Hiring a new agency partner is like hiring a new employee. You’ve reviewed their resume, looked at their LinkedIn page, interviewed them a few times, and maybe even worked with them on a starter project. But ultimately, you’re trusting your instinct, their track record, and the experience you’ve had with them to make the decision.
So let’s talk about what the day-to-day actually looks like when you work with us.
We’re Strategic Consultants
Sometimes the best ideas will come from us. Sometimes they’ll come from you. Often they will be a collaborative effort. That’s how good partnerships work.
What you can expect from us is strategic guidance backed by data and real experience across hundreds of brands. We’ve seen what works, what doesn’t, and what the patterns are. That perspective is part of what you’re hiring us for.
“Strategy” is one word that gets used in so many ways, that it means different things to different people. Here’s what it means to us: Strategy is setting clear goals for where we want to go and creating a path to get there. It includes understanding your target audience, your messaging and positioning, which channels make sense for your business, how we set goals by channel, how we approach new customer acquisition versus retention, and a lot more.
The strategy won’t ever be “complete.” It’s not a document we hand you in month one and then move on. It evolves as your business evolves and as we get more sophisticated in what we’re doing. That’s normal and expected.
Here’s what’s consistent about strategy. We will always explain to you why we are doing or advising something, and articulate how it maps to your goals.
How We Communicate
We have processes that work, and we’ll guide you through them. They have structure with flexibility, which has proven to be most effective in generating results for our clients.
We use Basecamp as our central communication hub. That’s where project updates, approvals, feedback, and most day-to-day communication happens. It keeps everything in one place and gives everyone on the account; your team and ours, visibility into what’s happening.
We meet via Zoom for most scheduled calls, though we like to meet in person when it’s practical. Ad hoc calls are fine when something needs immediate discussion, but they’re not our primary way of staying connected.
You can text if something’s urgent, but it’s not our main communication channel. We primarily use channels that give the broader team transparency to avoid communication mistakes. Basecamp is where the work happens and where we keep the record of decisions and feedback.
Our Meeting Cadence is Based on What We’re Working On
For large projects, it’s common to have weekly calls, especially at the beginning. That cadence might shift as the project progresses and we get into more execution-focused work.
For ongoing partnerships, we typically meet weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly, depending on the scope of what we’re managing for you.
Here’s generally how the meeting structure works for ongoing engagements:
Quarterly Business Reviews are the most strategic. We’re talking long-term planning, big-picture goals, what’s working, what’s not, and where we should focus next.
Monthly Planning Calls take a shorter view. We’re grooming the quarterly plan, adjusting based on what we’re learning, and making sure the next 30-60 days are clearly mapped out.
More Frequent Status Calls (weekly or bi-weekly) are tactical. These keep things moving, reviewing what shipped, what’s in progress, what needs a decision, and flagging any issues.
We’re not going to waste time with unnecessary meetings. But when there’s a decision to make or something we need to work through together, we’ll make sure we’re talking.
How Reviews and Approvals Work
When something is ready for your review, we may present it to you live or we send it to you via Basecamp. It depends on the deliverable and how much discussion is needed.
We’ll post assets in Basecamp with context about what we did and why, and let you know it’s ready for your review.
For some deliverables, like website pages and emails, you’ll be able to leave comments directly on the work itself. For others, you’ll leave feedback in Basecamp and we’ll revise based on your input.
Some clients want to review everything. Others get comfortable over time and trust us to handle certain things without review. That’s up to you, and it can evolve as the partnership matures.
For time-sensitive work like ads or email campaigns, we’ll agree upfront on when you need to review by. If we don’t hear from you by that deadline, we’ll follow up to make sure nothing’s blocking you.
Calendars and Campaign Planning
We use Google Sheets to create an annual campaign calendar that stays evergreen throughout our partnership.
Events, trade shows, promotions, product launches, and other key dates go on the calendar when we have our initial planning meeting. As we move through the year, we layer in new campaigns and adjust as priorities shift. Our teams will have access to the shared calendar so we are always aligned.
Here’s how timing works: For things like emails, social media posts, and ads, we want campaign assets finalized the month before launch. If emails are sending in February, we want them written, designed, reviewed, and scheduled by the end of January. That way in February, we’re working on March emails. Social media follows the same process.
Larger campaigns, like new product launches, may be planned months in advance.
For businesses with highly seasonal periods, we plan further in advance so that we have much of the heavy work done before the peak season hits. Then we can focus on execution and optimization when it matters most.
Our goal is to avoid rushing. If we plan for 80% of the work ahead of time, we can accommodate the 20% that’s unexpected without everything falling apart.
When Something Urgent Comes Up
Sometimes things break or need immediate attention.
If something urgent pops up, just reach out however is fastest; text, call, Basecamp, whatever. We’ll get back to you quickly and figure out what needs to happen.
For actual emergencies like the site being down or a campaign going sideways, we have escalation procedures in place. You’ll know who to contact and how fast we’ll respond.
For things that are important but not on fire, we’ll look at it, tell you what we’re seeing, and talk through options. This is very similar to how you’d work with your internal team.
How We’ll Know If Things Are Working
In the first few months of working together, we’ll build dashboards so we can monitor performance in real time. If we’re working on your website, we’ll define what success looks like including key metrics like conversion rate, page speed, bounce rate, AOV, etc. For paid media, it’s usually ROAS or CPA. For email, revenue per recipient, list growth, and open/click rate are common metrics.
We’ll establish where you are now, set realistic targets, and track progress. You’ll see this in regular reporting, and we’ll talk about what’s working and what isn’t.
If it’s more strategic work, like building a roadmap or solving a specific problem, we’ll define upfront what “done” looks like and how you’ll know the work was worth it.
Reporting and Reviews
You’ll get regular reports based on what we’re doing for you. For most ongoing work, that’s monthly. For active campaigns on large media budgets, it may be more frequent. You’ll also have dashboard access to check whenever you want.
But we’re not just going to send you a spreadsheet full of numbers. We’ll give you context: what happened, why it happened, what we’re doing about it, and what we think should happen next. If something’s not working, we’ll tell you and explain how we’re fixing it.
For bigger engagements, those quarterly business reviews I mentioned earlier serve as our formal check-ins on the bigger picture; are we still aligned on goals, what’s changed, where should we focus next.
You’ll Work with People Who Know Your Business
You’ll have a dedicated account and project manager who will become intimately knowledgeable about your business. Specialists on our team in other areas: strategy, creative, development, and channel, will also know your business well.
Many of our clients have worked with us for more than 5 years, and feel like our team is their team.
As a boutique agency, our leadership stays involved. You’ll talk to the people who are actually making decisions, not just executing tasks.
You’ll Know What’s Happening
You can have access to Teamwork, our project management tool, where you can see what we’re working on, what’s in the que, and what’s waiting on feedback from you.
If something comes up that wasn’t in the original plan, we’ll flag it and talk through options before we just start working on it.
When Things Don’t Go as Planned
We’re good at what we do, but we’re not going to pretend we never make mistakes. Sometimes a test doesn’t work. Sometimes a timeline slips. Sometimes we’re just wrong about what will resonate with your audience.
When that happens, we will listen to your feedback and admit our mistakes. We’ll explain what went wrong, what we learned, and how we’re adjusting. We’re not going to make excuses or hide problems.
Honestly, we’d rather work with clients who tell us hard truths than ones who let issues fester. We try to operate the same way.
The Reality
Working with us should feel like working with someone who’s actually on your team, someone who knows your business, tells you what they really think, stays organized, and genuinely cares whether this works.
