What Makes Us Different and Better than Agency Search Firms like AAR, Resource International, and Pile’s Communications Collaborative

Aside from being a no-cost option for marketers interested in finding a new marketing agency, our agency search firm is unique in a number of different ways from firms like AAR, Resource International, and Pile’s Communications Collaborative.

In addition to the work we do on the AgencySearch side of our business, we also work with agencies on the RSW/US side of our business. As a result, we have an intimate knowledge of the space from both sides – the agency and the marketer – which helps us deliver best-in-class agencies to our clients.  (Of note, the agencies we work with rarely are included in searches because they oftentimes don’t meet the criteria of what a marketer is looking for in a new agency.)  The relationships we have on the agency side benefit you, the marketer, because it gives our team at RSW/AgencySearch, a clearer view of the agency world.

This perspective helps us better understand the right kinds of questions to ask agencies upfront, know when agencies are “blowing smoke”, and assess the level of expertise and knowledge an agency possesses in the areas of interest to the marketer.

In the end, this helps us identify the best-in-class agencies that are the right fit to address a marketer’s challenges and needs.

We use a “case study” approach to evaluating agencies. In addition to looking at their functional characteristics (e.g. size, type, location, experience), we examine the degree to which the agencies under consideration have successfully addressed challenges similar to your own.

We are continuously updating and refreshing our database via resources like the 4As, Ad Forum, and Clutch, as well as our own organic searches for firms new to the industry.

We run behavioral and attitudinal surveys among agencies and marketers 4-5 times a year to help us stay on top of the trends in the industry and the demands and needs of the marketer. These surveys also help us better understand expectation differences between marketers and agencies – which is of great benefit when we manage searches.  In the end, it helps us deliver nothing but the best-in-class agencies to our marketing clients.

The other thing we don’t do, that firms like AAR, Resource International, and Pile’s Communications Collaborative do, is we don’t make agencies sign up to join a service of ours or pay a fee to give them a better shot of getting in a marketing agency search.  We build each agency list custom for every search, so we’re only looking for the best-fit agencies for our marketing clients.