By Kylie Ridler-Dutton, senior global consultant, TrinityP3
There is a view among many marketers that they should run the pitch process themselves.
On many levels, this view is understandable. It is driven by a desire to control the process, and also often by a sense of “it is marketing’s job to choose the agency, right?”
And of course on one level it absolutely is. Marketers need to be in the driving seat when it comes to choosing the right agency partners. But data from the most recent State of the Pitch surveys consistently shows general frustration with the process (often on both sides of the coin!)
This year I have worked on a number of creative, PR and social pitches and here are the top five pitfalls or challenges that we see marketers fall into when running a pitch process themselves:
1. Can’t find the exact agencies to invite, so have to resort to going open tender
Marketers are often unfamiliar with the plethora of agency capabilities out there until they review an agency search report. The challenges here are complex when agencies are no longer silos in traditional creative, media, CX, PR or social.
For example, a recent client was not aware that a creative agency of interest also offered full production capabilities and in-house PR services – they were looking to go to market for. As a result, the agency was considered and ultimately secured further business.
Finding or pre-vetting the right list of agencies to match the brief saves marketers valuable time and money. There are a number of agency registers and directories (including TrinityP3’s agency register) that can help marketing teams do this important “prework” and save everyone’s time and money.
There will be some clients (particularly government) who, for governance and procurement reasons, need to go to open tender but for many clients it’s not necessary and in our experience often comes at significant cost and time spent.
2. Marketers launch a pitch without have lined up all the right internal stakeholders
The onus of pitching typically falls on the marketing team. What a lot of people don’t realise is that pitches drag, or worse stall, due to a failure to line up all the various stakeholders (eg. do you have finance, legal, comms, procurement, strategy et al across the pitch) or work through the governance issues and lead times around a pitch.
Smart procurement teams recognise that the buying of media and marketing services is different to buying office stationary, laptops or anything else in the business. These are intellectual property services and getting it wrong can often come at a significant cost for the business and its sales.
Recently, we helped a client’s new procurement lead navigate their first marketing tender by collaborating with internal stakeholders and providing governance best practice sessions to keep the project on track.
Often in a standard procurement tender, outside of the media, will see questions and answers by one tenderer shared with all the participants. In marketing pitches this is typically not the case because you are dealing with intellectual property.
3. Marketers are forced to grapple with question of value vs cost
Pitching sees a lot of promises made in order to win business. But are you able to evaluate the difference between time and resources versus value eg. do you need five junior agency staff versus two senior people to work on strategy (often at similar cost!) Likewise in PR or social can you assess the value the agency is creating for you when often what they might be selling is somewhat intangible.
Smart marketers will have a framework for assessing the claims, promises and ideas that they are presented with within a tangible budget. Working with agency financial experts helps you work out how to allocate resources and staff to meet scope of work requirements without the “old school” basic monthly basic retainer.
At TrinityP3, we increasingly recommend to clients that they ask for a remuneration review instead of going straight to pitch when the relationship is tracking well and there is only a desire to ensure both parties are working to the write measurement financially or for company governance requirements.
4. Do you have the right agencies for your business objectives?
This one feels obvious but it would surprise how often marketers don’t give their partners the full visibility on the business strategy they are asking them to help them with. Typically if we are working with a marketer I will spend time doing a deep dive on their business objectives: what is working and what is not? This is important to ensure all stakeholders are aligned and the agencies in the pitch understand and have a clear brief to work from.
This is especially important given the complexities of the modern marketing ecosystem.
In a recent pitch, we saw very different objectives from both the marketing, technology and procurement teams. Procurement wanted to drive efficiencies across AI, PR, and social creative disciplines while marketing were initially focused on creating a “village model” thinking that to find this under one roof would be a unicorn.
By drawing out the competing agendas we were able to articulate a clear brief and show that there were a couple of options which met both procurement and marketing’s objectives.
5. Marketer reputation: damage and the all-important feedback question
Marketers often view pitching as a fun experience where they get to sample a selection of agencies (like a chocolate box! Pick your Favourites).
What they forget is that in asking people to dedicate time and resources to pitching for your business there is some obligation on you to provide feedback as currency.
A recent CEO we worked with said that Australia’s marketing industry is so small that many marketers often hesitate to give honest feedback out of concern for their reputation. I would challenge this and say that there is an equal risk you can also get a reputation for not giving feedback and using people’s time and ideas with little or no recompense.
Agencies tell us often that they want and need honest feedback. Our annual State of the Pitch survey feedback tells us many marketers don’t offer transparency or string agencies along during the pitch process (often telling them they were all a ‘close second’).
The risk here is to a marketer’s long-term reputation. Will you be able to get the best agencies to pitch for you in the future if you have not been upfront and honest in past pitches?
Communication and feedback in the pitching process needs to be thought about upfront. A clear communication strategy ensures the brand and marketing team’s reputation is a key focus throughout the process. The best outcomes ensure all parties are left with a feeling of value and respect.