Advertising acumen: define your needs before you sign the dotted line.

• Author: Westby, Tim
• Position: Marketing and mediaplanning - Editorial

THE CALLS COME three or four times a year. Feeling bewildered, frustrated and overwhelmed, the first question is usually: "Can you just reassure me that I'm asking the right questions?"

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Susen Sawatzki tries to help as best she can. She asks lots of questions and shares her expertise. The callers often sound like they're in the throes of a crisis, and in a way, says Sawatzki, they are. They've taken on the daunting task of choosing an ad agency.

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"Anyone who decides to pick an ad agency needs therapy," laughs Sawatzki.

As editor and publisher of adnews magazine for the last 21 years, Sawatzki may be a go-to expert when all else fails. But she and ad agency executives say the process doesn't have to be so painful if you do plenty of homework up front.

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The first thing any company, regardless of size, should decide--and stick with--is who is in charge of making decisions. Too often an advertising plan will proceed through months of work and tens of thousands of dollars only to have a CEO step in near the end and nix it.

"They should know exactly what the chain of command is and exactly who has the authority and time to manage the relationship with the ad agency," says Sawatzki. "The CEO needs to be willing to step aside or stay fully engaged to the end."

Next, you need to set up a clear budget and define what you hope to achieve. After those things are worked out, you need to think about your market and your competition.

"Companies need to understand the competition," says Christy Anderson, a partner at Salt Lake City agency A N D, noting that understanding "competition" means not simply identifying your actual competitors, but realizing if in fact not enough people know about you.

"I say it's important for a company to know these things, but an ad agency can help find these answers," she adds. "That's what they're for."

So then what's the best way to choose an ad agency? Sawatzki and Anderson agree that an agency's skills and focus should match what is most important to a company. Some agencies focus more on media buying, while another might focus on web design or direct mail.

Both women say you should view an agency as a partner. "The company should feel free to ask dumb questions and vice versa, and they should be able to trust that an agency has their best interest [at heart]," says Anderson.

While it's crucial to get to that level of trust, Sawatzki admits it is also very...