What’s Our Secret? Timing!

Yes, creative masters like (ahem) us have learned to juggle fine marketing initiatives of just about every size and scope as smoothly as a Formula 1 car driver shifts gears… but producing work that works doesn’t come at the push of a button—it takes time. Turn Time to be exact.

What do we mean by turn time? It’s the end-to-end project span, defined by major milestones. The amount of time we recommend allowing for each stage of a project is based on what is needed to ensure we can give the appropriate thought, research, design, writing, coding and quality control to do the job right. It’s also the time needed to allow other clients’ work to flow through the agency.

Taking the Time it Takes

The most common, but possibly least voiced, question clients have about our scheduling: if a step is going to take only 3 hours, why might it take several days to get it done?

Several reasons… here’s one: let’s say “concepting” is on the schedule for a new ad, and we’ve allowed five hours for this step. That will divide up into a few hours of research, doodling ideas, discussion, brainstorming, more drawing, reflection and team review.

All of this provides the opportunity for strategy to meet creativity and spark an effective marketing approach. While it’s certainly possible to make it happen, a concept developed in a single five-hour sitting will typically not be as strong as one that percolates over a few days’ time.

Another factor is our need to schedule other clients’ ongoing work—while we do our best to meet every client request just as though we were in-house staff, the truth is that our team always has a full schedule providing similar services to dozens of clients. The only way to ensure we have the people available to handle your work (and have the possibility to pinch hit when an emergency comes up—as they obviously do!), is to schedule projects over a controlled, measurable time.

Our passion at The Marketing Machine is delivering outstanding creative at fair prices, on time—and that requires us to be masters not only of marketing and design but also of project timing. To help prevent disappointment, or need-it-yesterday work, we invite you to involve us in your planning sessions whenever possible. And if there’s an occasional emergency, know that we’ll still do our very best to pull out all the stops!

For more information on developing a powerful creative Marketing Agency Raleigh strategy, please contact The Marketing Machine to schedule an appointment today.