Marketing & Design Retainers
We are an extension of your Marketing Team!
Have you ever wanted a full marketing department for your business? A marketing retainer might be the key.
Services
Creative Services Retainer Plans
Do you have the experts in place to produce quality material for your company? Or maybe you have only one designer and they are running on fumes trying to get all the work done? With Ronel’s monthly marketing retainer plan, we lower your stress level by giving your company qualified designers, marketers and developers you can depend on—without the overhead of full-time employees.
- Your retainer includes a dedicated Project Manager that will assist you as much as you need.
- We can work with your Fractional CMO or Marketing Team
- We offer a discounted hourly rate for recurring work!
- You don't have to hire a full-time employee and pay extra benefits.
- A flat rate each month allows for easy budgeting.
- You also get a customised marketing calendar, providing your team with an outline of services for the month.
- Consulting/Overseer
Marketing Consulting/Strategist
- Partnered
Hybrid/Part-Managed
Fully-Managed
Our Approach to Retainer Projects
Early in the relationship, we work with our partner client to determine the strategic goals that we have been retained to execute.
Common goals could include:
- Build brand awareness.
- Increase website traffic and inbound-leads.
- Increase sales.
Based on the agreed goals,we then jump into action and start planning a strategy and tactics to accomplish those goals within the budget of the retainer. We are flexible and can be “on call” for any immediate needs or short-term goals of the partner clients. You are guaranteed to expect quicker turnaround times and enjoy some “line-skipping” in terms of when requests can be fulfilled.
Transparent Reporting
We understand that a marketing retainer can be a scary thing to commit to. How do you know that the agency is delivering value for all that money you are giving them? Well, we provide you with a personal project manager to hold us accountable, a project dashboard for you to track progress and assign jobs, an analytic and reporting dashboard that is updated in real time, and a reviewer to help your team and ours collaborate on decision making quickly and faster.
Services
What services are typically included in a marketing retainer?
Media Planning and Management
Media planning involves taking a company’s advertising budget for a year and allocating it to the mediums and channels that provide the best results. This includes getting quotes from media vendors and negotiating rates. Tired of taking cold calls from countless advertisers pitching their product? Then this service is for you. Next time they call, just say “send your details to my agency of record”.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is the cornerstone of any modern marketing strategy. It helps drive traffic to an online property using a variety of marketing channels and, more importantly, convert visitors to customers. We talk about content marketing a lot at Ronel.
Traditional Advertising
Some say print is dead. They’re wrong. Traditional print advertising can still be effective when the right message is paired with the right channel. An agency can help identify traditional platforms that still provide value. This isn’t just limited to “print” advertising either, and can include both radio and television!
Strategic Planning & Campaign Focused Thinking
Having a long-term relationship with an agency allows it to contribute more resources to coming up with unique ideas and strategies that align with business goals. This includes cooking up creative campaigns and messaging to help a company accomplish its marketing goals.
Website Conversion Optimization
An agency can play an important role in helping make sure a company’s website is operating in top form. Using a data and analytical focused approach, it can review a company’s website and look for places where potential leads and sales are being lost – and implement strategies to minimize the losses.
Reputation Management
More than 88% of online shoppers incorporate reviews into their purchase decision. Online reputation management (and acquisition) is important for any business. An agency has the resources to allocate team members to keep any eye out on social media channels and review websites for negative commentary around a brand – and address as necessary.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Just a guess: you typed in something like “What is a marketing retainer” and out of the whole entire world wide web, you landed on our article: now we’re proud to say that’s some effective SEO on our part and your business can be found that same way too! Search Engine Optimization is the practice of making changes to a company’s website in an effort to improve its ranking in search engines such as Google. This includes rewording content for targeted keywords and topics, reducing the amount of bad links on the site, making sure the website follows best standards in regards to mobile design – and so much more.
Paid Digital Marketing Campaigns
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns have become standard operating procedure for many brands. Not only do they allow companies to immediately position in specific searches on Google, but also allow very targeted advertising on various social media platforms. An agency (usually after creating a media plan) will help a company craft targeted messaging and navigate the various channels to find the best return on investment.
Retainer Plan: Creative Services
- Logos
- Booklets & Brochures
- Catalogs
- Organic Social Posting
- Branding
- Tradeshow Booths
- Packaging
- Side Decks / Pitch Decks
- Website Updates
- Case Studies
- Promotional Product Design
- Infographics
- Landing Pages
- Strategy Session
- Press Release
- Copywriting and Editing
- Email Marketing
- Market Research
- Blog Post
- Image Optimization
- Organic SEO
- Print Design
Marketing & Design Made Easy
Our experienced team of project managers, marketers, designers and developers will keep your deliverables on brand and time.
3 MONTH REQUIREMENT
VIDEO
PHOTOGRAPHY
PHOTOGRAPHY
Need some video or photography done? We’ve got you covered! We are drone certified too!
PAID
MARKETING
MARKETING
Strategy-based digital marketing targeted to your specific goals. Pay-per-click.
Custom Marketing Calendar
With all of our retainer plans, we customise a marketing calendar for your business. Instead of just being order takers, we will make sure there is a plan for your top marketing priorities. We will find out what your goals are and help you reach them each month!
Retainer Terms & Details
- 3 month minimum commitment. At the end of 3 months, we will re-evaluate the plan to ensure the number of hours are fitting your business needs. After that, we can move to longer commitments.
- Each retainer includes a set number of hours per month. If the hours go past that time, you will be invoiced for overage at the hourly rate of the retainer.
- Unused hours expire at the end of each month. This is to ensure that we can allocate time for your projects plan our workload accordingly.
- You will get an invoice on the first day of each month. On the last day of the month, any additional charges from previous month will be invoiced separately.
Retainer Benefits
- Think of us as your design partner. Your internal marketing team.
- You get a discounted hourly rate for recurring work.
- You don't have to hire a full-time employee and pay extra benefits.
- We have a team of experts with professional design skills that you get to "borrow"!
- With a flat rate each month, it's easier to budget your spending.
What are the benefits of a marketing retainer?
There are some projects when a marketing retainer is not a good fit. But in most cases when a company is needing general marketing support, a retainer relationship is a win-win for both parties.
Benefits for Businesses
- Predictable Costs
- Businesses know what to expect for an invoice every month for services. This allows for better budgeting and forecasting. It also grants the flexibility to amortise short-term marketing campaigns over longer periods of time.
- Priority Service
- As a retainer client, a company can expect a bit of “line jumping” when requests are made. An agency will usually try to shuffle requests around if possible to accommodate its long-term retainer clients. It also knows that it needs to set aside an allotted amount of resources every month to dedicate to a specific client.
- Front of Mind
- More important than being front of the line is being front of mind! In a retainer relationship, a marketing agency moves from simply taking orders to coming up with new ideas and ways to help move their client’s business forward.
- Better Value
- Businesses that form a retainer relationship with an agency will often incur a lower hourly rate for services. More valuable than that - the agency will start to have a deep understanding of the business and be able to provide stronger and quicker service as a result. Even further - as the relationship continues to grow, so does the efficiency.
- Strong Foundation
- Without retainer, marketing decisions usually fall on one person in a SMB. If they leave, get sick, go on vacation, or get hit by a bus - everything stops. With a marketing retainer, the agency knows enough to keep things running without that person.
- When to use marketing retainer
- There are a number of different reasons for getting an Agency of Record. Any of the below would be a good indicator that you may benefit by putting an agency on retainer.
- Need to immediately increase marketing capabilities.
- Spend more than $12,000 annually on advertising and other marketing initiatives.
- Need quick turn around times from your marketing partner.
- Have many ongoing needs for creative assets and deliverables.
- Need help managing the different media platforms you advertise on.
- Have a project in mind that has a long (6+ months) timeline and covers a broad set of services.
- Are currently involved in, or would like to start, an ongoing content marketing campaign.
- When NOT to use a marketing retainer
- Just as there are scenarios when it is a good idea to enter into a marketing retainer relationship, there are plenty of reasons not to. Some of the reasons below outline times where you may want to pursue a traditional project-based agreement.
- Have a limited budget for marketing activities.
- Have a very specific project or service requirement.
- Don’t have very many ongoing marketing needs and requests.
- Don’t spend much on advertising in different mediums.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Some of the most frequently asked questions pertaining to marketing strategy is discussed here.
An agency retainer model refers to an agreement between a business and an agency to work together for a period of time (typically 18 months) on more than one project. You’re paying a set monthly rate to reserve the agency’s time.
The scope of work done under a marketing retainer varies, but most inbound marketing agencies will deliver:
- An inbound marketing technology stack.
- A digital marketing strategy.
- Planning and execution of inbound marketing campaigns.
- Benchmarks and regular reporting to determine success.
- Regular meetings to check in and ensure that everything is on track.
- Continuous improvement of campaign. performance and A/B testing.
- Clear ROI.
Companies that meet the following criteria are the best candidates for working with an agency on a retainer basis:
- There’s budget set aside and they can afford the retainer.
- There’s clarity and alignment on the long-term marketing goals.
- They’ve got the discipline to stick to a consistent marketing plan.
- They want to be one of the agency’s top priority accounts.
- They require a high degree of accountability/performance metrics & reporting.
While marketing agency retainers offer consistency and forward momentum, they’re not necessarily ideal for every business. Companies that should skip the retainer model:
- Haven’t budgeted for it/can’t afford it.
- Only require marketing support when launching a product or during certain seasons.
- Don’t have a clear understanding of long-term goals.
- Not interested in measuring performance/reporting/improvements.
When you use this model you pay the agency per project. If you want an agency to set up a Facebook ad campaign or write a content offer, they’ll quote you a price and give you a timeline for how long you can expect the work to take.
Every piece of work completed by the agency comes with its own price tag. If you decide that you’d like a series of blog posts to support the content offer their writing, you’ll be charged separately for that work.
- Clear expectations from the agency on project costs.
- Commitment from the agency to a timeline that suits your needs.
- Capabilities and skills that you don’t have in-house.
- An opportunity to ‘test drive’ the agency, and see if they’re a good fit before you commit to working. with them for an extended period of time.
Probably simpler than you would think.
A business will enter a contractual relationship with an agency and, most often, agree to a set budget for monthly services. If one of the services that the agency is being retained for includes pay-for-click (PPC), traditional, radio or any other form of paid advertising, there will also likely be a discretionary “advertising spend” budget or component within the agreement, additional examples include:
- Media Planning and Management
- Content Creation (Blogs, newsletters, press releases)
- Sponsorships and contest management
- Traditional Advertising
- Strategic Planning and Campaign
- Reputation Management
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Pay-Per-Click (PPC)