Digital Marketing Strategic Sourcing

Corcentric provides strategic sourcing and consulting services for businesses seeking to navigate the agency labyrinth, and partner with digital advertising agencies whose adaptability and expertise in executing omnichannel strategies creates an effective user experience.

All brands, regardless of target market or industry, have carved out a space in the digital world. Their physical presence in magazines, direct mail, and television broadcasts, to name a few, is accompanied by counterparts in social media, apps, and other immersive experiences. In a reality where customers are constantly being bombarded with information, and trends rise and fall at the speed of light, digital marketing has become much more than creating a website – it is about establishing an advanced, targeted marketing channel.

With the constant use of social media and digital outlets by the millennial generation, marketing has shifted in a way that presents a broad range of challenges and opportunities. Overall, marketers are seeing the need to have a stronger presence in the digital space.

Strategic Sourcing for Digital Marketing: Evaluating an Agency

Corcentric emphasizes working with organization leaders to understand their objectives, serving as decision support throughout agency selection processes.  As no two agencies are truly alike, our formal sourcing process is customizable to meet the needs of your business. Throughout our various engagements, we have developed various strategic sourcing strategies, and evolved our process to fit our clients’ needs.  The following is a sample set of steps we may deploy as part of a strategic sourcing process for digital marketing agency services:

• Identification of agencies with digital strategy and execution as core competencies
• Thorough conflict of interest screening process
• Creation and Execution of a Request for Information (RFI)
• Creation and Execution of a Request for Proposal (RFP), outlining pitch expectations and a high-level Statement of Work
• Detailed evaluation and summarization of agency responses
• Coordination of agency on-site pitch presentations, with a scorecarding element for evaluation
• Pricing and contract negotiations

Strategic Sourcing for Digital Marketing: Mapping Out Your Digital Solution

Corcentric’s strategic sourcing digital marketing team has helped companies across the business spectrum embrace this change and work to select an ideal digital agency to support their marketing strategy. Through collaboration with our in-house IT professionals, we are able to provide insights on technical requirements and functionality, as well as on digital strategy & tactical execution, creative work, Search Engine Optimization, and cultural fit, as opposed to traditional procurement departments whose sole focus may be on cutting costs.

The digital agency landscape is continually evolving, with advertisers having access to digital agencies able to support a large range of digital marketing campaigns, as well as specialized shops that are focused specifically on digital technique or technology. Our digital marketing strategic sourcing consultants have the digital marketing expertise and the industry know-how to help you navigate the players in the market and identify the type of agency that is best suited for your digital marketing needs.

Digital Agency Services

While some organizations are opting for boutique digital shops who specialize in digital marketing tactics, others continue to leverage a traditional full service agency of record (AOR). The AOR model creates consistency in branding and messaging throughout digital marketing campaigns, as well as ease of management and communication for your marketing team. By leveraging a full service digital agency, advertisers are given access to resources able to deploy various digital marketing campaigns all under one agency’s purview. To remain competitive with the niche players, many AORs have acquired smaller shops to expand their service offering in the digital space.

Digital Design & Development

Digital design/development shops have teams dedicated to mastering the latest digital design & development techniques and technologies in the market to provide expertise across an array of projects, including website builds, digital strategy and tactical execution, website and software application development, or on an ongoing basis with technical projects that require advanced developers.

Email Marketing

If email marketing is considered a key tactic for your organization, you may consider a specialized agency who is well-versed in the creative and technical best practices of a successful email campaign. An email marketing agency has the expertise to support various deployment technologies and understands how to translate brand messaging into an engaging visual to catch the reader’s attention.

Social Media Agency Services

Social media has become a stand-alone marketing channel for many brands, and therefore, may require a dedicated agency who understands the nuances of communicating with customers in this space. Social media agencies have expertise in developing strategies to engage with customers and build brand awareness, as well as teams who can alleviate the burden of managing these accounts on a daily basis.

If you are not pleased with your current agency or are considering shifting digital strategies, Corcentric’s digital marketing experts know the right criteria to evaluate your options and will serve as decision support as you explore other opportunities.