Optimizing Agency Communication and Internal Marketing Alignment

In this episode of the Vera Shafiq podcast, Vera explores the key challenges faced by CMOs and marketing leaders, including agency communication, internal team alignment, and overall marketing performance. Drawing from her experience on both the agency side and within franchise brand leadership, she discusses strategies for improving agency relationships, defining clear metrics, and determining an effective meeting structure. 

The episode also covers the advantages and disadvantages of consolidating services under one agency versus working with specialized teams, the importance of structuring internal marketing teams for maximum efficiency, and integrating the right technology to track performance accurately. Vera emphasizes the importance of aligning agency efforts with business objectives and maintaining proactive, open communication between internal and external teams. 

Lastly, she touches on how to effectively involve franchisees in marketing strategies, ensuring a balance between centralized control and local creativity.

00:00 Introduction and Overview

00:53 Improving Agency Communication

07:28 Internal Team Structure and Accountability

10:52 Marketing Performance and Strategy

14:00 Agency Transition and Alternative Approaches

16:04 Franchisee Involvement and Local Marketing

17:34 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Transcript

0:13

Hello and welcome back to the Vera Shafiq podcast. Today we're gonna dive headfirst into some of the most pressing challenges that marketing leaders and CMOs face every day, whether it's improving agency communication, tightening up internal team alignment, or boosting overall marketing performance. I know many of you have tried a multitude of approaches. And today's conversation is less about reinventing the wheel and more about fine tuning what works. And I wanted to share my dual hat experiences from both the agency side and inside franchise brand leadership. So let's kick it off. Let's start off with agency communication and alignment. I've seen firsthand, as I'm sure you have, that even when the ideas of the agency are strong and the promise of stellar results sounds solid, the execution can often suffer if there isn't a truly aligned relationship. So how do you establish a better working relationship with your agency or agencies? I think it begins with setting the right expectations. So establish a clear strategic communication cadence. I think that's firstly the priority, and that might mean regular check-ins, but these should be not just status updates, but true strategy sessions. So I think it's really important to have the right people on these sessions with your agency. So before even signing a contract with an agency. I strongly recommend that you find out who you and your team will be working with from a strategic perspective. So who is that person or persons who are going to really lead and guide the strategy and be on the same page as what you need in terms of driving positive business outcomes. So push for meeting with that individual or set of individuals. To understand if they really will be able to translate your business needs into a well-oiled machine. And then when you meet with your agency for strategy sessions, consider setting an agenda that covers your brand's long-term objectives so that you make sure that your agency understands the nuances of your franchise model and growth plans. After all, the ideal agency partner isn't just here to execute your campaigns, but really is a partner in your long-term vision. So I really think that it's important that agenda is covered way ahead of time. And while you may have to sometimes address under performance with your agency, this is obviously something that may come up. The key is to do so constructively. So define clear metrics, whether that's lead quality, conversion rates, franchise engagement levels, and then hold your agency accountable against these benchmarks. Always ask them, are they delivering beyond just vanity metrics and are they actually delivering positive business outcomes? Because one thing that I've really seen way too often is an agency reporting on metrics that aren't representative of the brands overarching business goals. So you probably, you've seen it as well, right? An agency might try and frame the results as positive by celebrating things like high traffic volume or. Lots of page views or lots of clicks, or even high engagement when the true revenue drivers really aren't there. So I really think you need to have someone on your internal team who's acutely sensitized to this and understands the pitfalls of, reporting on the wrong metrics. And, this person should really understand that, how to spot that this is happening, number one. And secondly, if it does happen, how can they put things back on the right track in terms of following the metrics that matter? What about meeting structures with your agency? I've seen many CMOs struggle with repetitive unproductive meeting structures. And I think the main challenge is trying to streamline the sessions that you have with your agency. On focusing on strategic issues that are really gonna move the needle rather than doing mundane updates. So ask yourself, what are the key topics that drive real value? And then ensure that every meeting includes a discussion of these key topics. So if your agency isn't yet familiar with the local challenges that each of your franchisees faces, or if the agency is still not quite hitting the mark in terms of optimizing towards seasonality or understanding some key factors behind your industry, it might be time for a bit of an extra education or even a workshop to get them up to speed. Sometimes the agency partnership can fall into a rut of spinning wheels or going through the motions, and this happens quite a lot when you know things have just been running on. Autopilot, set it and forget it. And sometimes, these meetings can get really caught up in the weeds of so much minutia that really is not important to driving results. And then you'll find that nothing substantial is getting achieved with the marketing program. So when you, you know, sense even an inkling of this happening, make sure that you have. Number one, a set of ears and eyes on the agency relationship that can prevent this from happening. So whether that's yourself as the CMO or the director of marketing or whoever that may be, make sure you have that really sharp set of ears and eyes on the agency. And then lastly, there's the classic dilemma. Should you consolidate services under one umbrella agency or work with specialized teams? I think each approach has its trade-offs. A consolidated agency can offer cohesive strategy, but might lack specialized local insights. On the other hand, multiple specialized agencies can provide depth in their respective areas, but this may lead to coordination, chaos. So my advice is evaluate your priorities. If integration and brand consistency are top of your list, then a single agency might be more effective. But I also know how hard it is to find a single agency that does everything well. There's so many aspects of marketing that can be really niche and specialized. So local marketing, creative development strategy, brand advertising. And then you've got pr, you've got SEO, conversion rate optimization, and then social media management. So if anyone knows of one agency that is really. Excellent at doing all of these things, then please send me the information because I have yet to find one. And so I think if you're truly needing hyper specialized skills, which I think most mature franchise brands are in need of then multiple agency partners is the way to go. And that's, something that you can definitely do and pull off really well. You just need to carefully manage those multiple vendors with a dedicated internal liaison. All right. Let's move on to internal marketing team structure and accountability. So switching gears to your internal team, how should you structure that for maximum efficiency? I see one common pitfall is creating a scenario where your team feels like they're intermediaries, right? And they're just simply shuttling information between leadership and the agency. And to avoid this, I would say define clear roles and responsibilities. Have a dedicated agency liaison, as I mentioned before, on your team. And this person's not just gonna bridge the communication gap, but also is gonna champion your internal strategic vision. And can be the person I talked about who makes sure that performance is really being measured, using the right metrics, deciding what should be in-house versus outsourced is another balancing act. And I think investing in full-time employees with strategic insight, brand continuity culture, and all of these things are important. And then for tactical execution, I think it's great to have external partners that can be really effective in helping you actually execute. But I think it's all about playing to your team's strengths and making sure that they are effectively conveying the right information to and from your agency team. So I think in order to help this along or facilitate this whole process. You'll need to utilize collaboration tools that help to align efforts. So these could be tools that like, a shared project management tool. You have tools like Asana, Trello, you have so many tools available on, the native systems of Google and Microsoft. But make sure that you do have an agreed upon tool and then use these tools during your regular strategy Syncs. I cannot stress enough. The importance of having that predetermined, centralized set of tools or platforms that both your team and your agency partners agree upon. Because this is where you're gonna share documents and assets. You're gonna have project status in one single place, single source of truth. You're gonna be able to communicate efficiently and you're gonna be able to agree on success criteria. And then. Really keeping your internal team motivated is critical, right? Many of you have likely faced the challenge of re-energizing a group that's worn out or burnt out from constantly managing external partners. It can get pretty, demanding and tiring. And at the end of the day, you need to encourage innovation by giving your internal team space to experiment with new ideas. So empower them with the right tools and then a clear vision so that they feel invested in the outcome rather than just giving them directives to follow. And I know it's easier said than done, but I really do think having regular time set aside with your team to talk candidly about agency partners and how it's going, if anything isn't working, whether from a communication performance or alignment perspective. It needs to be fixed before things get out of hand. So having these internal check-ins very regularly is critical. Alright, that's a nice segue into marketing, performance and strategy. So at the heart of every discussion is marketing performance. How do you align your efforts with the broader business objectives? The answer lies in a constant evaluation of impact versus effort. So it's essential to focus on high impact initiatives that drive real business growth. So I keep hammering this home, right? The business growth needs to come first. We don't wanna be chasing vanity metrics, so we need to really be ensuring that the agency's campaigns are scrutinized not only for creative quality, but for the ability to drive revenue and ROI. We touched on this earlier, but I again cannot stress it enough. And then, in order to improve performance and strategy, you've got to identify the inefficiencies. Inefficiencies are gonna creep up every now and then. You're gonna start seeing recurring areas where your time and your budget are drained. And often the answer lies in a lack of integration between your technology system. So this is shifting focus now into MarTech and really doubling down on your marketing technology systems. If you can't tell if your marketing efforts are driving quality leads, or you're not sure if sales are, coming out of marketing efforts. That's probably because there's a big black hole between your marketing dollars and the dollars that you are getting back as revenue. And this is a really tough one for many marketing leaders, and again, easier said than done, but I think embracing automation and going after a really robust MarTech stack is going to help streamline communication and data sharing. And then it will be easier to report on performance and easier to see. What actually is driving good value in terms of your marketing program? So make technology integrations a priority initiative on your roadmap, and then be smart about it. So this could be, I would say this could be the single most effective action you'll take to improve accountability, but also to ensure that you have a real time pulse on what's working and what's not. Finally on the subject of performance, as you plan your marketing budget, find the right balance between national branding and local franchisees support. This decision should be guided by clear data, so should franchisees have more control over their local budgets, or is a centralized approach better for maintaining brand consistency? The best practices here typically involve a mixed of centralized strategy. With localized execution that's supported by regular feedback loops and performance data. But depending on how mature your brand is, you could be ready for more of a national, regional, and a local approach to marketing. And this one's a really big rabbit hole that we could go down. So I'll save it for a future episode. All right, let's move on to agency transition and alternative approaches. So sometimes the hard truth is that an agency just isn't cutting it. Okay, when should you consider a switch? This is, again, a question that I hear a lot. Red flags might include persistent under performance, misalignment with your long-term strategy or a breakdown in communication. So if you decide that a change is needed, plan the transition meticulously. So be sure that you have an exit strategy and a roadmap for onboarding a new agency partner to avoid disruption. Obviously, this is. A no brainer, but easier said than done. So this is the third time I'm saying this. It is easier said than done and really does require courage and conviction. I would say if it's time to make the change, then bite the bullet. Because one thing you should really avoid is sticking with an agency that's not the right fit for you. And you stick with them because you feel like you have no other option that can get very dangerous. So I strongly urge you to just play it calm and create that exit strategy, create the plan, and then move on and find the partner that's right for you. There's also the question of whether to build more in-house capabilities. So this is another one that's coming up a lot, which is, how much of the work can we do in-house versus outsourcing to an agency? And I think bringing functions in-house can lead to greater control and potentially deeper brand understanding. But it also does come with risks, and those risks are primarily around resource allocation and talent availability. So evaluate your internal capabilities honestly. Do you have the skills, the bandwidth, and the culture to support a fully fledged internal marketing team? Usually a hybrid approach is the most effective, and you can maintain strategic oversight internally while leveraging external expertise for execution. All right, and finally, franchisees and franchisee involvement. How do we look at this and. Handle this whole layer of complexity, right? You need your franchisees not just to follow directives, but you need them to be active partners in your marketing strategy. Again, communication here is key, and I know most franchise brands have regular franchisee marketing meetings or workshops where you can present case studies, you can share data and collaboratively refine strategies. But striking the right balance between that centralized control and local autonomy is essential. While franchisees running their own campaigns might risk inconsistent messaging and all of that Wild West, right? The dangers of that, going crazy and not following brand guidelines and everything that comes with that. I also think too much of a rigid oversight. Can stifle local creativity. And after all, the magic in the marketing happens when you equip those franchisees with, you know how to do local marketing at its best, right? And so this only comes with compelling training, providing some vivid success stories and real world examples, and mobilizing your franchisees to fully leverage the corporate marketing resources for their local efforts, while also empowering them. To offer valuable ideas and feedback as true strategic partners. Phew. That's a lot to be thinking about and staying on top of. And it truly is a lot of plates to keep spinning at one time. And really what makes the job of a franchise CMO or marketing leader such a wild ride? And I completely understand and I completely empathize with each and every one of you that are going through this right now. If I had to give you one piece of advice and I had to fix one thing, the first thing that I would do is to create the clear strategic alignment between your agency and your internal team. So ask yourself, what's the single most impactful action you can take today to improve this alignment? Many times we tend to struggle by treating agency relationships and internal team management as separate silos. Instead, think of them as interconnected pieces of the same puzzle. So streamline communication, clarify roles, leverage technology, and most importantly, maintain a proactive and strategic mindset. I will say the strategies discussed today aren't necessarily new. But to stay on top of all of them and be successful means you will need to continually refine them and be open to adapting and evolving. So whether you are re-energizing an existing team or evaluating a long-term agency partnership, the key is to always keep your overarching business objectives front and center. Thanks for joining me on the podcast today. I hope these insights got you thinking and maybe sparked some ideas for changing things up and trying new approaches. Until next time, keep challenging the status quo and striving for marketing excellence.