Marketing agencies of the future: surviving and thriving

One of the most important roles a marketing agency plays is to ensure their clients’ brands are highly relevant to today’s consumers.

This often requires a step back, some introspection, and almost always, a level of evolution.   Marketing agencies need to do the same.

To remain competitive, agencies need to adapt to an enormously complex and ever-changing consumer landscape.  Increasingly, clients are looking for partners that find “open space” for their brands, anticipate opportunities, solve problems, and deliver strong ROI.  Agencies that fail to meet their clients’ audiences “where they are” – connecting with the right person, with the right message, at the right time, and at the right cost – run the risk of being left behind.

Those agencies that continue to thrive will deliver on the following:

1. Be digitally-centric.  Increasingly, consumers are demanding brand experiences that are ubiquitous – personalized, predictive, seamless and immersive.  We expect to interact with brands anywhere we choose, on any device.  Does your agency have the digital strategy, technology skills, and innovation mindset to deliver strongly on this expectation?
2. Be agile. We live in an “always on” world where we demand instant access to whatever we want, whenever we want it.   For marketing agencies, this means speed rules.  Does your agency partner have the right talent, tools and internal processes in place to keep ideas flowing and workflow moving efficiently and cost effectively?
3. Master cross-platform storytelling. Agencies have always been amazing storytellers. Today’s most effective brand storytelling embraces the fact that a consumer’s purchase journey is no longer a linear one – and, it’s done 100% on their terms.
4. Be data-inspired. Understanding how to obtain the most relevant data and analyze it has become table stakes.  The big opportunity for agencies is to put that data to work, with astute insights that fuel fresh thinking, nimble optimizations and drive ROI.

There’s no question that marketing agencies need to evolve to keep up with the expectations and behaviors of today’s consumers.  Surviving – and thriving – depends on it.