So let's put the pieces together on all this agency stuff. We've made the case to let small agencies come to the table, but how do they stack up once they get there? How do they compare to the large agencies? Well, let's put together some questions that will help your company pick the right agency with the right experience. This is something pretty big to discuss in a few paragraphs, so let's focus on new communications methods and then open this up for discussion in the comments.
Organization:
There is a lot of ideas and good thinking that can fall through the cracks if the agency is not set up to best help you. Here are some questions you should ask:
1. Who's working on our account? Specifically:
a) Who filters the ideas? Reason: This goes back to the comment in an earlier post about being promoted beyond the point of competence. Is there a structure that places a partner in the way of you getting the ideas? Is that partner someone who will think that text messaging is "just for youth audiences." Or worse, is that partner someone who doesn't know anything about bebo, but says you should stick something up there just to say you did? Interview them. Ask questions. Get that partner on the phone, or in person and ask them their philosophy on social media, and how best to incorporate it into the program. Don't trust the powerpoint slide.
b) How is your digital group integrated? Reason: everyone says they have an integrated digital group, but do they really? Often times, it's a group that has it's own P&L. And what that means is that they are scrapping at the table with the account leads and fighting over who gets what share. They say they aren't, but trust me, what's a traditional PR or Ad guy going to say when their practice group is shrinking in retainer money and the Digital group is growing by leaps and bounds? They want control of that money.
Now, there is some talk about Hybrid groups, but I haven't seen one yet. We tried one a year or so back, but they missed the Hybrid part of it and sent the Digital group reporting to someone who has never managed Digital before. Not exactly what we were originally planning, and nothing Hybrid about it. I would like to see this happen, though. Somewhere. I've often been asked to run the new Digital group and I usually respond that there shouldn't be Digital groups. Just people with full understanding of the Digital channel working in and among the existing practice groups. But then, that's just too hard.
c) Where do the digital ideas come from? Reason: this is a lot like "Who filters the ideas?" but this one goes to bandwidth. What you are looking for here is the man behind the curtain. Most agencies now have their digital guru. But if s/he is busy putting together the strategy for the next client since they are the only ones that really know what is going on, what happens to your account once you've signed the dotted line? Perhaps it's a brainstorm (if it's billable!) but what I really want you to have at your disposal is a team that knows what they are doing so that the program team handling the touchpoint at every turn of your program is thinking about ALL channels, and can react appropriately when the time comes. Let's not have the 2nd year PR flack spam a blogger they've never read. And let's not have the agency's HR department putting "Hiring PR peeps" in their Facebook status and broadcast to the 100 people they just fired yesterday.
d) What is your philosophy? Reason: I know this sounds like a "touchy-feely" point, but what I'm trying to get at here is how the agency views the new medium. You may get the group that thinks Digital is putting up another micro-site. Or you may get the account team that thinks Online Reputation Management is deleting bad comments from the blog. I really want this question to drive to the section here which is...
2. It's a participatory medium. Are you participating?
a) Look at their agency's participation as a whole. Do they have a blog? Is it just the CEO's blog? That could be bad. Read this. Do they have any participation in conversations outside of their own one-way channel of discussing what they want to discuss?
b) What have they done for others? Do they think that they are going to pull off the next big video contest and that is the big idea they are pitching to you? View how that contest went. It may just suck (read here -- and yes, it's the same blog, but I couldn't resist not calling out Denny's).
c) But the main one here is the account team's participation online. Have them send you their profile pages, their blog posts, their comments in other blog conversations. Show something that is NOT a ONE-WAY post. Have they answered anything in Linked-In, participated in Yelp, bookmarked something, updated their knowledge into Wikipedia (beyond corporate messaging for their clients)? Oh, and having 200+ contacts in LinkedIn and 100's in Facebook (most of which are other people in the agency) doesn't really count as participating. What do they DO with those contacts? Do they really UNDERSTAND online conversations and can they APPLY that knowledge in a real world scenario?
But the biggest question I would have over all of this...
3. Do they care?
Again, "touchy-feely," but it makes a world of difference in the execution. You don't need an agency that doesn't care about what you are trying to achieve. It shouldn't be about retainers and ground-breaking creativity just for the sake of using technology in a new way. This is where it really matters. No one wants to hear your message if they don't care, so why not pick someone who cares, is tapped into why other people care, and can execute on that? I promise you, that person will find ways to get your message out. I still can't believe how much money Leona Helmsley left her dog Trouble. I guarantee you that someone that loved dogs that much (or hated people that much) would outdo Nestle/Purina in any pet social networking site if they put their mind to it.
More to come...
