The Future of Agency Relationships. Is It Time To Rethink Your Agency's Role?

In the latest issue of Marketing News, Josh Bernoff (VP, Forrester Research) asks the question - Is Your Agency Relationship Past Its Expiration Date? He says it's time for marketers to rethink your agency's role, and then rethink your own.

Based on a new Forrester report titled "The Future of Agency Relationships", his premise is that in a stable media era, agencies can specialize. As a result, many marketers have a silo-driven approach to their agency relationships -- an advertising or creative agency, an interactive agency, a direct marketing agency, a PR agency, etc. While this approach creates additional effort for brand continuity oversight and often some internal squabbling, it is the price you pay for getting the best experts in each discipline.

According to Forrester Research, that approach works fine for a world where channels are relatively stable, campaigns have a beginning and an end, and customers respond to messages pushed at them. But that stability no longer exists. The number of channels continues to explode - today its Twitter and phone apps, but what will you need tomorrow? As word of mouth becomes more important and push marketing less effective, marketers will need a consistent, long-term relationship with an agency model that is more adaptive and understands the need to think more broadly than the current specialization model provides.

The new Forrester study concludes that with the rise of social media and digital proliferation, we are entering an Adaptive Marketing era. In this era, mass media is no longer the foundation of marketing communication, and will force a change in the expectations of what marketing agencies can and should deliver. Marketers will need agency partners that are more agile, can build long-term relationships with active customers and communities, and can use data to drive real-time decisions. The key needs marketers will require from their agencies are ideas, interaction and intelligence.

Agencies must think about ideas that not only build the brand, but will work across every appropriate platform. Instead of creating an idea and leaving it to the silos to plan and implement, creativity has to be collaborative so that all possible communications get considered at once. And as customers change, marketers and their agency must change along with them.

Agencies must develop a framework for a new level of interaction with customers. Agencies have always been good at outbound messages, but have not played a similar role with inbound interactions. Smart agencies will need to adapt their approach in order to listen to online discussions, identify and connect marketers with their online social community, and build brand experiences that allow for interaction.

Finally, agencies must find ways to monitor and assimilate customer intelligence from multiple channels and be flexible enough to respond quickly to this information. Marketers and their agencies will need a more comprehensive view of quantitative and qualitative information and insights in order to react in real time and across channels to maximize efficiency. The resultant need for even more data than marketers currently have will require a shared role in evaluating and recommending strategies and tactics.

The Forrester report predicts that these changes will have consequences for both parties. Specialty agencies will need to rethink the depth and breadth of their service offering if they expect to meet this new level of need based on ideas, interaction and intelligence. As interactive channels multiply and interactivity and the intelligence it generates become more available, metrics like gross rating points and clicks may go away in favor of more esoteric measurements like energized customers and share of influence.

At the same time, marketers will need to reconsider their own role and a new level of marketing collaboration with their agencies and this will surely require a re-evaluation of the current compensation model. Forrester predicts that successful marketers will need to focus more on long term relationships and on speedy, adaptive actions that take advantage of the fluid nature of consumer attitudes and responses. And if agencies continue to only deliver silo-based expertise rather than ideas, interaction and intelligence, they will soon be replaced by a new agency form that meets this need.

What do you think? Are you satisfied with your current agency service offering, or does this new model sound more appealing to you?

A Facebook Primer for Retailers

Are you a retailer who has finally acknowledged that social media is not just a fad but a legitimate marketing tool? You might already have a Facebook page, but do you really understand how to use it to build your brand and your customer base? Are you confident that you can tap into 400+ million users who spend an average of 55 minutes every day checking out the activities of their friends and browsing for info and interaction with companies they trust and appreciate?

Here are seven practical tips you can you use to help you along the way:

1. Before you start anything, write down the objectives of your social media program and specifically how you plan to use Facebook to build your brand identity and customer preference. This sounds simple and logical, and has been repeated by almost every social media proponent. Yet clients still come to me and ask “can you help me set up or improve my Facebook page?” without a clear objective in mind.

Too many retailers and small businesses have jumped into FB on the assumption that it was a cheap way to advertise, only to be frustrated and confused about whether their efforts are bearing any fruit, and disgruntled that it takes up so much of their time. The truth is that it’s not free, or even cheap. Time is money in any business. And it will take someone’s time to effectively use FB or any social networking effort. So you might as well think it through first; determine what you can and can’t accomplish, who in your organization has the time and talent to devote to the effort, and how you plan to monitor and measure the program. Just like you would do for any other element of your marketing program.

2. “Companies they trust and appreciate” is an essential concept that must always be uppermost in your mind. In everything you do on Facebook, you should be transparent, honest, listen before you engage, and add value to the community. FB is not a push medium. It is an opportunity to have a two-way conversation with your customers. If you don’t respect your customers by adding some value to their spending time with you, they won’t respect you. And many will tell thousands of their closest friends not to respect you either. An addendum to this point is that retail brands with social media campaigns must be increasingly sensitive to the privacy of their customers. This is especially important in light of growing public scrutiny of some missteps by FB corporately on how they are using the information many users innocently added to their profile.

3. Your Facebook page is not just another shopping website for your company, but it can work like one if done right. Users come to a FB page with a different mindset and objective. Most people visit a retail website to gain information or to shop. FB users come to interact – with friends and family or with companies they trust and appreciate (see above). It’s okay to offer a shopping option on your FB page, but if that is the sole thrust of your effort, you will alienate many potential “fans” and not use FB to its true potential.

1-800-FLOWERS.COM offers a good example of walking the line between shopping and interaction. Their Facebook page allows fans to share their favorite flowers and send virtual bouquets to friends, but also to browse flower arrangements and send actual flowers to their friends without ever leaving Facebook.

But that’s not all they do on their site. Wall posts introduce special promotions, offer information about how to use specific flowers and engage their fans with conversation starters to encourage response, e.g. what do you think is better for cheering up a sick or injured friend – flowers, gift baskets, balloons, or something else?” They also invite fans to post pictures of flower arrangements they have received and to comment on the occasion.

Shopping and selling is not verboten on FB, but it must be done in a way that fans see as a natural course of action based on interactions with the company.

4. You can engage and reward your customers and build your “likeability” through polls, contests and other giveaways. Several companies have used a “Cutest Baby” contest to not only solicit entries, but also to encourage the sender and others to solicit votes to determine a winner. In the process, they have gained awareness and fans. If you give your fans an incentive to associate themselves in a positive way with your brand, you can grow that trust and appreciation discussed earlier in this post.

Disney recently offered a nice great example of providing a traffic-building incentive with their “Give a Day. Get a Disney Day” promotion. Through Facebook and other media, Disney encouraged their fans to celebrate the spirit of giving by volunteering for one day with any local non-profit. The reward was to win a free day at any Disney park. Their plan was to give away 1 million free passes throughout 2010. Instead, they reached the 1 million mark in only 10 weeks.

5. Cause marketing is an integral part of the Facebook culture, so a great strategy is to partner with causes your customers care about. Don’t just think about driving traffic to your site or encouraging your fans to come into your stores to redeem their coupons. The Facebook culture is steeped in sharing causes with friends, and users have a great appreciation for companies that support worthy non-profit causes. You can take advantage of that pre-existing mindset by sponsoring a cause your fans will appreciate and by creating a way for them to interact with your brand in the process.

Target found a creative way to use cause marketing this past Valentine’s Day by encouraging fans to send their love to one of five listed charities via a Super Lover Sender e-card. Target responded by donating $1 million to those non-profit groups based on their percentage of response. St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital was the primary beneficiary with almost 50% of the donations, but Target is reported to have gained almost 170,000 new fans.


6. Take your conversation and interaction offline by promoting events but look for ways to draw them back to your page. Using Facebook to promote in-store or other offline events is a natural, but one key to success is to find a way to sustain the event in order to promote fan interaction and discourse.

In 2009, Ben & Jerry’s introduced a new packaging innovation they call Flipped Out. They used their Facebook page to promote a city-by-city national tour that was successful in gaining trial, but also kept their fans talking and sharing tips for several months.

7. One final tip is to make creative use of the tabs to direct your visitors and fans to specific pages you want them to visit. The majority of successful Facebook pages continue to use the Wall and Info tabs as presented in the basic FB format, but then customize and rename other tabs to take advantage of ways to build interaction with the people who visit their page. A common tab for for many businesses is Photos. Companies encourage fans to submit their own photos to build a relationship with them, but other tabs can be customized, ranging from specific Shopping pages to New Products.

A good strategy for customizing tabs is to set up Facebook pages to complement your website interaction approach. The important thing to remember is that your Facebook page is a two-way conversation, not a one-way push. So make tab changes that promote user interaction with your customers.


As it is with any element of your marketing program, creativity rules. And the newness of the Facebook experience offers many opportunities to try new things. I’ve given you some examples of how other retailers and companies are incorporating FB into their marketing program. But let me repeat something I said at the beginning of this post. In everything you do on Facebook, you should be transparent, honest, listen before you engage, and add value to the community.

The most important element is to add some value to the time they spend with you on your FB page. If you respect your customers and make it beneficial in some way to spend time with you, they will respect you. And that has always been the first step in driving a customer to any store.

- Posted by Don Morgan www.raindanceconsulting.com

Making Sense of Mobile Marketing

Mobile marketing is being hailed by many as the next big thing in marketing. A recent Deloitte and Touche survey predicts over 2 billion cellphones will be in use by the end of this year, so there is no question about its potential.

And there is certainly a lot of discussion out there. A Google search of the term "mobile marketing" identifies almost 90 million references. But at this early stage, many marketers are unclear about what mobile marketing really means, or they have very different working definitions.

Knotice, a provider of software and services focused on the ROI of direct digital marketing, recently released an informative white paper on the subject to help marketers understand this rapidly developing marketing opportunity. Making Sense of Mobile Marketing offers a good overview for anyone beginning to explore mobile marketing or looking for important information to make current mobile efforts more impactful and more measurable to the bottom line.

The white paper is organized around three key areas of discussion - defining the mobile landscape, understanding the mobile audience, and the important task of defining a mobile strategy. This blog post offers a brief recap of this white paper, but you can download the complete paper by clicking on this link http://www.knotice.com/.

Defining the mobile landscape starts with understanding the technologies that are available to a mobile user.
The author breaks down the various subdivisions of the mobile channel - SMS/MMS, mobile web, apps, mobile ads, other mobile downloads, and emerging and location-based technologies. His overview does a good job of explaining each technology with the goal, as he explains, "to understand the tactical opportunities in order to create an outreach strategy based on objectives and strategies - not based on the technologies themselves".

Understanding the mobile audience revolves around current usage and future potential.
Gaining a better sense of how and where to interact with customers and prospects through mobile technologies is just as important as understanding the differences between the technologies. It's no secret that SMS (text messaging) is the most common tactic with the broadest reach potential across all demographic age groups. But if younger, wealthier people are the desired audience, then mobile apps may offer a better way to build a deeper connection with this target.

Additionally, it is wise to recognize that even though iPhone apps get the most buzz, Blackberry users far outnumber iPhone users. Marketers need to realize that they may need to support multiple apps to reach a broad enough audience to justify the investment. The recent introduction of the iPad, and the ensuing battle between Apple and Adobe, make this even more of a critical decision, so marketers would be wise to evaluate the development investment carefully.

The greater, and more intriguing, task lies with identifying and defining a mobile strategy.
Mobile marketing offers a high potential for intimate, timely and extremely valuable interactions with a consumer. But as with all media options, it is important to start with the basic questions - Who is the audience? What is the communications objective? How can mobile marketing contribute to an engaging and motivating interaction with my customers and prospects that is consistent with my brand?

In this section of the discussion, the author does a nice job of simplifying the thought process through a simple equation:

Content + Time + Place = Valuable Interaction

Content is the message. Time and place are the context. All three must work seamlessly to be effective. But the time and place part of the equation are potentially more powerful than the content that can be delivered within the constraints of limited characters on a text message or the small display of the mobile device. And that realization must be considered by a marketer before they leap into this brave new world.

Despite the rapid growth of the larger iPad screen, the majority of mobile usage is via smart phones. As the author posits "We loved the Sony Watchman portable TV's in the 1990's because they were new and sexy. But in retrospect, they were laughable. Today's mobile devices are not that different, we just think the experience is sexier than it may really be".

This statement is certainly not an attempt to demean the potential for mobile marketing. It is just something to keep in mind with crafting a mobile strategy. And it is offered to remind marketers of the importance of relevant and engaging content. If we waste the customer's time, he can easily engage other mobile content like Facebook and Twitter.

White papers like this are a great place to help us gain a broader understanding of the potential for these new technologies and tactics. But in the end, smart marketing is still about understanding your customers and finding the best way(s) to engage them. It is vitally important to evaluate the potential for mobile marketing for your own brand situation rather than jumping in because it's touted as the next big thing.

What do you think about mobile marketing? Any good examples out there of successes or failures that you want to share?