How to Pick the Best Agency for Your Digital Initiatives

Searching for the right agency to help clients with their digital initiatives (media or creative or both) is no easy task.  Digital media channels are evolving and proliferating. Metrics are abundant, but often mysterious. The language is different and can be difficult.  The combined art and science of the digital space is challenging. But opportunities for strategic assessments, audience targeting and improved accountability are rich and demand full engagement in the present and future of digital media.

Currently, TV consumes 38% of the $500B global ad market, with digital moving closer at just below 33%.  IPG’s Magna Global projects digital will overtake TV in 2017, while Publicis Zenith/Optimedia forecasts it will happen in 2018.  The future is upon us, so finding the right agency for this journey has never been more important. Selecting the right agency partner in the whirlwind of digital opportunities will carry both high risk and high rewards.

We have taken three major steps to address the challenges of digital agency selection.  The first is to expand services and expertise into each area of the highly specialized digital agency search process. The second is to welcome a new partner, Mike Atkin to the firm, whose skill set precisely matches this critical area.  The third is to offer a model, developed by Mr. Atkin, which will help marketers find the best agency for their particular set of issues.  

His model is predicated on identifying five critical areas a marketer must consider when reviewing agency digital capabilities. But more than simply evaluating the overall agency capabilities, it requires simultaneously assessing the related specific talents the agency team offers to handle the client’s business, since these are the actual partners who will help guide the journey.

The five areas the model helps to evaluate are:

• Evidence of operational excellence
• Digital platform leadership, innovation, original R&D
• Strategic focus on client business goals
• Tools, access to resources, and analytical prowess
• Strategic and creative use of data

Each criteria point is accompanied by a series of customized scoring metrics that help to ultimately simplify agency selection.  The model also employs weighting to recognize client choices for the deployment of digital expertise and operational processes -- internally and externally. To learn more please refer to the contact information below.

Image at top courtesy of Corbis. The opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillage/MyersBizNet management or associated bloggers.