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Key Takeaways
Treat Your Agency as a Partner, Not Just a Vendor: Approach your agency relationship as a partnership where success is mutual. Your agency brings expertise in vacation rental marketing, while you contribute local knowledge and insights about your market and business goals. Collaboration fosters better results.
Maintain Open and Timely Communication: Your marketing agency needs consistent input from you to perform effectively. Be responsive to their requests for approvals, information, and feedback. Lack of communication can stall projects, delay deliverables, and diminish results.
Set Realistic and Measurable Goals: Define success clearly at the outset. Use the SMART framework—Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound—to align your expectations with the agency’s efforts. For example, instead of saying, “I want more bookings,” specify the target increase in bookings and timeframe.
Participate in Strategy and Execution: While your agency handles the heavy lifting, your involvement ensures the work aligns with your vision and needs. Review deliverables, provide timely feedback, and be the final quality check. Your input ensures that marketing aligns with your brand.
Recognize the Long-Term Nature of Marketing Efforts: Marketing, especially strategies like SEO or direct mail, often takes time to yield results. Be patient, track incremental progress, and trust the process. Focus on indicators like impressions and engagement to gauge early success before expecting major outcomes.
Collaborate During Monthly or Regular Check-Ins: Use meetings with your agency to review data, discuss strategies, and refine your approach. The first portion of the meeting should focus on performance metrics, but the majority should involve actionable discussions about what’s next and how to improve.
Be Open to Feedback and Adjustments: Marketing efforts aren’t static. Be willing to adapt your goals and tactics based on data, market conditions, and feedback from your agency. Flexibility helps you and your agency optimize performance over time.
Respect the Team and Their Time: Treat your agency team with professionalism and kindness. A positive working relationship motivates your agency to go the extra mile for you. Conversely, unkindness or micromanagement can strain the partnership.
Pay Invoices on Time: Ensure your agency is compensated promptly to maintain goodwill and uninterrupted service. Proactive payment behavior also signals mutual respect for the partnership.
Balance Expectations and Accountability: While you rely on your agency to deliver results, understand that marketing success depends on collaboration. Set clear expectations but avoid overloading them with unrealistic demands or leaving them to work without your involvement.
What We Cover In This Episode
In this episode, Conrad and Paul break down something very different: how to be a good client! Being a good client means that we can find win-win situations.
