Discover how our expert media consultants help big advertisers select the best media agency for media strategy, planning, and buying. Enhance your media business success with Mediarisk.
Nelson Mandela once said, “A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.” Choosing a media specialist agency is exactly this. You are looking for an agency with the best strategic thinking, buying effectiveness, transparency, and compatible chemistry. Critical issues are often overlooked in this complex process without a media consultant. It takes multiple rounds of pitches and follow-ups to identify potential pitfalls and the prerequisites of a successful partnership. Ideally, the consultant needs also to align the advertiser’s internal media decision-making process and monitoring, enhancing accountability and fostering a clear management-wise understanding of media objectives and budgeting.
Understanding CPR: Why It Became Greece’s Key KPI for Media Agency Selection
- Simplicity: CPR is easy to understand. It’s a single number that even non-specialists can compare across agencies, provided that the qualitative aspects are equal—a task that’s not always straightforward.
- Ease of Decision-Making: Other factors require deeper knowledge and internal discussions, making CPR an appealingly straightforward metric.
- The obvious gap: between a routine selection process and a meaningful one lies both in the intro and the lines that follow.
Ensuring Efficiency and Effectiveness in Your Media Agency
To ensure your agency can deliver real value:
- Proof of Success: “Acta no verba”. Assess whether candidate agencies have already delivered competitive results solutions to other clients. Your media consultant will look for meaningful media achievements that predict an equally promissing handling of your own media business. Not just recycled ideas out of international promo literature.
- Proposed Metrics: Ask about the metrics the agencies currently provide to clients to measure success. Check if these are no more than “post-mortem” logistics. Pay special respect to whatever report helps push the envelope further.
Practical Tips for a Successful Media Agency Pitch
- Limit the Number of Agencies: Invite no more than 4 agencies. When fewer agencies compete, they are more likely to invest their full energy into winning your business. Too many contenders can lead to a “gambling” approach.
- Encourage Creativity: With up to 4 agencies, you increase the chances of receiving innovative, “out-of-the-box” proposals that could accelerate your business success.
- Respect Agencies’ Time: Keep your brief concise but detailed. Avoid overextending. Not one overextended brief has ever been put into action. Follow EACA’s endorsement to respect the agency’s resources in people and time.
- Be Precise and Analytical. Promote Transparency: Include market monitoring results and internal research in your brief to distinguish genuine thinkers who will make meaningful connections. Be prepared to offer reasonably higher compensation in exchange for openness in whatever kickbacks the media are providing.
- Develop a Scorecard: Create your evaluation criteria in advance and include them in the brief. By doing so, you are clearer on what you are looking for and you are also fulfilling your own part of a transparent process.
The Impact of a Well-Managed Media Pitch on Your Business.
- External Stakeholders: The way you conduct your media pitch affects your reputation. Agencies talk, and their impressions can influence a marketer’s or CEO career positively or negatively. Positive reviews from agencies can also attract more talented candidates to your company.
- Internal Stakeholders: A transparent and results-oriented pitch process boosts the marketing team’s confidence that success, long term & short, will be the basis for their own evaluation. Top management will also notice your ability to manage and judge effectively, enhancing its confidence in your leadership.
Key Takeaways for a Successful Media Agency Selection Process:
- Do not improvise. Seek the support of a seasoned media consultant. It is a negligeable cost for a process with huge impact to your business and your company and personal image.
- Follow best practices that the media consultant will lay down for you. Demand transparency and do your part also in this front, by being transparent by stating your selection criteria and weighting.
- The quality of your pitch process reflects directly on your personal image and on the reputation of your company. A well-conducted pitch not only leads to better agency partnerships, but also enhances the company image and your standing both internally and externally.
Contact us today to find the best media agency for your business.