What Is a Marketing Agency Discovery Meeting?

If you’ve started talking to a marketing agency about a new project, you’ll probably hear the term marketing agency discovery meeting quite early in the process. A discovery meeting helps both you and the agency explore your goals, challenges and opportunities before recommending the best approach.

It usually takes place once there is a potential project or challenge on the table, and there is enough information to justify a deeper discussion.

It’s not about sitting through a generic presentation or being told what services you should buy. A good discovery meeting is about asking the right questions, understanding the bigger picture and working out what the project actually needs to achieve and how.

From initial enquiry to discovery

The first conversation with a marketing agency is usually fairly straightforward. You might get in touch because you need a new website, want to improve your SEO, are planning a campaign or simply know that your current marketing isn’t delivering the results you need.

That initial call gives both sides an opportunity to understand whether there is a potential fit, and from there, if it looks like there is a project worth exploring, the next step is often a discovery meeting, which is where the conversation becomes more detailed.

Rather than simply discussing what you want, the focus shifts towards why you want it, what you need it to achieve and what might be required to get there.

What happens in a discovery meeting?

There isn’t a set agenda that every marketing agency follows, because every project is different. However, a discovery meeting will usually cover several key areas.

Your business

Before an agency can recommend the right marketing approach, they need to understand the business behind it.

That might include your products or services, your customers, your market, your competitors and what makes your organisation different.

It’s particularly important for an agency to understand the things that might not be obvious from looking at your website or marketing materials.

Your goals

What are you actually trying to achieve?

Perhaps you want to generate more enquiries, launch a new product, attract a different type of customer or improve your position in the market.

Or perhaps the goal is less straightforward. You might know that something isn’t working but aren’t sure exactly what needs to change, and that’s fine! A discovery meeting can be just as useful when you have a problem to solve as when you have a fully formed project in mind.

The challenge

This is often where the most valuable conversations happen.

For example, you might approach an agency because you think you need a new website, but once you start talking, it might become clear that the bigger issue is your positioning, the customer journey or the way your website fits into your wider marketing strategy.

Equally, you might think you need more traffic to your website when the real problem is that the traffic you already have isn’t converting.

The discovery phase should give an agency the opportunity to challenge assumptions and understand the underlying problem, rather than simply delivering the solution you initially asked for.

Your audience

Who are you trying to reach?

Understanding your audience is crucial to almost every marketing project. An agency will want to know who your customers are, what they need, what influences their decisions and what might prevent them from taking action.

For B2B businesses in particular, it can also be useful to understand the different people involved in the buying process.

What you already have

A discovery meeting will often look at your existing marketing activity too.

What is working? What isn’t? What have you tried before? What assets, content, data or technology already exist?

There is little value in an agency recommending something you’ve already tried unsuccessfully without understanding why it didn’t work. Likewise, you may already have valuable resources that can be built upon rather than starting from scratch.

Practical considerations

There are also the practical questions.

What is the timescale? Who needs to be involved? Are there any technical requirements or existing systems to consider? What does the internal team look like? Are there any important deadlines?

You don’t necessarily need to have every detail worked out before a discovery meeting. In fact, that’s often the point of having one. But the more both sides understand about the project, the more realistic and useful the eventual recommendation will be.

Do I need to know exactly what I want before a discovery meeting?

No.

In fact, sometimes the most useful discovery meetings are with businesses that know where they want to get to, but aren’t sure how to get there.

You might know that you want more leads, a stronger online presence or a better-performing website, without knowing which marketing activity will get you there.

That’s where an agency can add value, we don’t expect you to be the experts!

The discovery process should help turn a broad objective into something more tangible. It gives the agency the context they need to recommend an approach, rather than simply taking a list of requirements and turning them into a quote.

What should I bring to a discovery meeting?

You absolutely don’t need to prepare a presentation or have an exact idea of what you want. Discovery meetings are the start of a partnership, so there are no right ot wrong answers; the purpose is to understand the situation properly.

It can help to bring along anything you think will give the agency a better understanding of the project, such as:

• Existing marketing plans or strategy documents
• Information about your target audiences
• Previous campaign results
• Website or analytics data
• Examples of competitors or businesses you think are doing things well
• Previous research or customer insights
• Details of existing systems or platforms
• Your key objectives and any deadlines you are working towards

Most importantly, be open about what you’re trying to achieve and where you’re currently struggling.

What happens after the discovery meeting?

The discovery meeting shouldn’t be the end of the conversation. It should give the agency enough information to work out what comes next.

Depending on the project, that might mean developing a proposal, creating a marketing strategy, recommending a particular service or carrying out some additional research before making a recommendation.

For a website project, for example, the next step might be a detailed proposal covering the recommended structure, functionality, content requirements, timescales and costs.

For a wider marketing challenge, it could involve developing a strategic approach that brings together several different areas of marketing.

The important thing is that the recommendation should come from the discovery process, rather than being decided before the conversation has taken place.

Ultimately, a discovery meeting is about getting both sides on the same page.

For you, it’s an opportunity to explain your business, your ambitions and the challenges you’re facing. For the agency, it’s an opportunity to ask questions, understand the context and start thinking about how they can help.

And sometimes, the outcome of a discovery meeting is that the original idea changes.

Looking for marketing support?

At Monitor Creative, we use discovery meetings to get under the skin of a project before recommending an approach.

Whether you have a specific project in mind or simply have a marketing goal you need help achieving, we’ll start by understanding what you’re trying to do, what’s getting in the way and what success looks like for your business.

From there, we can work with you to identify the right approach, whether that’s a website, a campaign, SEO, content, digital marketing or a combination of different services.

Have a project in mind or a marketing challenge you don’t know how to tackle? Get in touch below and let’s start the conversation.