If you’ve shopped around for a marketing agency in 2024, you’ll notice a similar sales pitch. All claim to be genius-level creatives, courageously leading their clients in the battle of public opinion, making it easy for consumers to part with their dollars.
While that’s a nice sales tactic, the marketing agency model hasn’t shifted much throughout the decades—at least at more traditional firms. It’s still an adapted version of “Mad Men,” where big egos clash and campaigns are largely run by “audience vibes,” rather than “audience research.”
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In 2024, we’re living in the future where “traditional” is consistently washed away for something newer, better, greater and shinier. That doesn’t mean what’s new is always better than what’s old, but it’s about finding a balanced mix of “what we know works” and “what could work better.”
Here are the five forward-thinking qualities to look for in your 2024 marketing agency.
A Consultative Approach
Your cousin’s son’s friend is working on his graphic design degree and can probably design an acceptable, aesthetically-pleasing logo for your business, but how would he get to the final product? What research led him to that particular aesthetic? Does he understand your brand? What makes this logo your logo?
At The James Agency, we take pride in getting into the minds of our clients—what makes them tick and what makes them light up. Through a process we’ve dubbed Stratagem, we get to know our clients, digging deeper to find answers, discover solutions, and clarify your brand through immersion, creative exercises, and consultative marketing leadership.
This consultative approach allows us to answer the hard questions for our clients and pinpoint the marketing disciplines we’ll focus on to meet our mutually agreed upon goals—including creative, social media, public relations, paid media and web development.
Our collaborative, integrated approach has created standout campaigns for our clients, including USA Pickleball, Fox Restaurant Concepts and Belgravia Group. But don’t take our word for it—see the results here.
An Integrated Agency
“Full service” is a term that marketing agencies throw around to assure clients that they can handle all facets of marketing needs. It’s also a term that’s been exaggerated by many agencies that lean on external contractor help in several marketing disciplines.
If your marketing agency doesn’t specialize in the marketing discipline you engage them for, that means no one is a subject matter expert in the work you need. At The James Agency, we prefer the term “integrated” rather than “full service.” Our full-time, on-site employees work together to solve big questions for our clients, leaning into our longstanding leadership team’s subject matter expertise and new, fresh perspectives from junior employees.
That can look like internal brainstorm meetings where we think big toward our clients’ goals, “North Star” meetings to guide our team to the “bottom line” for a campaign, and client immersion days, during which our team gains a better understanding of how your business operates.
Above all else, engaging a fully-integrated marketing agency means you are getting passionate specialists who actually talk to each other, ensuring your campaign functions seamlessly across marketing channels.
A Strong Company Culture
It’s a tale as old as time. You engage a marketing agency, fall in love with your new account manager, and three weeks later, they no longer work there.
Marketing agencies are a high staff turnover business. The hours can be long and the list of client requests can be longer. That means, oftentimes, only the strong and passionate survive.
Before engaging a marketing agency, ask about staff turnover. A well-established and reputable agency will openly boast about its employees and their tenure. At The James Agency, we make sure our employees stick around by creating strong connections at every turn, including team builds, quarterly meetings where employees get to see the inner workings of the business, over-the-top holiday parties, and “pops of fun”—random delights of fun or food throughout the year.
Diverse Portfolio Spanning Industries
Highly niche marketing agencies exist, and they might be a good fit if your needs are narrow and specific. But if you’re looking to really stand out, your marketing agency should have an array of client experiences spanning industries to draw from.
Not only does trusting your brand and marketing to a diverse marketing agency drive more creative work, but it ensures your brand stays fresh in the eyes of your agency. Do you want to be the 10th Italian restaurant on your agency’s roster, or do you want to be THE Italian restaurant in your agency’s eyes?
Plus, who doesn’t like a little collab? At The James Agency, we’re constantly connecting our clients across industries for crossover activation ideas, which increases brand visibility for both clients. It’s a win-win!
Understanding New Tech Trends
ChatGPT is the beginning—not the end all, be all. Emerging AI tools are debuted every day, and your marketing agency should be able to understand their power.
Sure, it can develop a script or logo quickly, but can AI fully understand your brand on a human level? After all, you’re hoping to connect to your very human audience.
Ongoing education is essential to understanding new tech trends. Our team regularly attends conferences, lunch and learns and happy hours to learn from the best. TJA’s Art Director, Lauren Henry, attended the 2024 Adobe MAX Conference to learn about the best tools in graphic design, including which ways it can help (or hurt) your brand.
While many agencies might look at AI in fear of being replaced, our agency sees it as an opportunity to level-up our skills and a jumping off point for groundbreaking campaigns.
Author: Christina Caldwell is Director of Public Relations at The James Agency, Scottsdale’s woman-led, fully-integrated marketing agency. To learn more, visit www.thejamesagency.com.
