In-house agencies feel pressure from all directions: Too many internal clients are making too many demands. And the direction, information and resources needed to get the job done are often in short supply.
The result can be a working environment that feels like a pressure cooker, where stress levels are high, internal clients less-than-satisfied and quality levels not always up to par.
Increasingly in-house agency leaders are changing all that. Rather than settling for a role not worthy of their group’s time and talent (and that of their internal clients), they’re adopting the best practices that empower their teams to become central to their company’s marketing and sales success.
Read on for the 6 actions you can take now to optimize your in-house agencyoperations:
- Be deliberate. Many in-house agencies simply evolve and the result is an organization that “just happened.” Knowing what capabilities are needed by internal clients, what capabilities exist today, and which of these capabilities should be outsourced must be evaluated and managed by leadership, and deployed for a durable operating model that meets the needs of broader marketing communications across the firm.
- Run like a business. Instead of only reacting to intake requests, corporate creative services groups are learning to operate innovatively: instilling structure; applying data; testing strategies and tactics; managing costs; and quantifying resource requirements for their internal clients.
- Embrace the difference. Understanding that the way an internal agency works is nothing like any other functional area in your organization is important: processes that work elsewhere won’t work here. They must be collaborative and iterative and flexible enough to accommodate the way creatives need to approach their rounds of work.
- Get support. A creative services agency needs strategic support to effectively operate. More marketing leaders are realizing it takes C-level input (company and marketing strategy, vision, goals and objectives) to assure in-house agency output is on the money.
- Eliminate creative redundancy. Incorporating the capability to create-once, publish-everywhere in processes for all creative-asset types (and stop reinventing the wheel) is fundamental to optimizing in-house agency operations.
- Manage workflow well. Visibility at a granular level every step of the way is vital. While technology is part of the answer, a well-crafted operating model and supporting processes are the foundation for effective campaign and project management.
For marketing communications teams looking to move to an agency model, or for those that are already there but recognizing optimization is in order, learn more. Zee Jay Digital can help you cook up the right in-house agency operating model for your creative services group—supported by end-to-end process and on-target technology—that takes the pressure off. Ask us more about how Zee Jay can help you improve your operations and advance your organization.
