We might be a touch biased, but working with the right marketing agency could be the move you need to take to fill in critical gaps and holistically optimize your overall strategy to ensure your growth goals are met.

However, there are things you should do to make sure you get the most value out of the relationship, especially if you’re heading into a new partnership this upcoming year.

What Is the Role of a Marketing Agency?

Before diving into how to optimize your partnership, let’s dive into what the right marketing agency brings to the table.

Marketing agencies have the power to deliver tailored marketing strategies and deliverables that will make sure that you stay top of mind for your target audience. They are your outsourced expert team for things like branding, content creation, paid advertising, analytics, and more.

But the real magic happens when this expertise aligns with your firm’s unique goals and needs.

How To Make Your Agency Partnership Work for You

Working with the right marketing agency is critical, but beyond that, there are some steps you can take to make sure you are getting the most out of the relationship.

Be Honest

Be clear about your firm’s goals, challenges, capacity, and even fears. Honesty will make it so your agency can cater their work to your personal needs, and helps to foster an environment where communication and creativity can thrive.

Let’s take a common concern we’ve heard from our own clients for example. In a time when most teams are overwhelmed with work, people often wonder how much of a time commitment working with an agency will be. The answer will vary from project to project, but a good agency is able to work within any boundaries you have, including time constraints.

Whether it’s budget constraints, time capacities, or ambitious growth targets, being upfront will strengthen your partnership like nothing else.

Be Clear About Communication and Vision 

Communication can make or break a partnership, especially when it comes to working with a marketing agency. 

From the outset, your account manager should establish the communication plans, like how check-ins will happen and what formats work best for updates, whether that’s weekly emails, bi-weekly calls, monthly reports, etc. Be sure to communicate with them about what works best for you so that you can show up, engage, and share updates with your team.

Set clear expectations regarding feedback loops and decision-making processes. If there is a reason there will be a delay in sharing feedback, be upfront about it so timelines can be adjusted. When everyone is on the same page, you create what our Marketing Engagements Manager, Cara Bobrowitz, calls a communication rhythm, or a smoother workflow that drives progress.

Focus on Trust

Building trust may take time, but it’s worth the effort. 

Trust means feeling confident that your agency understands your vision and will act in your best interest. This involves not only sharing information but also allowing them to be the experts that they are.

Trust your agency’s expertise while remaining involved in the strategic direction. Don’t forget that you should also feel empowered to ask tough questions! Asking more about a team’s experience, prompting “what if” scenarios, and being open and honest with your expectations will help your agency walk the walk so you can feel confident building that trust.

A partnership built on trust encourages innovation and calculated risks that will lead to exceptional outcomes.

Set Realistic Expectations and Timelines

In the fast-paced and constantly shifting world of staffing, it’s easy to get swept up in ambitious goals. 

While having high aspirations is commendable, it’s important to ground them in reality. Recognizing that impactful marketing efforts often take time can help ease frustration and lead to more meaningful results in the long run.

Collaborate with your agency to set achievable timelines and benchmarks for success. Work hand-in-hand to define metrics and lean on your agency partner to revisit and report on them often. Your agency should lead the charge on hitting targets and reporting on progress.

Just remember that marketing success isn’t always linear, it’s often dynamic and comes in ebbs and flows. The best agencies will adapt to whatever comes and will solve problems with creative solutions and quality communication in real-time.

Stay Involved and Engaged

While the right marketing agency will be capable of some incredible results, everything works better when you stay involved and engaged.

Some simple ways to stay involved include:

But let’s say that you’ve run into a roadblock and you can’t review something as quickly as you normally would…that’s okay! The next best thing is to make sure that you are communicating clearly and openly with your agency about those roadblocks. 

We all understand when priorities shift and letting your agency partner know what’s going on will make it so they can continue to deliver the solution that’s best for you.

Partnering with a marketing agency can completely transform staffing firms, but maximizing that relationship requires effort and intention.

This kind of partnership is not just about executing campaigns and creating deliverables. It’s about building a strategic alliance that elevates your brand and drives your business forward.