As a client working with any consultant, agency or advisor, you probably want but don’t always get a clear insight into the management framework they adhere to in the process of managing the work they’re undertaking. What’s their process for communicating how they’re tracking – weekly, monthly, quarterly results? How do they stay on top of what tasks have been completed and what’s outstanding? And how do they assess how the tasks being performed are contributing to the overall business objectives and targets?
In this article, we provide an overview of the management framework you can expect from Due North as your digital marketing agency. These are the activities that we will perform to successfully manage and report on the marketing projects we perform on your behalf. Our management framework is designed to provide maximum transparency and visibility around every aspect of our work – primarily the tasks performed and planned and results achieved.
Marketing Managers
Every client is assigned a senior marketing manager responsible for creating, overseeing and driving your marketing project. Equipped with a broad range of skills and years of experience, our marketing managers are capable of both creating the strategic direction and executing the plan. They work closely with our speciality teams in search and web development to deliver on all aspects of the plan, and just like a Marketing Manager employed by your organisation would, they will work closely with you to monitor, review and adjust course where necessary.
Reporting
One of the first steps we perform when we start working together is to define your reporting requirements. Together we’ll agree on what we should be tracking and reporting depending on the nature of your business. From this, we’ll build a customised dashboard which provides you with access to live data for you to access at any time to see how you’re tracking.
For example, if you’re a service orientated business with a sales team, then you may want to be tracking sales activity, leads, enquiries and sales. If you’re an e-commerce business, you’ll want to ensure you’re tracking transactions, conversion rates and repeat business rates. Every business’ requirements are unique and whilst there are some metrics that will apply across most businesses we want to ensure we’re tracking and reporting on what’s important to you.
Weekly
Every week, we’ll flick you a quick email to touch base and let you know our priorities for the week. This is a great opportunity to review last week’s results, and also to highlight any red flags or issues. It’s also a great opportunity for you to provide input, ask questions and influence efforts on specific tasks.
What you can expect:
A link to your Data Studio report that outlines how your digital marketing is performing – top-level weekly results, as well as a snapshot of results from the last 6 months. We’ll also provide a list of the tasks that are on the radar for the week, which gives you an opportunity to chime in and shuffle things around if necessary to address other priorities.
Monthly
Let’s chat! Each month we will schedule 30 minutes to touch base either over the phone or face to face depending on what you prefer to discuss your monthly report. This is an important opportunity to discuss how things are progressing, identify and discuss challenges and opportunities, and plan the next month’s activities taking into account any shifts in business strategies or objectives and/or last month’s performance.
What you can expect:
A link to your Data Studio monthly report outlining detailed results on how each aspect of your digital marketing is performing: website, Google Ads, organic, GMB as well as insights about your audience. We’ll also send you a summary of high priorities for the month, tasks that are next on the list, tasks for down the track and a list of all completed tasks in the month prior.
Quarterly
Let’s do coffee! If there’s one thing we love at Due North its good food and good coffee. We like to use the close of each quarter as an opportune time to catch up face to face to discuss, debate and plan where we’re at, where we’d like to be and plan how we’re going to get there. In most instances, the quarterly review and plan will stem from the annual strategy and plan of attack, taking into account any shifts in priorities or objectives as per discussion with the client. We’ll review results from the last quarter, check we’re on track to reach goals and objectives for next quarter and review/adjust the plan in order to hit targets based on what’s working and what’s not.
What you can expect:
We’ll prepare a quarterly report with results from the last quarter, together with a summary and the planned tasks for the upcoming quarter. Once the plan of attack has been agreed on, we’ll prepare a project plan outlining all the steps involved in executing the plan.
Annually
Every year, whether you like it or not we’re coming for you! We want to sit down with you to discuss the big picture outcomes from the year that was; the highlights, the big rock challenges, areas to improve on. It’s also when we’ll plan for the year ahead.
What you can expect:
We’ll prepare an annual results presentation to include top-level performance, key initiatives undertaken, challenges and annual results for key activities. We’ll want to also revisit some of the original parameters we established in our initial engagement meetings such as:
- Overall goals and objectives
- Targets/KPIs
- Target audience
It’s a great opportunity to brainstorm and get the ideas flowing – what should we start doing, stop doing and keep doing and what new opportunities exist that we should be considering? We’ll aim to agree on the top 3-5 initiatives that we’ll focus on and also agree on the budget moving forward.
Following the meeting, we’ll prepare an annual strategy for your review incorporating the outcomes from our discussion, and send to you for your approval. Once approved, you can expect our first 90-day project plan to kick things off!
At the end of the day, a great management framework comes down to transparency and open and honest dialogue between client and agency. It takes time and effort to do it right, but once you’ve got a process that’s working, it’s important to stick to it so expectations are set and met.
