Beyond the Campaign: How Long-Term Agency Relationships Add More Value

As a business, one of the most beneficial partnerships to maintain is with a dedicated integrated communications and marketing agency. Long-term agency relationships with PR and marketing firms offer sustained value, deeper insights, and more measurable impact compared to short-term engagements, producing results where it matters. 

In this week’s edition of the Goodness Report, Idea Hall Account Manager Rachel Fuller provides key insights into the benefits of long-term agency relationships. 

Deepening Strategic Alignment through Trust 

The cornerstone of a successful client-agency partnership is trust – building a collaborative and honest culture that yields creative and bold ideas. Over time, a PR/marketing agency that understands your business inside and out becomes an extension of your leadership team. They are not simply executing one-off campaigns; they are driving strategies that align seamlessly with your overarching business goals with room for adaptation and evolution. Long-term engagements foster trust between client and agency, as successes are tracked over time and consistent results are achieved. The advantage of having a partner with deep knowledge of a brand’s history, values, and goals becomes more evident over time, as lessons learned inform future strategies and surface optimizations at every step. With long-term immersion in a business environment, agencies can offer insights that might not be apparent to those less familiar with a business’s operational landscape. The result is nuanced, flexible and effective strategies that deliver measurable business outcomes. 

Consistent and Cohesive Brand Messaging 

Long-term partnerships yield unified communication and foster a deep understanding of a brand’s values, goals, and audience, leading to more consistent and effective messaging. A solid agency partner will work to produce a narrative that evolves with a brand, ensuring relevance and resonance with key stakeholders and maintaining a consistent brand voice across all channels over time. On the flip side, frequent changes or inconsistency in agency partnerships can lead to disjointed messaging, knowledge gaps and that risk weakening brand reputation and impact over time. This can cause unnecessary disruptions during important initiatives such as media relations and the ability to optimize industry milestones. 

Cost Efficiencies and Operational Stability 

Prolonged relationships often result in cost efficiencies also, as agency and client streamline their processes, reducing project onboarding time and unnecessary costs associated with frequent transitions. The PR/marketing team has the time and resources it needs to become a well-oiled machine, consistently delivering results that align with your strategic objectives, even as they evolve over the years. 

An excellent example of Idea Hall’s success with long-term partnerships is our client Sabal Investment Holdings (Sabal). Since 2010, Sabal has engaged Idea Hall to strategically navigate industry changes and iterations of the company, originally supporting branding in a competitive industry and then rebranding along the way to support business growth. Showcasing Sabal’s leadership, expertise and knowledge in the CRE and capital markets space, Idea Hall has helped the firm develop and maintain a strong and cohesive brand as well as robust communications and thought leadership strategies to keep them “ahead of the curve” of a crowded CRE capital markets world. Deal volume has increased and relationships with partners and clients expand each year, surpassing $1.2B in completed deals in 2023. Additionally, Idea Hall helped the firm develop its CRE lending platform, Sabal Capital Partners, which sold to a large commercial and retail bank in 2021 and completed integration into their Real Estate Capital Markets brand in 2023. Idea Hall leveraged its long-term engagement to ensure Sabal Capital Partners’ successful integration into the existing Real Estate Capital Markets team. 

Data & Insights are King 

In communications, data is more than just numbers—it’s the foundation upon which effective strategies are built. Long-term agency relationships allow agencies time and resources to gather, analyze, and interpret a wealth of data specific to a brand, offering a deeper understanding of audience behavior, market trends, and campaign performance. This long-term accumulation of data makes for more accurate forecasting, precise targeting, and the continuous refinement of strategies. By leveraging these insights, brands can stay ahead of the curve, adapting to changes and capitalizing on opportunities with a strategic, data-driven approach.  

In our partnership with the Masons of California, Idea Hall is currently assessing the results of a multi-year digital lead-gen campaign aimed at attracting new members while also instilling a sense of fraternal pride. Utilizing year-over-year (YoY) data, we’ve been able to definitively identify which ads are consistent top-performers with our audience, which ads can be eliminated from our flight, which markets produce the highest ROI and which times of the year yield the highest number of new member leads. Armed with these YoY insights, we’ve been able to decrease cost per click by 20.8%, add in new creative that garnered a 20.5% conversion rate (making it a top 3 performing ad) and increase new member leads by 16%, resulting in 16,120 total new member leads for this year’s campaign. 

Navigating Challenges Together 

In the realm of issues management, having a long-term agency relationships present the ability to guide a brand through industry changes, economic downturns, or leadership transitions. Over time, an agency partner gains valuable insights into a company’s culture and market dynamics, which allows for more strategic and proactive planning. When a crisis can strike at anytime and anywhere, it’s important to have a team behind you that is highly familiar with your business’s spokespeople and brand to develop a response strategy that is timely and accurate, ultimately strengthening your brand’s resilience.  

For organizations contemplating engaging with an agency partner, consider the value a long-term integrated communications agency relationship that can evolve with the market and business needs can bring to your team. It’s about forging a strategic partnership to drive business growth, strengthen your brand’s reputation, and provide agility to navigate an ever-changing market. By committing to a long-term PR partnership, you’re not just securing a service provider; you’re gaining a trusted advisor dedicated to your organization’s success. 

To explore how you can strengthen your relationships with key stakeholders for your organization, or to discuss potential collaboration with Idea Hall, please reach out to Rebecca Hall at Rebecca@ideahall.com.     

About the Author 

This week’s article comes from Idea Hall’s Rachel Fuller, Account Manager. Rachel specializes in public relations, driving always-on news bureaus, thought leadership content creation, and social media strategy. She is passionate about providing outstanding client services and innovative PR strategies that build long-lasting relationships with key stakeholders.