So you have decided to follow the experiential marketing route, you now understand that advertising in the modern world isn’t simply about how may billboards you can plaster, how many hours of television or radio you can book or how many double page spreads you can get in the newspaper. Instead you want to give your customers an experience, something that will leave your customers with a positive memory, whilst simultaneously raising your brand awareness through advocacy.

If you are at this point in your marketing then you are ready to hire an experiential agency, but how do you make sure you are getting the right service, and how do you ensure that your agency will be able to deliver all you want. Well read on, hopefully the following pointers will help you to get your choice of experiential agency right.

First and foremost you will have to decide if you are ready to utilise an agency, this means looking at your own business and assessing the worth, and financially balancing the costs of using the agency against the returns it is likely to provide. Equally you should initially consider your target audience, whether you have a key message you want the experiential marketing to deliver and ultimately what you want any marketing strategy to achieve. If you don’t have this information you cannot convey it and the subsequent success of future campaigns may be limited.

The next phase is to shortlist the agencies which you have contacted. This gives you the opportunity to directly compare them, weighing the pros and cons of each. At this stage it is important to assess the actual people; you want to work with a company that is like minded and you will be able to build a successful relationship. If you can’t see yourself working with them in 6 months, then they are unlikely to be suitable.

It is often forgotten about but the size of the agency you employ is a crucial factor. Ultimately a company that is too big may not be able to give you the time and personable service you require; on the other hand a company which is too small may not be able to cope with your requirements. As with many decisions it is a question of balance.

You should also take the time to assess their reputation in the industry, and also ask them for case studies so that you can analyse past performances. Agencies should be happy to let your speak to past clients, in order for you to gain an understanding of their achievements.

Finally and most obviously when selecting an experiential agency you will need consider the cost of their services, how much they are planning to charge but also how they are planning to use that budget. Whilst financial motivations shouldn’t be your primary consideration, you will once again have to balance the costs against the services on offer.