Just kicked off a new relationship with an agency on the agency new business side of our business.  During the kick-off, we talked about their clients and the things they did for them – and what their clients’ businesses looked like when their agency first walked into the door to start the relationship with the client.  The central theme across all of their new clients over the years was “unification”.

In virtually every case, the agency walked into their clients’ worlds facing a complete and utter lack of unification.

There was a lack of unification among the marketers’ agencies.

If you’re like many marketers, you have multiple agencies you tap into to help you manage your business.  Only really well-oiled agencies can do it all really well.  Most agencies have partnerships for the things that they aren’t very good at, or simply don’t want to do.  So you’re either working with multiple firms directly or working with multiple firms via your lead agency.

Either way, you need to insure that the agencies are unified.  Unified in understanding your overall business objectives. Unified in coordinating activities so there isn’t overlap in responsibilities. Unified in moving forward in a cohesive manner in moving your business ahead.

If there is lack of unification, your job only gets 100% tougher.  Managing multiple agencies is no easy task.  It consumes time, energy, and money to keep it hanging all together.

The other issue this agency faced when they started their relationships with new clients was a lack of unification of messaging.

We all want our agencies playing nicely in the sandbox. Not doing so can be miserable.

What this agency client of ours saw was messaging gone mad with many of their new clients.

Different types of messaging across different media platforms.  Different tones.  Different personalities.  Different and competing priorities.

If you have multiple agencies, it just simply gets harder to keep it all together.

If you don’t want to do it yourself, you can either have your lead agency manage it for you…or you can find an agency that is able to manage much more than just a part of your marketing effort.

If you’re thinking that lack of unification is something that bogs you down and holds back your brand or business, give us a shout and we can help – at no-cost to you (mark@rswas.com).