Marketing retainer is a contractual agreement between a business and the marketing agency.
Business marketing is a vast field. Only professional and experienced business marketing experts understand various nitty-gritty of business marketing. For most of the businesses, it quite clear that business marketing is intended to provide them better or higher sales of products. Higher sales will generate better revenue, and eventually it will help the businesses to grow. One of the most important aspects of business marketing these days is a marketing retainer. Now, this is a term which is quite new to many people. So, what is marketing retainer all about? Having years of experience in the field of business marketing, I can say that every business owner should know about for better sales and revenue.
A Guide to Marketing Retainer
In simple words, marketing retainer is a contractual agreement between a business and the marketing agency. Under this agreement, the marketing agency is liable of providing full marketing solutions to the business owner. The contract can be yearly or quarterly or till the time which both parties mutually decide. Generally, marketing retainer agreement has been done on long term basis. It is not a project specific deal. That means the agency is responsible to take all the decisions that are helping the business to grow as a brand identity.
How a Marketing Retainer Works?
I have seen that there is no common template that marketing retainer agencies follow. Different agencies have different methods for planning business marketing. In fact, they take different decisions as well as approaches for different clients. The first stage of marketing retainer is to create a contract or agreement between the business and the marketing agency. Based upon negotiation, both parties will mutually decide a monthly budget for the business marketing related expenses. At the early stage, the agency tries to get business marketing related data. Fetching all the data at one platform will help to make better decisions. Analyzing data will help the agency to understand the areas where business marketing needs boost through innovative strategies. Decision making becomes accurate when data has been analyzed flawlessly.
At the early stage, common goals of business marketing will also be decided by the agency and the business. In my experience, common goals generally include the following things.
- It is important to fetch high number of visitors for the business website, as online presence matters a lot these days.
- Building brand awareness should be the goal of any marketing campaign. When a business emerges as a brand, it outshines the competitors.
- A business must focus on the sales graph. Ideally, the graph should show exponential growth. Hence, continuous growth of sales of the business should be a common goal.
- Increasing in-bound leads of the website is also crucial for the growth of a business.
Once goals are set, a business can chalk the plan of actions. A marketing campaign should include various traditional and creative tactics. For achieving different goals, different kinds of actions have to be taken. Like planning the goals, marketing retainer agency should also spend enough time to plan the tactics or strategies for growth of the business.
Benefits of Marketing Retainers for Businesses
Benefits of a marketing retainer should be viewed from two perspectives. The first perspective is the way how the business can be benefitted. The second perspective gives a view on how the marketing agency can be benefitted. So, I shall start with the business aspect first. How a business can be benefitted through marketing retainers? Well, you can take a note of the following points.
- Easier Cost Planning: Many times small businesses struggle with arranging the funds for the business marketing campaign. With marketing retainers, the business owners have clear idea on the cost right from the beginning stage. As a result, cost planning becomes easier. Predictable budget for the business marketing campaign does not lead to any financial crunch situations.
- Priority Service: Retainer agency focuses on auditing the data before staring planning the action plans. They start with the things that are urgently required for the business. There are some short term goals and there are some long term goals. Both of these goals are needed to be accomplished with precision.
- Easy Execution: A business owner may have a lot of ideas in mind. When the business owner decides choosing marketing retainer agency, it can implement the ideas with more precision. Outsourcing the business marketing campaign to an agency is different. The agency will follow its own rules and tactics for business marketing. Scope of personalization of the marketing campaign is low with orthodox service providers. Marketing retainer agency offers fully personalization.
- Better Results: I have seen that retainer agency fetches better results than normal marketing agencies. The reason is that retainer agency stay focused or dedicated on the job more than other agencies. Retainer agency will monitor ups and downs. It will change plans when it is required.
Benefits of Marketing Retainers for Agencies
So, marketing retainer is of course beneficial for a business. But, here comes another question. Will it be beneficial for the agency too? Well, let us look at the benefits below.
- Enhanced Focus: An agency can dedicate its whole time and efforts on a client without being concerned about monthly revenue. Like the clients, agency shall know the revenue that it can potentially generate. It will also have the idea about the workload that it has to deal with. The focus is more enhanced.
- Better Services to Clients: With marketing retainer contracts, an agency can assure providing better services to clients. Better service means fetching the expected results for clients through effective business marketing.
I have experience of more than 16 years in the field of business marketing. I have worked with notable and prestigious businesses. Think of me as your “Marketing Director”. Assurance of excellent business marketing results for clients is what I always commit.
