The value in asking the right questions
Business
We work in the communications industry. But, too often, poor communication is what makes the relationship between an agency and client fail. We work extra hard to make sure that our chat is not only entertaining, but valuable too!
he first rule of project delivery is: you do not talk about project delivery. At least, not immediately anyway. Yes, we’re super focussed on delivering for our clients, but experience has taught us that the true magic lies in the questions we ask before we start thinking about the ‘how’.
Killer insights
Knowing our client and knowing our client’s clients is fundamental to everything we do. The former develops over time, through formal interviews and research but, also, through day-to-day conversations and retaining a genuine interest in the businesses we partner with. The latter usually takes the form of audience insight work, supported by expert platforms like GWI. This gives us answers to questions such as: What do our audience care about? What are their beliefs and opinions? What types of media do they consume and why? What do their lifestyles look like?
All these things combined mean that we can build a strong framework for each and every project we tackle, before we even get to the brief in hand.
Appreciating preferences
We like to mould our business around experiences. Good ones! It’s important to us that our team and the clients we partner with enjoy the work we do and continually feel that they get more than expected from being a part of it. That’s why we place importance on finding out how everyone (internally and externally) likes to work as well as what they really don’t like, and then adapting our process to fit.
We know, for example, that one of our favourite clients can’t focus until after her third morning coffee, so we’re careful always to schedule our meetings after 11.30am!
And finally, when not to ask questions
Agencies love a brief, right? We reckon that, sometimes, that need for everything to be written down and sworn into the project bible is overrated. What we really want answered before we put pen to paper is: What are your business challenges? Everything after that becomes so much clearer. The reasoning behind project direction, creative positioning, budget spend and messaging can all be benchmarked against clear and valuable success criteria. That’s where marketing really comes into its own!
With partnerships lasting over several decades, we’re pretty confident that our client relationships have been so successful because we know just how to make our clients’ voices heard and, in turn, their creative visions realised. If you’ve not realised it by now, we do love to chat. So, if there’s anything on your mind that you’d like to get a balanced perspective on, whether it be audience insight, branding, creative problem-solving, budget challenges or a digital ambition, let us know – we’d be happy to talk it over.
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