
Is an agency worth it?
If you work in the creative industry, this is a question you have likely considered. I think about it while working within an agency — and my opinion has been swayed over the years. But more and more I am convinced than an agency indeed is worth it — if you understand the value and how to get the most from an agency.
It is about focus
If you find that you or your team are unable to focus on a project and bring it to life, that is when it is time to bring in an agency. When you can separate a project enough to allow a specialized group make it happen — that’s when the value is there. Depending on the agreement, the agency is tasked with bringing a project to life in order to hit the needed KPI. It’s like bringing on a whole other team.
Let the agency make you a champion
When you engage with an agency, it is crucially to be brutally honest with them. Tell them about the project, but also tell them about yourself. You’re their stakeholder, their gatekeeper — it is the agency’s job to make you be the champion. But they cannot help you if you do not share your career goals with them.
So tell them that you have to increase revenue by 15%, get another 500,000 email addresses, streamline the product launch process. Even if the projects do not directly touch those, your agency will make sure to never step on your career goals’ toes. And when they can, they will sneak in some support to help you get that promotion you for which you have been hankering.
When an agency doesn’t make sense
If things are pretty slow on the in-house team and you are finding it hard to figure out what projects to ship over to the agency, and they are no longer coming to you with any great ideas, then it may be time to reconsider that relationship. Nobody likes to feel underused and unvalued — trust me, on the agency side no one feels good about projects slipping away.
