Tips for Selecting Experiential Marketing Agency
Choosing a specific experiential marketing agency needs all the hands on deck. Incorrect partner can be a real disaster, financially, creatively & psychologically.
Experiential marketing for long has remained one of the most effective ways to bring about brand products to audiences. Thus, selecting an experiential marketing agency for most brands can be a difficult & complex task.
Choosing a specific experiential marketing agency needs all the hands-on deck. Incorrect partner can be a real disaster, financially, creatively & psychologically.
When one review in regard to where the marketing money is going, spending on events stays almost at the top of the budget for most brands. The procedure does not require being convoluted & complex. The magic word here is a systematic process.
And yes, breaking up is not an easy task with your agency. Thus, finding the prudent match for a long-lasting relationship is crucial here.
Thus, those brands who are running through various checkpoints to choose an experiential marketing agency should the first factor in the listed points given below:
Experiential past record
Do you hold a working understanding or knowledge about your agency & its track history with clients? Ensure you have done all your due diligence concerning this.
To whom does your experiential marketing agency actually closely work? Does there include any kind of conflict of interest? Why are you looking to work with this specific agency?
What are the different clients that your selected agency actually works with on a regular basis? Do they maintain those relations well?
Ensure the great fit
Make sure there is a good cultural fit between the companies. Agencies that you decide to closely work with are generally involved with numerous departments in the company.
Thus, you would want to ensure that culturally there is a strong collaboration, which is taking place. If in case the culture is not well aligned, the 2 distinct companies that are closely working together may butt heads on certain issues.
Ensure you have chosen the correct partner for your business brand.
Meet the entire team
There stands nothing insidious as compared to being pitched by the sales team & then having them pull bait & switch.
Ensure to meet directly with the agency team that you are looking to work with.
Also, make sure whether they respond to your messages on a timely basis. Thus, ensure you have met the team needs before getting into a long-run relationship.
Experience in your specific industry
Look only for those experiential marketing agencies with good experience in your specific industry. There are pretty steep & costly learning curves for the agencies that work with brands/services that are not very familiar.
Understanding cultural sensitivity & complete knowledge of the target audience is necessary when it is all about working with specific services or brands.
Existing relation
Ensure to select those experiential marketing agencies that have good existing relations with brands & agencies alike. An experiential marketing agency heavily depends on existing relations that they all the more have in place & have built over the time period.
Connections with vendors, venues & producers become a resource for a complete larger vision for a particular event.
Working knowledge & relations with politicians, local governments, artists, producers, musicians & various other agencies assist in pushing things along in a specific community for events when you want your target audience to resonate and get attracted to.
Solid knowledge and understanding of the specific section are very crucial when it is about scouting event locations, which generally are unique to the activation of a brand.
Be completely transparent
Share what the experiential marketing agency requires knowing to conduct a specific job & meet your requirements. For example:
Budget: If an experiential marketing agency has the feeling that your budget is inadequate, you must know that upfront & continue with your search.
Work scope: If you hold specific parameters for the work type the agency will require doing, let them know. It certainly is not unheard of for an experiential agency to conduct particular work like graphic design – just to later learn that this work that assigned to another agency to do.
Other agencies in the mix: In case there is another experiential marketing agency with whom potential partners will require collaborating, ensure to be upfront regarding this. Ask in case there has been any kind of past collaboration.
Decision making procedure: In case you are the one who makes the final decision, enlighten the agency about it. In case there is any hierarchy involved in decision-makers, enlighten them about this as well.
Communicate values & trust, and definitely not fear
As one progresses in their selection procedure, ensure to share your brand’s core values & ask the agency to also do so. Continuously bullying the marketing agency will get you nowhere.
Just work with those agencies that enhance your comfort level
Note that both you as well as your agency are in this business of making money. One’s budget for sure is not the savings bank account – it is the amount to manage. Opting for an agency basis price only to reduce your overall budget or to just tell your manager is counterproductive & not the behaviour of a good partnership.
Share well your requirements, your expectations & your vision for the near future
Share your needs, expectations & vision and ask the agency to reveal theirs. If both of you are on the same page, the relationship will be very solid and strong.