For a company’s internal communications team, collaborating with an external agency on specific projects can infuse fresh perspectives and creative firepower. To help spark innovative ideas and ensure messages resonate effectively with employees, outside agency partners may take on certain aspects of a project’s execution that fall outside of a comms team’s expertise.
Below, 11 members of Forbes Communications Council share ways internal comms teams can benefit from leveraging an outside agency’s specialized expertise. Read on to learn how partnering with an agency can help comms teams streamline production and free up valuable internal resources for strategic planning and other core business functions.
1. Driving Results For High-Stakes Strategic Priorities
Partnering with an external agency for internal communications can be a great solution—especially for executing on high-stakes strategic priorities. Ideally, they bring perspective, skills and speed to the party. In one large-scale transaction, my corporate team went from 21 roles to five, and I needed help quickly. Treating the agency as part of the team was critical to driving execution and results. – Mark Dollins, North Star Communications Consulting
2. Bridging Skill Gaps
As our team continues to innovate and keep a finger on the pulse of shifting trends, we’ve encountered skill gaps. Especially during high-volume campaigns, outside agencies have helped us act on new ideas and increase content production across channels. We learned that to scale up successfully, we should treat the agency as an extension of our team, giving them full access to brand guidelines and insights. – Alyssa Kopelman, Healthline Media
3. Highlighting SMEs’ Expertise
We partnered with a PR agency to drive brand awareness and thought leadership for our subject matter experts. This worked to highlight the expertise of our senior executives and increase brand recognition while freeing up our own marketing team for internal projects. To see success with this kind of partnership, I would encourage companies to take their time finding an agency that is aligned with their goals. – Jennifer Haas, OncoHealth
4. Delivering On A Niche Skill
External agencies can be great resources for gathering information or delivering on a niche skill the agency’s experts possess. On the research side, this can save you time while generating valuable insights. On the skills side, this can allow you to increase the impact of your campaigns by harnessing a specialized service, such as technical copywriting or B2B media outreach, that benefits the brand. – Melissa Kandel, little word studio
5. Gaining Knowledge Within Other Verticals
We lean on outside agencies not only for projects, but also for regular business, relying on their deep knowledge and experience within other verticals to help us evolve. Partnering with outside agencies allows us to learn how other companies go to market, extend our talent pool and keep ideas fresh. – Layla Kasha, Grocery Outlet
Forbes Communications Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?
6. Disrupting Internal Echo Chambers
As an agency partner, we serve as an extension to internal comms teams, who most often seek our services for content creation and resource development. Whether it is through CEO or leader communications, a rebranding narrative, intranet support or branded toolkits, we bring the creativity, bandwidth and outside experience needed to disrupt internal echo chambers and increase employee engagement. – Amber Micala Arnold, MWWPR
7. Launching Social Media And SEO Programs
We utilized a marketing agency to help us launch social media and SEO programs this year. As a startup, our marketing resources are limited. We chose to leverage the experience of an agency to help us up our game in both areas. It still required considerable involvement of the marketing team, so it isn’t without effort. So far, we are seeing strong improvements in both areas. – Scott Kolman, Cresta
8. Helping To Manage Large Initiatives
Organizations set bold aspirations for large-scale company changes, such as moving their world headquarters or renaming the company. However, few can design and execute these plans alone. An outside agency can help manage large initiatives, reduce pressure on your communications team and enable you to keep business-as-usual activities on track during a process that can otherwise deplete resources. – Marija Zivanovic-Smith, IEX
9. Collaborating On Creative, Interactive And ABM Campaigns
We collaborate with external agencies on creative, interactive and account-based marketing campaigns, extending our team’s capabilities and tapping into specialized expertise not available in-house. Outside of budget allocation, success hinges on the agency’s experience and alignment with project goals. For beneficial partnerships, it is vital to set clear expectations and consistently communicate. – Clay Tuten, KeyMark Inc
10. Implementing A New Employee Engagement Platform
We recently partnered with an outside firm to implement a new employee engagement platform. The agency assisted us in selecting the appropriate platform, training our employees on how to use it and evaluating its effectiveness. Their expertise was invaluable in helping us choose the right platform! – Cade Collister, Metova
11. Managing Changes, Rebrands And Announcements
A lot will depend on the context, the company and the type of agency. That said, there are some initiatives that lend themselves more readily to external collaboration, particularly change management initiatives, launching a rebrand and announcing larger partnerships and collaborations. In all of these instances, the third-party perspectives, objective insights and creativity are invaluable! – Catherine Anderson, Cityblock
Read the full article here
