I’m going to say a dirty word.

It’s OK, it’s not the kind that needs you to cover children’s ears. And it’s not the kind that describes a horrific illness that people can’t even bear to mention. It’s not even the name of a character from Harry Potter that can’t be said out aloud.

The dirty word in question is BUDGET.

I can be sitting with a client discussing their brief, talking through ideas and options – excitement is oozing from the meeting when suddenly I drop the ‘B’ word and the atmosphere changes. The client can be seen squirming and stuttering. The meeting ends quickly.

We’ve had so many clients who refuse to tell us a budget when working on their jobs. Some may give us a guide such as ‘as cheap as possible’, but often clients don’t like to give away their budget, it’s like we’re playing a high class game of poker. These are grown marketing people who have studied for years, I know they have budgets. I know they will have planned things, I know they will have set their budgets in line with their objectives. Yet they won’t share it with their agency.

It seems like it’s only limited to the marketing world – you never hear of an architect submitting plans for a project without first scoping the budget, it’s the difference between a bungalow and a 5 story mansion!

It’s a strange phenomenon and one we try to educate our clients out of as it’s detrimental to the results that can be achieved, but where does it come from?

It would seem the issue is hinges on two things – trust (or lack of) and best price.

Best price

Some clients believe that if a designer is given a budget they will spend that budget – and therefore will probably overspend when it comes to the actual project – yet if the agency has a pop at pulling a price together they may just come in under budget and you get to save a load of money.

That’s not a bad way of thinking, possibly it can be seen as logical. However if you expect your agencies to pitch for the work, give over ideas before determining any agreed budget that’s really harsh. The agency needs to show you their best work and yet they have to win the job on price as well. It becomes nothing more than a creative lottery. There are many agencies who, desperate to compete in the tough market conditions are spending time on pitches that they never have an inkling chance of getting because their ideas are too big – they’re pitching St Pauls Cathedral without knowing you have a terraced house budget.

If your company’s policy is one of tender or pitch – at least set a guide budget to enable agencies to match the creative ideas to the budget.

The Trust Issue

There are some clients who think that all suppliers are nothing more commodities – to be bought and sold at the best price. That design and marketing is just another widget to be purchased at best price. These are the kind of client that will make agencies re-pitch and re-pitch every time they need a piece of work producing in order to get price.

This is just wrong on so many levels. Firstly, you never build up consistency, an agency is unable to advise you of long term solutions and they can never fulfill their potential. There are a huge amount of creative agencies out there who are all brilliant at producing great pieces of work that will help you achieve your marketing objectives. Using them for one off’s is like discarding a fine wine after one glass – there’s still a whole lot more richness to enjoy in the bottle!

Good agencies get to know you as a client, and get to understand your needs, and they understand how best to use your budgets to maximise the bang for your buck. Trusting them with the budget allows them to build, create, design a solution that is totally tailored, and fully on course to deliver on every level.

The dangers of giving your agency a budget

You may never get a killer cut price deal – although agencies that know you will always look to keep a long term relationship so will never ill advise.

You can’t make a judgement based only on price – that’s actually not a myth, it’s true. But then marketing should surely be judged on return on investment not just investment? (I once had an estate agent say to me – you’re too expensive I’m not paying more than £150 to get one or two leads. I tried to point out that perhaps that approach may have been the problem).

You don’t get to ‘see what’s out there’ – Sure you do, you give a guide price and see what the agency will deliver for that money. You can still see how much each agency will provide for the budget.

You really don’t have a budget – This is one of those situations that arise where an urgent out of the blue job is suddenly thrust upon you so no budget has been allocated. It happens. However you will still have more of an inkling than the agency of how much you are prepared to allocate to the emergency – so talk to us about it, tell us gut feelings – we can work with them!

It’s a tough call – we creatives are always spouting that they are different to other suppliers, we know it’s a hard pill to swallow when you’re trying to get the best for your company. All we ask though is that you try it, give a budget and see what amazingly tailored work you’ll get and at worse you know you can sleep better safe in the knowledge that you didn’t make an agency work though the night on a project that they never had a hope in hell of getting.

Related posts: 5 reasons you should give a budget to your creative agency