5 Questions to Ask Before You Start Working With Your Creative Content Agency

A creative content agency can be a great partner to help you achieve your marketing goals. Whether you need someone to help you produce content or figure out your content marketing budget for next financial year, they have the expertise to help you succeed.

But if you haven’t worked with a creative content agency, there are a few things you should know before you start.

First, know that when you hire a creative content agency, you’re entering a creative partnership. Thus, you should always feel like an active partner, and both sides should cultivate a relationship based on mutual respect.

Second, in our experience, many of the issues that can cause friction or between a brand and a creative content agency often come down to miscommunication, a lack of transparency, or uneven expectations. For this reason, we encourage clients to ask any and all questions when we start an engagement—no matter how silly or obvious those questions may seem.

That said, we know many brands aren’t exactly sure what to ask about, especially if they’re feeling intimidated because they’ve never worked with an agency before. So we thought we’d suggest a few questions to help guide that conversation.

The Questions to Ask Your Creative Content Agency

There are plenty of things that can upset or delay a project: simple oversights, confusion about process, etc. These questions can help you identify issues up front, understand how your creative content agency works, and—most importantly—help you ensure your work is successful.

FYI, a kickoff call is an ideal time to ask these questions, but you can ask questions at any point in the collaboration process. Also, a good agency will address many of these questions off the bat.

1. The single point of contact?

There are a lot of moving parts involved in content marketing. From strategy to content creation, you will have a lot of people doing a lot of different things. Hence, you need to identify the one person who will be your go-to throughout the process.

Simultaneously, you should identify the point person on your end. This person should facilitate communication, consolidate feedback, keep an eye on deadlines, and generally manage the project. You should also identify the team members who will need to approve things on your end.

Having too few or too many people involved is counterproductive and inefficient on many levels.

2. How much work is done in-house vs. outsourced?

In today’s world where content production is infinite and has different phases, it isn’t uncommon to work with other expert contracted content creators, such as a CGI and VFX production house or composer. One of the benefits of being a leading content producer is that they have a network of reliable pros at the ready.

3. What does your process look like?

Creative agencies are unique, every good content creator has their own voice and soul, but all of them should have an established process to get things done smoothly and on time. Ask your agency to walk you through their process, identifying every stage of production, the teams involved in it, and what contributions they need from you at each stage. This will also help you spot any potential issues or roadblocks.

If you prefer emails over conference calls, or Skype meetings instead of Slack, let them know.

For example, if they need feedback within 48 hours and for some unforeseen reason it’ll be impossible for you to check with team members and report during the given time period them make sure you communicate this with your creative agency.

4. What materials do you need from us?

We can’t tell you how many times a project has been stalled and shelved due to a missing asset. Thus, we can guarantee your agency will love you for asking this question.

Whether it’s a mandatory asset or a something small which might act as a beautiful accessory for the project, they’ll appreciate you being a proactive and considerate partner.

For example, in addition to brand related materials, we ask our partners to provide any and all inspiration they may have for a creative project. Whether that "inspiration" comes in the form of a commercial, a song, an Instagram post, or even a billboard, it’s a simple thing that catalysis the whole creative process.

5. How can we help make things go smoothly?

Apart from the obvious (stick to timelines, provide specific and on time feedback), there are likely a few simple things you can do for getting desirable results. Again, the better your relationship, the better work you’ll get. So be a happy and constructive partner for amazing outcomes.

We have been in the field of content production for years now and have established ourselves as a leading creative content agency in Delhi NCR through our consistency and unique on time delivery process. Our expertise has helped several brands take their game up a notch. From creating intriguing TV commercials to making animated explainer videos for B2B clients, we have done it all. If you’ll still anxious about joining hands with a creative content agency then joining hands with us will be the best thing you’ll do this year.

Content Studio is one of the best video production company based in Gurgaon. We offer product videos, 2d and 3d animation services, etc.