For the past four years I have been working as an in-house marketing rep at a start-up company. This means I have been living and breathing one single brand for 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year. When I worked agency I would maybe spend 10 hours a week on a project that lasted 12 weeks or less, continually adopting then abandoning different brand voices. As the years progressed at my current company, so did the demand for marketing material - and vendor engagements began. I found myself on the other side of agency relations, a client for the types of creative agencies I used to work for. I had to train other marketing professionals to be ambassadors for my brand, and I discovered that teaching others to communicate my brand values was more difficult than anticipated, especially since any good agency is juggling several key clients at any given time.
Below are three core tips for communicating the value of your brand to your vendors, because while you may live and breath your brand like I do, your vendors do not.
- Develop a brand voice & know it well.
Your brand's voice refers to anything that you do, write, or say as your brand. Your website, sales decks, twitter feed, and emails should all adhere to this voice. I like to pretend that my brand is an actual person, with opinions, characteristics and style. When I describe my brand voice I say that is is "professional, yet approachable". I see my brand as that young professor everyone had at one point and still remembers fondly. It is a super smart authority figure that has an open door policy and is happy to answer questions. This is the direction I gave to my web developers, SEO specialists and PR firm, along with several examples of my brand writing, which all demonstrated this voice. Having a clear understanding of the tone of my brand made it easy to critique the work of my vendors, and offer constructive notes that lead to them matching the voice I had spent years developing.
- Know the pitfalls of your industry - communicate them upfront
Every industry has its own jargon, and jargon, by definition, is difficult for the layman to understand. The agencies you employ will likely have their hand in several different industries and thus will have a knowledge of yours that is cursory at best. Help them to help you by letting them know upfront common mistakes and how to avoid them. Maybe come up with a mnemonic device for them - a jargon-jingle if you will. This will save you hours of editing in the future.
- Read EVERYTHING
So you have engaged a vendor, taught them your voice, and repeated your jargon-jingle so many times that they now hate you a little, you can now set them out into the marketing wild as your brand ambassadors, right? Unfortunately, wrong. No matter how many times you repeat your expectations, offer examples, and illustrate the facts of your industry, your agency will make mistakes. And that's ok. Agencies work with dozens of brands every day - it is only reasonable that they will make errors that are imperceptible to them but glaring to you. In order to avoid publishing something that isn't up to your standards, make sure you read over anything and everything that wasn't written by you. It will take time, but it will be worth the spend.
So with those three things in mind, go forth and foster excellent vendor relationships. And remember, they may not work directly for you, but your marketing vendors are absolutely a part of your team.
Fourth bonus tip! Tina Fey once said that food breeds loyalty. If you every suspect that you are becoming a nightmare client, send in some bagels. You will be amazed at the power they yield.