hailing from the same industry as the client or one who has serviced the majority of clients from a similar industry it would be a right fit, understanding does not always translate to selling a product or service.
This is where I find that many clients can to lose the plot when selecting agencies for their brand. They usually tend to focus on agencies that are ‘industry’ experts in fields like F&B or Tech by default while losing sight of the big picture on the objective of their campaign and who exactly they need to sell their product or service to.
The whole purpose of selecting an agency is not about whether they are experts in your industry, but if they are experts in marketing products/services similar to yours. Take for instance a car brand like Volkswagen, would they hire an engineer to market and sell their cars? Yes and no. They would be consulted of course on which USPs to highlight, but the marketing team needs to come up with a strategy that would appeal to consumers in terms of designing the brochures or types of consumer events. So, in other words an agency needs to be somewhere in the middle - to have some knowledge of your industry, but first and foremost how to formulate a marketing strategy that reaches the right target audience.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating to hire a tech agency to publicise your new restaurant menu (unless it’s an AI restaurant 😉), but maybe what clients need to do before they make a decision is take note on these few things:
1. Don’t just look at the list of clients are under the agency’s portfolio. Find out how they have serviced them
Depending on what your objective is for your product/service finding out how an agency executes a campaign will give you an idea of how creative they are. At first glance big known brands in a portfolio may seem impressive until you find out how they were serviced. For example did they just draft a press release and send it out via a newswire or was there a creative campaign done over a few months? If you are looking for an agency to just write press releases and send them to a bunch of media to ‘get the word out there’ then there’s no point in paying for an expensive one. Ask for case studies that show how certain issues were resolved and the strategy used to achieve their PR goals instead of just looking for brand names.
2. Don’t get fooled by ‘celebrity PR’
Everyone falls for a pretty face and thinks it ‘can launch a thousand ships’ but once those ships are launched what’s the next step? There are some agencies that ride on a representative that’s always featured in the media, has a million followers on Instagram or was an ex recording artist that’s been on the Billboard countdown. But really if that is all it takes, why doesn’t Beyoncé have her own PR agency or be her own publicist? What you need to know is that this ‘superstar’ is probably not going to be servicing your account or might not even be seen at meetings. Now if he/she manages to get a few big features in the press for you because of contacts, that’s swell if you have short term goals. But ultimately the success of your PR campaign depends on a team running it over a period of time and the experience they bring to your account.
3. Realise that you will never find a PR expert that understands your industry 100%
Unless you clone yourself and get him/her to work in an agency for 5 to 8 years, you will never find anyone else with the same knowledge of your industry in the PR field as you. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to do PR for Swiss watch brands that have mechanical complications as complex as an Einstein equation but I’m no rocket scientist. The role of the PR expert is to extract the important bits from all the industry jargon and tell stories that appeal to consumers and the press to push your brand forward.
4. Know your objectives
Many clients seem to know what they like, but have no idea what they want. Having this approach with any agency is the beginning of a tumultuous relationship with no happy ending. Before you meet an agency its good to have a rough brief on what you want to achieve and who you would like to reach out to. The role of the agency is not to tell youwhat to do but to advise you. You don’t go to a banking consultant with 10 million dollars and ask him/her if you should invest it in their bank do you? Having a brief with clear objectives in mind will also help you to decipher on the type of agency you might be looking for. This exercise also helps in managing your budget and not paying for services you don’t actually need.
The bottomline is to remember that you need an agency that is good in what THEY do and not necessarily what YOU do. Ultimately that’s the whole point in hiring experts which is to do necessarily something outside of your skillset. Otherwise what are you paying them for?
