As your agency grows, so should the sophistication of your performance measurements for both client campaigns and employee career advancement. However, complexity can become the antithesis of focus. It is easy to get caught up in the details, causing confusion as to where one’s time has the greatest value to the team and clients.
This is why it’s important to not lose sight of the big-picture factors that separate successful client campaigns and agencies from the rest: retention, growth and innovation.
The Performance Parallels
Client Campaign Performance
While the emphasis of your efforts will vary, client campaigns should be built with the overarching goals of:
- Build customer loyalty (retention).
- Gain new leads (growth).
- Execute on big ideas that lead to new opportunities or markets (innovation).
Strategically prioritize these goals and manage activities, using analytics and the client’s lifcecycle stage as a guide.
Agency Professional Performance
In the same way that you measure the overall effectiveness of client campaigns, you must also refine the core values that employees can contribute to the agency.
As professionals advance in their careers, so should key performance metrics for their clients and the agency overall. Professionals should also be managed and nurtured to elevate them to the next tier of their capabilities.
Look to your individual employees to live and breathe the same meaningful metrics that clients trust you to deliver.
- Retention: Those at junior phases of their careers (typically in in production-heavy roles) have the responsibility of retaining the accounts they support.
- Growth: In mid-level and account management roles, it is also imperative that employees grow their accounts. This makes way for additional support staff and progression of junior employees.
- Innovation: Senior level managers have the added layer of identifying, pursuing and closing opportunities that enable the agency to stay ahead, align with strategic partners, enter new markets and perpetuate for the future. All while still driving or supporting retention and growth.
You Be The Judge
While these themes might seem oversimplified with the increasing complexities of marketing, they are the true key to staying grounded and focused, and translate across various agency account and personnel management models. The most successful agencies spend time finding solutions to achieve these goals and sustain performance over time.
There’s no better way to get your team on the same page than by working toward universal ideals that will advance careers and build the agency. What are the key performance indicators for your agency team? How do they differ from the main goals of your client campaigns; how are they the same?
Image credit: Hub
