Advantages of process management in marketing agencies

There are several benefits that marketing agencies today can take advantage of through process management to improve the way they work and deliver a more personalized customer service tailored to their requirements. However, there are still agencies that do not adapt to the current times, to the demands of producing more while investing the least amount of resources.

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Due to this resistance to change, agencies can face numerous problems stemming from the lack of formalized processes. In our experience, the most common problems that may arise are the lack of predictability of future demand, the work overload of employees, or the difficulty of directors and managers in delegating their functions and responsibilities.

Also, the operations team may manifest an inability in customer management, for example, on-time delivery of deliverables. To all this, customers who hire these agencies are unaware that to perform the service they end up working more because they do not have structured work. As a result, the agencies are economically harmed and customers do not receive the service within the established period.

As a result, they will not be able to count how many times they will have to meet with customers to make modifications and what type of modifications are needed to move the project forward.

Therefore, we began to consider that process management in marketing agencies can add value. We will deal with this topic in this article. Next, we have made a list of the attributes offered by starting to work by processes.

1. It provides greater visibility in the results by better distributing the workload.

Process management in marketing agencies allows us to understand how activities are repeated in a logical way that leads to more visible and precise results. This helps to measure the real workload of each employee to better sequence and order it.

That is why when we recognize that certain events are recurrent, by structuring processes so that they are carried out, we begin to notice an increase in employee productivity, because they will constantly know what tasks to perform next. Thanks to this knowledge, the problem of work overload could be added, reduced or dismissed, since the distribution of work will be more equitable and organized.

When you have processes, you can really determine at what point you are overloaded or not, and based on this, take measures aimed at balancing the distribution of work between teams.

2. It allows to measure what is failing and what is not.

Obtaining visibility over the processes allows us to map and analyze the possible failures that could be affecting the results and implement improvements aimed at optimizing the performance of the processes, in such a way that it is easier for employees to carry them out. This way, they'll not only get the job done in less time, but they'll do it with more enthusiasm because they'll know how to do it better.

3. It can increase subsequent customer satisfaction.

This allows the agencies to present to their customers the stages that the sales process will go through, from where corrections can be made, what type they can be, before starting the business relationship; and in response to this, their expectations are managed. By taking these early actions, the operations team can start working more predictably.

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4. It allows to have predictability about the number of employees  needed at each stage.

In terms of sales, in a commercial process that involves the moment people show interest in the negotiation stage with the sales representatives, until they become real customers, process management will help us understand what number of employees there are, those necessary to move forward with the customer at each stage of the buyer's journey.

In this way, predictability of future demand can be obtained, and the operations team, through an established and functional process to the needs of the agency but above all to the needs of the customer, can determine if it needs more employees or not.

5. It helps delegate.

When the tasks are clear for employees, they can be taught to optimize the execution of those steps and begin to delegate. Therefore, when the tasks and roles are defined, you can start to delegate and take charge of the strategic direction of the agency, start looking for new business units, start controlling and managing the improvement of those same processes to win greater strength in future results.

6. It reduces variability in results.

Processes at some point must be standardized. Many times in marketing agencies they excuse themselves when the results are variable in that they simply respond to the creative process. However, even ideas and creativity can be processed, so a certain time can be set to execute that creativity of creating those pieces and bringing them down to reality.

In this sense, priorities can be established where we will have certain customers for whom creativity will be important and we will allocate a certain amount of time. But later we could have other customers for whom the same creativity will be just a detail and, therefore, it will simply require that we assign control and validation stages to the pieces made.

In this way, marketing agencies can organize themselves by being creative, because when carrying out original work, it is mapped in time, costs can be measured and results generated, and consequently, people work more comfortably and motivated.

7. It allows you to develop a methodical action plan to meet the objective.

Through a process, the stated objective can be executed by developing a methodical action plan that meets it, understanding time, people, roles. We can even consider the technological tools that provide more support and offer more agility to these processes, but understanding that a digital tool without a formalized process does not solve the problems.

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In summary, management by processes in marketing agencies balances the workload among employees, helps to delegate functions, reduces the variability of results by offering greater regularity, favors the fulfillment of objectives and, for all of this, improves customer satisfaction to meet their expectations.

This translates into more profitable business and a greater number of referrals provided by the same customers.