I was having a conversation the other day with design extraordinaire, Dale Addy and we landed on the power of communication in the creative process. It occurred to me that this topic is critically important to our company and I’m curious if others hold it in the same regard.
Frankly, the digital marketing space is flooded with individuals and companies alike. In fact, there are many great ones out there that do what we do – video, animation and web design. Because of that, I consider it a given that we have to be of a certain quality and maintain a certain level of expertise in our shop. Obviously, the biased version of me says we do more than just maintain and achieve a certain level but that’s not for here.
Through the years, I have come to believe the separating factor from one agency to the next is the style of communication in which you engage in both internally with your team and externally with your clients. Yes, clients are looking for great work. Yes, clients are looking to work with a talented team. However, in my opinion those two elements create the baseline.
What elevates you or your agency above the default and creates a great working relationship is incredibly responsive communication. I have found the barriers and friction tend to drop if there is high rhythm of communication on everything from normal milestone progress all the way to issues that may arise through the creation phases. Even ongoing proactive affirmation that “we are working on it” goes a long way. When I say a “high rhythm”, I mean almost daily.
Communication simply reduces the friction in the creative process, especially for a client that is less familiar with the digital space.
Because of that thought, we engage in client communication with a hypersensitive focus and call that out as one of our separating factors. We have a very specific process for timeline creation, milestone checkins, proactive feel-good checkins and daily huddles on all open projects.
How does your company value communication throughout the creative process?
