Agencies: Read This Before Your Next New Business Meeting

The pressure to measure marketing’s business value has increased, and agencies should remember this when competing for new business. In July 2014 polling by RSW/US, 40% of marketers in North America said that a lack of foundation in analytics was the single-biggest deficiency among agencies vying for their business, the No. 1 response. A lack of focus on meaningful key performance indicators ranked a close second, cited by 38% of respondents.

Marketers’ responses indicated that it was critical for agencies to come to an initial meeting with thoughts about their businesses and questions that showed they were interested in their companies. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being “very important,” 93% of marketers ranked this at 8 or higher, with 59% giving it a 10.

However, according to marketers, agencies weren’t meeting this need. Again on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being “always,” just 16% selected 8 or higher when asked how often agencies actually came to an initial meeting with thoughts and smart questions about their companies.

Presenting creative during a pitch was also something marketers stressed as important. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being “very important,” 61% ranked creative being presented as part of agencies’ pitches at 8 or higher.

Courtesy of eMarketer