Advertising and Marketing Agency Selection Criteria for Music Festivals.

For an ambitious, growing, well-funded music festival entity appointing an advertising marketing agency can quickly add promotional expertise. Appointing an external agency can help a festival entity to reach a target audience without the need to recruit and train an internal team. What are the key considerations when searching for the ideal agency to appoint?

Appointing an external agency will require a significant investment form the music festival owners but this route can help to shape a festival's brand image and facilitate reaching new audiences. A formal pitch process is recommended where shortlisted agencies are invited to present their creative ideas along with how they can support the festival. A responsible person from the festival will need to produce a brief for prospective agencies which details objectives, budgets and deliverables for example. 

Budgets. 
Getting an understanding of likely charges that an external agency will make early in the process is crucial to understanding the level of budget to allocate and what services can be afforded. Most agencies prefer to work on a monthly retainer which enables the building of longer-term relationships. Alternative pricing structures could involve working on a project basis where work is focused on a launch campaign or the promotion of a single event. Whatever financial agreement suits best it is wise to set performance parameters to measure the success of the relationship, either with specific ROI metrics or other Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Details of budgets and expectations should be included in the briefing document given to prospective agencies. 

Experience. 
The shortlisting process may have already narrowed down a selection of prospective agencies, perhaps based on published case studies and testimonials from other music festival clients. This can help determine experience and success rates from previous work in the sector. During the agency pitches expect to gain an insight into the agency’s creative thought processes along with how detailed their understanding of the specified target audiences and how to reach them. In some cases, agencies may be able to provide client referrals from existing clients, but these can often be difficult to obtain. 

Social Media and Digital Marketing. 
This is a fundamental part of promoting a music festival and building long term engagement with customers so a comprehensive understanding and experience in data driven digital marketing is essential. Festival entities should ask for evidence of their work on SEO, social media channel campaigns and influencer marketing for example. A deep understanding of how data and analytics is used to target and measure online campaigns should form part of any proposed promotional strategy. Examples of detailed online campaigns are preferable in the pitch process to test an agency’s ability to define target audiences, select appropriate media and accurately measure success and ROI. 

Resources and Support. 
During the pitch process the agency should bring all key personnel to the meeting so that festival staff can get a picture of who will be working with them on their account and the roles they will undertake. If the festival entity is going for a retainer relationship with an agency it is normal for the agency to allocate a dedicated team to work solely on their account. Given the unpredictable nature of the music festival sector the appointed agency will need to provide support and flexibility to the festival entity should there be a requirement to make urgent announcements at short notice for example. 

Although it is likely that a selected agency will have a heavy bias towards digital and online marketing a festival entity will usually seek some level of expertise in public relations too due to the critical issue of announcements and press releases. It is not unusual for a music festival to retain a small in-house marketing team who will be responsible for managing any appointed agency. 

For festival organisers planning their next events using a software management platform like Festival Pro gives them all the functionality they need manage every aspect of their event logistics. The guys who are responsible for this software have been in the front line of event management for many years and the features are built from that experience and are performance artists themselves. The Festival Pro platform is easy to use and has comprehensive features with specific modules for managing artists, contractors, venues/stages, vendors, volunteers, sponsors, guestlists, ticketing, cashless payments and contactless ordering.

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