These days, just being a printer is not enough. Today’s customers are seeking marketing service providers with a variety of skills. The key question is, which skills are the right ones? eMarketer recently published a study that was conducted by Cincinnati-based business development agency RWS/US in July 2014. The polling study revealed that 40% of marketers in North America feel that a lack of foundation in analytics was the single biggest deficiency among agencies vying for their business. A lack of focus on meaningful performance indicators ranked a close second, cited by 38% of respondents. This is especially important when you reflect on the pressure that marketing personnel are facing to articulate the value they deliver to their enterprises.

Figure 1: What do you consider to be the biggest deficiency among agencies vying for your business?

During initial meetings, marketers also consider it critical for agencies to be thoughtful and show an interest in their companies. On a scale of 1 to 10 (where 10 meant “very important”), 93% of marketers ranked this quality at 8 or higher, with 59% giving it a 10. At the same time, however, many marketers feel that agencies are not meeting this need. On a scale of 1 to 10 (where 10 meant “always”), just 16% selected 8 or higher when asked how often agencies actually came to an initial meeting with thoughts and smart questions about their companies.