How to Set Your Marketing Agency Up for Early Success

Partnering with a B2B marketing agency can be a game-changer for industrial and manufacturing businesses. With specialized expertise, access to advanced tools, and dedicated resources, agencies help you navigate complex marketing landscapes while allowing your internal team to focus on core business priorities. But like any significant partnership, success doesn’t happen automatically—it requires thoughtful preparation.

To ensure your collaboration hits the ground running and delivers ROI from day one, here are essential steps to set the stage for success.

1. Designate a Primary Point of Contact

Identify who on your team would serve best as a liaison for the agency. Depending on the project’s nature, this could be someone from your marketing team, sales team, product team, or even customer success team.

What Makes an Effective Agency Liaison:

• Decision-making authority: Choose someone who can make timely decisions or has quick access to decision-makers
• Cross-departmental connections: Select a team member who can easily navigate between departments to gather necessary input
• Project management skills: The ideal POC understands deadlines and can keep internal review processes moving
• Communication proficiency: Look for someone who can translate technical jargon between your company and the agency

Common Bottlenecks to Avoid:

• Multiple, conflicting points of contact, causing confusion
• Liaisons without sufficient authority to approve deliverables
• Team members who can’t commit adequate time to the partnership

Ideally, you’ll want to elect someone who can easily connect with other teams in your organization when necessary and can get work reviewed and approved in a timely fashion. Having a single point of contact streamlines communication and minimizes decision-making delays.

2. Organize Access to Essential Tools

Prepare to provide the agency with the necessary access to your marketing technology stack. Being proactive about this prevents unnecessary delays during the crucial onboarding phase.

Priority Access:

• Analytics platforms (Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager)
• Search performance tools (Google Search Console)
• Ad platforms relevant to your campaigns (Google Ads, LinkedIn, etc.)
• Website backend/CMS access (WordPress, HubSpot, etc.)
• CRM system (HubSpot, etc.)
• Social media accounts or management tools (Sprout Social, Hootsuite, etc.)

Secondary Access (as Needed):

• Marketing automation platforms
• Website hosting access or IT contact info 
• Content repositories and asset libraries

For each platform, document the level of access needed (admin, editor, viewer) and prepare a secure method for credential sharing. Having this information ready before your kickoff meeting can save days or even weeks in the onboarding process.

3. Provide Comprehensive Branding Guidelines

Equip your agency with documented branding guidelines, whether it’s a concise one-pager or an in-depth style guide. This should cover your brand’s voice, color palettes, fonts, acceptable use of brand assets, and overall aesthetic to maintain consistency across all marketing materials.

Essential Branding Elements to Share:

• Brand voice and messaging guidelines (formal vs. conversational, technical depth, industry terminology, and brand slogans and promises)
• Visual identity elements (logo variations, color codes, typography)
• Examples of approved content that effectively represents your brand
• Industry-specific considerations or regulatory requirements

Unless an agency is hired to rework your brand, you want them to enter an engagement feeling confident that they have the know-how to exude your brand through relevant content and channels. This prevents costly revision cycles and ensures cohesive brand representation from the start.

4. Clarify Your Objectives and Target Audience

Clearly define your business priorities, expected outcomes, and target audience(s) or ICPs (Ideal Customer Profiles). This clarity enables the agency to align its strategies effectively with your vision and ensures that their efforts resonate with your intended market.

Framework for Effective Goal Setting:

• Short-term vs. long-term objectives
• Key performance indicators (KPIs) and how they’ll be measured
• Prioritization of marketing goals (lead generation, brand awareness, thought leadership)
• Budget allocation across different initiatives

Specifically, this understanding will inform the thought process for identifying suitable strategies. It’ll also unlock an agency’s ability to create messaging that resonates with your ICPs at anticipated touchpoints throughout the buyer’s journey.

In Summary:

Setting your agency partnership up for success requires thoughtful preparation:

• Assign a dedicated point of contact with the right skills and authority for operational efficiency
• Prepare and organize access to essential marketing tools to hit the ground running
• Provide detailed branding guidelines for seamless integration of marketing efforts
• Clearly outline your goals and target audience so everyone is working toward the same objectives

By taking these proactive steps before your first strategy session, you’ll minimize onboarding friction and accelerate the time-to-value from your agency investment. Remember: the effort you put into preparing for the partnership directly impacts how quickly you’ll see results.Ready to explore how a marketing agency partnership could benefit your business? Request a proposal today to discuss your specific needs, or browse our blog for more insights on maximizing your marketing effectiveness.