Clients and Agencies Should Embrace “The Challenger Sale"

As a part of the AgencySparks vetting process, we interview agencies to determine the health of their current or past relationships. Over the course of 45 sets of interviews conducted, we have found a reoccurring theme - agencies who are “order takers” tend to have weaker client relationships.

Agencies need to become challengers in order to offer their client’s the best solutions.

The Challenger Sale Approach, which is based off of Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamsons book “The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation,” is a method to help salespeople (or agencies) build healthy relationships with clients by challenging them.

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Why Brands Pounce on Real-time Marketing

Real-time marketing or reactive marketing is “off the cuff,” “on the fly,” or spontaneous, “unplanned” responses to a particular time or event. Often, whenever “real-time marketing” is brought up, marketers will reference the infamous Oreo “Oreo's Super Bowl Tweet: 'You Can Still Dunk In The Dark'” incident that occurred when the lights went out during Super Bowl XLVII in New Orleans.

What does your brand’s marketing team need to know about real-time marketing and how can you best take advantage of every opportunity?

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Overcoming the Fear of Planning a Marketing Budget

Budgeting season doesn’t have to be scary! We spoke with Paige Farrow, the Senior Director of Marketing at Char-Broil, about the challenges or “fears” marketers face when planning a marketing budget and how marketers can best prepare for marketing costs and spending.

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SPARKsouth - Find Your Passion

The annual SPARKsouth conference aims to benefit college students looking to build a career in digital marketing. The day focuses on career development with insights from expert panelists, mentor pairings, keynote speakers, networking opportunities, interviewing skills, and marketing career planning.

Representatives from brands and agencies served in panels and gave an overwhelming amount of helpful advice. Continue reading for their key tips.

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Alternatives to the RFP Process

Most of the time, companies view the Request for Proposal (RFP) as the only option for seeking help with a marketing project, program, or initiative. RFPs are not the only solution and can often be a waste of time, money, resources, and effort for both clients and agencies.

Clients want solutions to problems but, more often than not, the RFP does not provide answers to the difficult problems the client faces. Consider the multiple alternatives to the RFP Process before jumping in…

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