How Hiring A Marketing Agency Works With Your Internal Team

When you hire a marketing agency, it does not mean handing over everything your internal team already does. The marketing agency fills specific gaps in capacity and supports with knowledge, or execution, while your team keeps decision-making authority.

It’s like hiring a chef for your home. They have the technical knowledge, but they’re not there to take over the kitchen. You still have a role to play in approving the menu and even the marketing budget.

The relationship between the marketing agency and internal team works best when both sides agree on the scope of work, owners of task, approval process and reporting structure before the work begins.

READ MORE: What should your brand strategy include? 

Start with the work your team cannot cover 

Your internal team can perfectly understand your product, customers and company better than an external partner, but they can lack time to run campaigns, manage public relations or maintain every marketing channel.

Look at the work your team struggles with or requires a skill they do not have currently. This gives the marketing agency a defined problem to solve and reduces the chance of two people butting heads. Clearly stating what each team will be handling ensures high efficiency and output from both parties.

Duplicated work usually results from unclear ownership and delegation. List and clearly define the recurring marketing tasks your team handles well and the ones that keep slipping and require extra help. Use Cold Open Lab’s Independent Marketing Breakdown to identify where your current marketing needs more support.

Decide what each team owns

Your internal team should own the tasks involving the business priorities, product knowledge and final approvals. Their tasks will revolve around providing customer information, company updates, brand materials and verified product claims. They also decide which commercial goals matter most.

The marketing agency, on the other hand, should own the work included in its agreed scope. Depending on the agreement, this may include tasks like developing a campaign approach, managing selected channels or analysing marketing performance. The agency can challenge the brief and recommend changes, but the internal team has the overall final say.

Both sides need to agree on campaign objectives, individual deliverables, timelines, dependencies and measures of progress before the project commences. Having this shared understanding of where everyone stands and what is required over time makes working together easier, seamless, and even more enjoyable.

Use a brief that answers practical questions

The recipe for a great working relationship between the internal and external teams begins with a useful brief.

A brief becomes useful when it clearly explains each party’s goal, audience, message, and definition of success for the campaign. These elements are important because they give everyone a clear reference point and understanding of the project.

The brief also needs to clearly state what the marketing agency needs from the internal team before, during and after the product. A delayed product detail, customer quote or executive approval from the internal team can hold up several pieces of work from the marketing agency.

A clear and useful brief states every deliverable required to achieve a business goal and names the information needed to complete it. Follow Cold Open Lab for practical guidance on how to manage marketing work with an external agency.

Give final approval to one person

You know how they say “too many chefs spoil the broth”? The same thing happens with approval. The entire team can contribute technical or operational feedback, but at the end of the day, approval should be the job of one individual.

Everybody in each team needs to know where they stand and be comfortable in their role. Whether they’re the person driving the process, the final approver, just a contributor or someone who just needs to receive weekly or monthly updates. Enforcing these distinctions makes everyone in the agency understand whom to go to for what action.

There needs to be an agreed point/person where feedback is submitted, conflicts are resolved, and approvals are done. This ensures that a quick feedback session is that and not a town hall meeting.

Review the work together

Having one person to report to doesn’t mean the rest of the team does not get to speak to each other while working. Iron sharpening iron is a recognised saying for a reason.

When both parties share information and review reports together, everyonemoves at  the same speed and efficiency is top priority. The agency can report what is published, audience response and campaign findings to the internal team. Your team will need to add sales enquiries, customer feedback or internal commercial information to show the fuller result.

These review sessions are important because they help decide what methods need to continue, what should be changed and what needs more work done.

Cold Open Lab is a marketing agency that works with internal teams across positioning, campaigns, content, social media, public relations, email and customer marketing.

We begin with a discovery call to understand your existing team, the current work at hand and the support gap before recommending where we need to come in.

The right agency/team relationship gives every responsibility a clear home. You need to be clear on your team’s skills, the support gap and what the approval process will look like before allocating tasks and responsibilities. Book a discovery call with Cold Open Lab to figure out where you need help and how we can come in to help.