Steps 8, 9, and 10
8. Illuminate experience
If they did for somebody else, it's likely they can do it for you, too. Identify your top priority needs and seek out analogous work that the agencies have done. Map their experience to your needs. Be as specific as possible. Carefully examine the planning process and the business goals and connect the dots. Look at creative examples and media plans. Get them talking about how they came up with the ideas in competitive contexts. You are looking for insightful thinking, smart execution, and the ability to redeploy these skills on your behalf. And while experience is not 100 percent predictive of future results, all things being equal, an agency that has done the task you need has a greater chance of doing it right again for you.
9. Look for efficiencies
Will the agency learn how to do things on your nickel or do they bring well-established learnings, relationships, procedures, and added value to the table? Ask the agency about standing relationships and deals with technical vendors, media outlets, or infrastructure suppliers. Ask them to outline and document approaches and philosophies on topics of importance to your marketing effort. You are looking to leverage their experience and their network to your benefit. Your goal in investigating these relationships is to assess the likely added value you get by selecting a particular agency on the basis of its experience and contacts.
Be as specific as you can and be relentless in follow-up questioning. Ask pointed questions: Do you believe rich media yields incremental conversion? Do you prefer one web platform over another and why? Which off-the-shelf CRM solution have you used most often and why? Which media will grant you (and us) most-favored nation deals? Ask for examples of skillful media and vendor negotiations and then ask for the marketing and business impact of these financial efficiencies.
10. Check references
No one will give you a bad reference. But ask probing questions about the nature of the relationship, the timing of projects, any claimed victories, and/or the day-to-day working experience. Ask pointed questions about the leadership, the working team, timing, and costs. Ask specifically about the things that went wrong. There always are a few. Sometimes understanding how an agency recovers from a screw-up is the most illuminating insight into their operation.
Once you have satisfied yourself that the short list agencies have the requisite experience, relationships, and energy, it's time to get creative. In many cases, your finalists will have equivalent experience, relationships, and skill sets. They will have jumped the financial bar and provided strong references. You'll need to devise an ordeal to establish true differences and to gauge how well you are likely to work with each of them.
