The Challenge of Hiring a Marketing Firm

by Brad Smith

We had a prospective new client visit our agency yesterday and they shared with us the horror stories of their association with their former marketing communications services provider.
This got me thinking about what it must be like on that side of the conference table. Hiring an agency isn’t a simple task. It takes time. But it's better to do it right once than wrong twice. A bad agency decision can set your brand back years. And as we heard yesterday, it can be a very painful and frustrating experience.

These folks were going about the selection process the correct way. They’re going through the discipline and hard work of making a good choice.

First, they’re spending time at prospective agencies doing the important things. Meeting their people. Experiencing their culture. Initiating conversations with people in each department. Seeing how they click. In short, making sure that they like them, and giving the agencies the opportunity to do the same.

Just like in any good relationship, they're probing to gain insight into the company's personality and character. People like to do business with people they like to do business with. (Sure, you can quote me on that).

In short, they are looking for a good fit. And frankly, so are we.

But their investment didn’t stop here. Wisely, they invited us to visit them and take a plant tour. We love those. We’re like proverbial kids in a candy store.

From a potential client’s perspective, pay attention to this visit. How do the agency personnel interact with your people? Do they ask a lot of insightful questions about the company? Are they focused on getting to know you better? Did they send the people you will actually work with, or the people intent on making a sale? Bottom line – can you trust them?

This company will make the choice that’s right for them. We hope it’s us.

If you’ve been through this process, I welcome you to add your perspective and experiences.


Flickr Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/romulusnr/

The Power of the Handwritten Note

by Steve Badertscher

We’ve been immersing ourselves in all the social media that’s fit to print (and even some that isn’t) here at our firm recently. It is truly quite fascinating...especially the speed at which it is churned out. (Read: Twitter.)

It was while researching my three-hundred and thirty-sixth blog, sandwiched between reading several dozen fractured-sentence e-mails, that something quite remarkable occurred – the mail was delivered. No, it wasn’t just the fact that the postal service delivered my daily dose of snail mail...it was what they delivered – a note acknowledging my birthday.

And not just any note, a handwritten note...from my grandma.

It’s not that I didn’t appreciate the birthday “pings” I received via e-mail, the sentiments posted on the wall of my Facebook page, or the store-bought cards from well-wishers who “cared enough to send the very best.” I did. It’s just that there, juxtaposed amidst the cyber high-fives and envelopes with crisply printed mailing labels, was an actual honest-to-goodness handwritten note.

As soon as I saw the mailing address, I recognized the familiar penmanship. Even though it was shaky, it was still an unmistakably classic, nearly century-old cursive writing style that is an art unto itself. As I opened the envelope to read the card, I thought about how much care I knew she put into sealing it just so. And as I read the message, I imagined how painful it must have been, due to her arthritis, for her to write even a few words, much less several paragraphs expressing how much she wanted to wish me a happy birthday in person, but was unable to travel across the miles, and how much I was loved.

As I finished reading her heartfelt sentiments, I couldn’t help but think that they wouldn’t have had quite the emotional impact if she’d have sent me an e-mail. Or for that matter, a card from the 5 and Dime (as she still calls it).

It was seeing her personality in her pen strokes, and knowing that she made the special effort to put her thoughts in her own words, that set that correspondence apart from any other I received that day...or any day since.

It was the power of the handwritten note. A power that is underutilized in today’s business correspondence.

Flickr Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/caitlinator/