Building your marketing army

By Remy Raitt

There is no cut and paste marketing agency formula, because needs, teams and dynamics differ from agency to agency. There are, however, fundamental boxes an agency should tick in order to achieve a successful working environment and consequently successful offerings to your clients.

Two sides to the story

The chief disruptor of Integrated Marketing Solutions, Francois Vorster says there are two sides to every agency; client services and the creative team. “Client services need a good understanding of people, the media and strategy,” he says. The creative side of the agency will take care of all things, well, creative.

The wisdom to youth ratio

“A successful marketing agency is a combination of the wisdom of age and the exuberance of youth,” says corporate marketing analyst, advisor and media commentator, Chris Moerdyk. Vorster agrees; “In my opinion, youth brings energy and insights, they are the reality checkers but, they don’t always see the broader picture. Wisdom, on the other hand, knows what works and what doesn’t.”

Building your army

“Like anything significant, the ideal marketing team starts with a solid foundation,” says Kevin Barber in an article for HubSpot. “With the right foundation and plenty of grit, you can build (or even re-build) anything.”

Moerdyk believes four central roles make up this core foundation. “Right at the top you need someone who has grown up with the industry and all its changes over the last few decades.” He says this will prevent clients from making the same old mistakes.

Market researchers come next. “If they’re not personally doing the research they need to be able to commission the right researchers. This is a very tricky part of the work and it takes an awful lot of experience to ask the right questions to ensure you’re not just getting knee-jerk answers,” Moerdyk continues.

Another key player is a media specialist. “This person needs to be able to select the right media channels, not someone who is going to get talked into the wrong ones. You need someone who can rationalise the right media mix for the target market.”

“Another vitally important person, which few agencies have, is a salesperson who is very senior and very good at what they do. So many people just think their MD can do the selling, and that’s a weakness,” Moerdyk concludes.

Stacking up skill sets

Vorster believes the days of only offering one skill are long over. “I’m all for multi-skilled people. In today’s world, things are so dynamic you can’t look at one thing without looking at the other,” he says. “If you can’t at least develop multiple skills, you aren’t going to work out.”

Moerdyk says it’s imperative that the people at the top of the agency possess multiple skills. “Lower down the order, employees can have more individual skills, especially with regard to things like social media and analytics,” he says.

Relationship advice

“The strong foundation of modern marketing is building towards a team culture with integrity, character, creativity, love, and loyalty,” says Barber.” If your team loves the company they work with, and love serving the customers before, during and after the sale, you have a great foundation.”

Vorster slightly disagrees. He says he looks for trust over loyalty, because each individual employee has their own value set and, therefore, may cut ties with the agency in favour of something or someone else. “I look for trust and the real life work skill of the ability to learn,” he says.

Moerdyk says that if your employees don’t get along, your agency is in for a rough ride. “At the end of the day, human compatibility is the most important thing to consider,” he says.