Whether it’s the food industry or any other, the budget talk between clients and their marketing/creative partners can take many twists and turns. Some clients are very open about their marketing budgets and the objectives they hope to achieve. Others play it “close to the vest” and prefer not to share marketing budget information with creative partners. We’d like to suggest that being open with marketing/creative partners about budgets and expectations is a much more successful approach in building a mutually beneficial partnership, and this is why:
1. Good partnerships are built on open, honest communication. Clients are looking for creative partners they can trust and confide in during the course of working together on marketing initiatives. That means open and honest communication about all of the information relevant to the effort, including budget. If a budget has not been established, that’s fine….good creative partners will work with clients to establish marketing budgets commensurate with the scope of work and objectives to be met. If you are not comfortable sharing an established budget number/range with your creative partner, maybe the partnership is not a good fit. Sharing budget information upfront allows marketing/creative partners the opportunity to structure creative solutions that meet client objectives within the budget allocated. Everyone feels more confident in the partnership moving forward.
2. Not sharing budget information can lead to wrong assumptions. Your marketing/creative partner will have to “fill-in the blanks” in preparing a proposal. Making assumptions for the sake of arriving at a number serves neither the client nor the creative partner well. Much time can be wasted in this guessing game, time that could be spent working on solutions to advance the client’s marketing objectives. If a budget has not been established because a client cannot determine the cost of the scope of work without input from the creative partner, then work together to define the scope of work and set a budget. This is a far more productive approach to budgeting than working through a series of wrong assumptions.
3. A good creative partner will work within an established budget. There are many options available to meet stated marketing objectives. A good creative partner will suggest solutions that are financially appropriate within an established budget. Likewise, a good creative partner will advise at the outset if a budget is really not adequate to meet a client’s stated objectives and both can work to find a solution by adjusting the scope of work and/or incrementally increasing the budget. A good marketing/creative partner will agree to an established budget upfront and, as long as the scope of work does not change, will work within that budget.
Choosing a great creative partner should be based on their creative talent, skill set, and experience. Once you have trust in a marketing/creative partner’s capabilities, it is far more productive to collaborate with them on budgeting, than to select another firm solely based on cost.