Evernine Group – Why 2020 will bring change in the agency industry

Corporate communications will become increasingly digital, traditional channels disappear or merge, while new challenges such as programmatic marketing increase the competitive pressure on marketers. Many classic agencies, which are purely committed to creativity or individual disciplines, find it difficult to meet these demands. Above all, the often inadequate range of consulting services on offer represents a major challenge. In this context, the communications consultancy Evernine Group presents its approach to successfully meet the changes in the agency industry.

 

Regardless of which industry companies operate in – these days there are two major challenges in their own corporate communications: on the one hand, the communications set wants to be converted into digital structures, and on the other hand, in times of tougher competition, management pressure is increasing to generate successful results through communications activities such as PR & marketing. Agencies are often commissioned to do this. As a result, marketers increasingly want technological consulting and concepts for effective and measurable results of activities, such as campaigns, in addition to classic creativity.

 

The consulting competence is often still low

The classic agency model has a problem at this point: In the past, many agencies often concentrated too much on creatively implementing challenges and projects as service providers – regardless of whether the assignment is in the areas of development (e.g. websites), creation (e.g. product marketing) or campaigns (social media campaigns). Not infrequently, there has even been an accusation of “histrionics”: In the wrong place, agencies are accused of unpacking the love of detail. Sometimes a reputation that the industry certainly has to put up with and why many agencies are also considered very “expensive”.

 

However, the digital transformation of corporate communications has other challenges. It requires a result-oriented approach or even concrete projects that can be successfully implemented piece by piece, for example, via a common “fail-forward” culture (provided that measurability is ensured from the outset) and thus actually has an agency as a counterparty that is not satisfied with its role as a purely creative part, but instead accompanies or even leads the client at eye level thanks to digital consulting competence – even in primarily creative projects.

 

In concrete terms, this means that no matter which discipline an agency belongs to, it can be helpful for both parties – client and agency – if the agency is familiar with the entire chain of project challenges through the assignment and can advise on this in context. In the case of a campaign, this would not only be the ability to create, but also the know-how of which channels are to be used in which interaction or how measurability, play out and evaluation of the associated step-by-step process can be ensured. Famous is the negative example of the fancy video produced by an agency at a six-figure cost, which starved on YouTube with less than 1,000 views.

 

Questioning classic agency models

In other words: No matter whether SEO agency, creative agency or full-service offer – classic agency models want to be questioned, as long as they are purely “reactive”. A possible solution is shown by the path taken by the communications consultancy Evernine Group. It is expanding its full-service operations business with two complementary service areas for clients.

 

In addition to the classic agency services – such as creation, storytelling, PR, media, event management as well as web design, programming and app development – the Evernine Group now also offers its own consulting approach as well as complete outsourcing of central communication activities up to completely outsourced campaigns.

Leading the customer proactively through consulting

With this consulting approach, Evernine supports selected industries already on a strategic level to network the planned measures across departments as well as in cooperation with in-house & ex-house agencies in the area of marketing up to digital sales, digital PR & event marketing.

 

Through workshops and training courses, the Evernine Group helps to evaluate individual measures and develop clear recommendations for action. Specifically, this involves approaches and benchmarks in the areas of account-based marketing, video production or awareness & lead campaigns. On a technological level, the Evernine Group and its subsidiaries Nine Brackets for Programmatic and ChallTell for App Development also support the selection of suitable e-commerce systems, digital architectures and marketing automation tools.

 

Complete outsourcing of communication activities & campaigns

A third area is the possibility for clients to completely outsource communication activities & campaigns via the Evernine platforms. The agency’s ability to create not only the editorial and visual content itself, but also the fact that the group has digital B2B and B2C content hubs with their own web environments means that communication activities for most industry topics can be fully outsourced. Examples of this are fully integrative campaigns, such as lead generation via outsourced content, landing pages and social media channels.

 

To enable marketers within their organization to demonstrate the success and impact of a project, measurable KPIs for the campaign can be defined in advance. Accompanying reports and recommendations for action are also available.

 

Save budgets and increase effectiveness

Hannes Beierlein, CCO of the Evernine Group, recommends that companies look for agencies that offer just this kind of setting: “As soon as agencies set up in a three-stage approach consisting of consulting, operations & outsourcing, basically only one agency is needed instead of several specialized consultants, provided that this agency acts as a full-service provider. In this way, a company can not only benefit from synergy effects of the individual communication activities, but also demonstrably save budget”.

 

For more information on the Evernine approach, please contact Kathrin Drechsler, CMO of the Evernine Group (k.drechsler@evernine.de).

 

 

Image Source: iStock / djiledesign