How Well Does Your Advertising Agency Know Your Business?

6 Things Top Marketing Firms Do to Learn Your Brand and Business Model

When a business decides to partner with an advertising agency, it’s usually at the tail end of months of discussions, needs assessments, and mutual evaluation. The process isn’t quick, nor should it be.

Hiring a marketing firm is essentially you saying, “I’m trusting you to represent my brand and help me meet my business goals.”

So, how does a Kansas City advertising agency go from one of many fish in the marketing sea to a valued partner?

Agencies that take the time to immerse themselves in your business, your goals, and your challenges are far more likely to create impactful, results-driven strategies. However, each client is unique, so your agency’s approach greatly depends on your business, your industry, and your goals. Let’s explore some common ways advertising agencies get to know their clients.

Client Onboarding: Defining Needs and Wants With Your Advertising Agency

The first step in building a successful agency-client relationship is the onboarding process. By the end of the process, your agency will know what success looks like for you.

Strategic marketing partners usually initiate:

• Discovery calls: These initial meetings allow agencies to gather high-level information about your business, products or services, and your target audience.
• Goal setting: Whether it’s increasing brand awareness, driving sales, or recruiting your next employee of the year, agencies use your goals to define measurable objectives.
• Understanding challenges: Your agency will ask about your past marketing efforts, pain points, and what has and hasn’t worked in the past.
• Competitor analysis: Your agency will ask you to identify your main competitors to assess who’s vying for the same customers. They will also review your competitor’s marketing tactics, messaging, and campaigns to identify gaps your brand can exploit to gain market share.

Brand Immersion: How Advertising Agencies Research Clients

The onboarding process is only the beginning. Next comes brand immersion, the phase where your agency digs deeper into your business to fully understand your mission, values, and unique selling proposition based on your goals.

• Brand identity analysis: Your agency will evaluate your existing branding elements, such as your logo, tagline, voice, tone, and visual identity.
• Industry research: Understanding your industry and how it operates helps with positioning your brand.
• Product or service familiarity: Your agency will likely want to experience your product firsthand, whether it’s through demos, services, or walkthroughs, to get a real-world understanding of what you offer.

Social Listening and Analytics: Understanding Public Perception

Your audience’s perception of your brand heavily influences your marketing strategy. Agencies use tools like social listening and analytics to monitor online conversations and gather insights about how your people view your brand and its products or services.

• Social listening: By tracking mentions, hashtags, and discussions about your brand on social media, your advertising agency gains real-time insights into customer opinions.
• Sentiment analysis: Are people talking positively or negatively about your brand? This data helps identify areas for improvement or opportunities to amplify strengths.
• Content performance metrics: By analyzing which posts, campaigns, or topics generate engagement, your agency learns what resonates with your audience.

Polls and Surveys: Hearing Directly From Customers

Sometimes, the best way to understand your audience is to directly ask them. Agencies use polls and surveys to collect feedback from your customers and audience.

• Customer insights: Surveys provide valuable data about customer preferences, buying habits, and pain points.
• Brand perception: Polls help determine how well your audience understands and values your brand.
• Product feedback: Surveys can also uncover how customers feel about your products or services, including areas for improvement.

Customer Reviews and Feedback: Learning From Experience

Customer reviews and feedback are a treasure trove of insights. A good advertising agency will analyze what customers are saying to identify trends, potential value propositions, and challenges to overcome.

• Positive feedback: Highlighting what customers love about your business helps create campaigns that emphasize your strengths.
• Customer pain points: Learning about what your customers don’t like can help craft a plan to address concerns.
• Feedback patterns: Repeated themes in reviews can guide messaging and service improvements.

Ongoing Communication With Your Advertising Agency

Marketing isn’t static. It’s constantly in flux, meaning your digital-first marketing strategy and tactics evolve alongside your business, audience, and industry trends. Agencies maintain open lines of communication through:

• Regular meeting cadence: Tag-ups keep both parties aligned on progress, challenges, and next steps.
• Updates and reporting: Advertising agencies share reports, analytics, and updates on active campaigns to ensure transparency. For example, if you are running paid search advertising campaigns, your agency will review how your campaigns are performing and share all relevant datapoints.
• Pivot meetings: By staying informed about your business developments, such as new products, services, or seasonality challenges, your agency can adjust strategies as needed.

How Well Does Your KC Advertising Agency Know You?

The best advertising agencies invest time and effort into understanding their clients from every angle. By conducting competitor analysis, gathering customer feedback, and maintaining open lines of communication, your agency develops a comprehensive understanding of your brand, audience, and market landscape that guides the success of your campaigns and strategies.

When you work with a Kansas City advertising agency that truly knows your business, you gain a partner that’s invested in your success. If you’re ready to see how this theory is put into practice and achieve your business goals, request a discovery call with iFocus.

After our team has had the opportunity to learn about you, your goals, and your specific challenges, we’ll create a strategy that helps you achieve your business objectives. Contact us today to get started!