Client-agency relationships need a little insight
Research into the client-agency relationship carried out by Marketing Week in association with Weber Shandwick, which surveyed 128 marketers, shows the disciplines in which they feel underserved by agencies – and making the most of research practices could help these.
In certain disciplines, the research shows that 20 per cent of marketers feel underserved by agencies in measurement and return on investment (ROI), 14 per cent say analytics and 12 per cent personalisation in marketing.
In more general areas marketers feel that agencies are underserving in keeping them abreast of changes in the market place (42 per cent), future proofing business and trialling new technology platforms.
When considering their biggest marketing challenge, 17 per cent say measuring ROI and 7 per cent say using internal and external data.
Looking at the concerns about analytics, measurement and the use of data, it would seem that agencies could benefit from adding in levels of research and insight to the offering and services to marketers.
Making sense of the market and future proofing the business is another area that research could help with by understanding customer behaviour, patterns and gaining insight of changes in any market to stay ahead.
It is easy to say but trade bodies and brands themselves are taking these steps already. In the past week John Lewis announced it is using Splunk Enterprise to deliver operational and customer insight across johnlewis.com to conduct real-time analysis of data from e-commerce platforms to better understand purchasing trends, improve customer experience and drive higher conversion rates.
In terms of keeping up with changes in the marketplace a good example is the Mobile Marketing Association, which has published a guide in conjunction with video ad technology company Tremor Video to help improve the quality of mobile video ad campaigns.
The guidelines are based on a research study on mobile video, conducted by Millward Brown, and aim to help marketers make the most of the opportunities in video.
So why shouldn’t agencies leverage their relationships with marketers in the same way by offering insight and research and aiding some of the concerns, particularly around market analysis, data and analytics, which show up time and time again?
