Inspirational ideas are the lifeblood of any creative business. Clients may demand to see measurable ROI, but it is in that moment, when they just ‘get’ your ideas and they can see the vision you have presented clearly in their minds eye, it all becomes worthwhile.
For many agencies, the next step of the process is to find out how much this idea is going to cost. After all, the client has given you a budget to work with and unless you are going to manage and deliver the project in-house, you will probably need to work with a partner who can.
A good Experiential Marketing partner will help to evolve those ideas and bring them to life, by adding a dimension of rationale and experience.
At what moment to bring a partner on board however, depends very much on what you want and what stage you are at with the client.
So here are a few suggestions (based on real life scenarios) that could get you better results.
You have completed an internal brainstorm and decided on 3 concepts initial you want to explore.
Best way to utilise the EM partner: Just talk to us.
At this point, a good old fashioned phone call to a senior contact at the EM agency is the best option. An experienced agency who have a broad range of experience will be able to offer you an indication of whether something can be done within your budget.
At this point it is important to keep the energy alive and focus on getting buy-in from the client. What you need to know at this stage is whether t can be done and some guidance.
The EM Agency will likely give you some priceless insights as to the likely effectiveness of the idea, in line with the expected results. After all, handing out 1/2 million samples in a day may sound impressive, but the amount of man power required might surprise you.
They also may have executed something similar before and be able to offer you some valuable nuggets to impress your client with.
You want to present 3 ideas with a full breakdown of costs.
Best way to utilise the EM partner: Remember we are people too!
Whilst we can’t speak for every agency out there, this is probably the most challenging request an Experiential partner will receive. As with any business, it is sometimes difficult to convey the actual time and effort it takes to properly work out a detailed costing.
At Hotcow we promise detailed costings with a 48 hour turnaround. This means that we can be confident you are getting an accurate appraisal of what elements need to be considered, included and paid for. If we are to do this for 3 separate concepts, you can see how much time we need to spend.
Knowing that 2 of these ideas are going to be left on the cutting room floor can be pretty demoralising.
Work with your EM partner to bring ideas to life, not to provide you with never-ending quotes.
You have decided on the EM strategy and you need a full breakdown.
Best way to utilise the EM partner: Create a detailed brief & have lunch!
Once you have reached this point with your client, you have hopefully involved your EM partner early on, to sense check and get an indication that what you want to achieve is realistically within the limits of your budget.
But now you need to really get to grips with how this project is going to look and work from start to finish. You need to know what assets, mechanics and timescales need to be considered and ultimately what those final costs will be, to achieve final sign off.
Create a brief for your agency that details exactly how you see the event happening from start to finish. Give specific details on materials required, what kind of production elements need to be built and if you are giving away any products – how many, what are they and how big are they?
What is the reason for creating the experience, What ‘specifically’ are you trying to achieve and what are the agreed success outcomes expected by the client? Make sure that you keep focused on what you want to achieve and avoid adding too many additional elements that could convolute the clarity of the original concept.
At this stage we need as much information as possible so we can avoid ambiguity or mis-communication.
What are the benefits to working this way?
When you feel comfortable working an agency to bring your ideas to life, it can often pay dividends to include and involve them in the right way at the right time.
Often, we have to explain to people that their big idea just isn’t feasible within the confines of financial constraint This can mean that the big idea the client is expecting, suddenly has to be scaled back or abandoned. Weeks and sometimes months of preparation, lost in an instant.
Building an open, honest relationship with an EM partner will save you a lot of time and effort by focusing and re-focusing on what is actually needed.
A good EM agency will be honest with you from the start. If you feel that you are speaking to a group of ‘yes men’ – think about if this benefits your ego, or the project
It is natural to want to run with a great idea and look for the path of least resistance, but remember that the client is going to be closely monitoring what happens once the fun and games have ended.
Managing expectations from the beginning allows you to protect the reputation of that and your business, by delivering exactly what you promised. If you can do this, the client has little reason to look elsewhere for the next event.
Hotcow is a multi-award winning Experiential Marketing agency. We get brands in front of consumers in ways that persuade them to buy. We fully implement our ideas; nothing needs to be farmed out. For more information or free consultation, contact us
