Do you watch the TV show Mad Men? When it’s not peering into the characters’ personal lives, it focuses on an ad agency’s efforts to land big, multi-million dollar accounts, to sign them to a year-long contract. This serves two purposes: a steady stream of income for the agency and consistency for the client’s advertising messages.

Of course, TV isn’t reality, and while we have quite a few clients who we’ve very happily worked with for years, some of our client relationships are on-again-off-again. Those clients seem to like to spread the work around, so we’ll do one campaign, then they hire someone else to do the next, then they’ll call us again. We’re not sure if they are just reluctant to put all their eggs in one basket, or if they have a fear of commitment.

After all, there are numerous benefits to establishing long-term relationships between agency and client – including knowing the client’s particular likes and dislikes, the thinking behind the brand, what the CEO insists on, what Compliance will have a fit over, etc. With long-term clients we are able to develop a shorthand that saves time and money and, in the long run, gives everyone the space and flexibility to create great, award-winning work together.

Now, I understand that this may sound self-serving coming from an agency, but please know that what we want most is for you is to be extremely successful in growing your credit union. So, even if you can’t use your favorite agency for everything, here are a few guidelines to follow when creating your marketing messages:

• Be consistent in the style, feel, emotion, and message in every communication. If you have an established brand, use it and know how to communicate what it is. If you have no clearly-defined brand, at the very least decide on a look for your marketing.
• Choose a few things to focus on and do them well, instead of trying to do everything all at once.
• Sustain your efforts long enough that the message reaches its target, and measure it to be sure. Stop thinking “flavor of the month” when it comes to your marketing plan.

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Got any advice for your agency? We’d love to hear it!

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