Standard Agency Questionnaire

In a cover letter you should plan to provide a short brief about your project or brand, provide some indication of budget levels and outline the timeframes that will apply both to the assignment, and to the selection process. It is important to allow the agencies ample time to complete the questionnaire - generally 2 - 3 weeks is considered fair.

New Business Screening Questionnaire

Objective Information

1. Company Information
   • Agency name, address, URL, telephone.
   • Name, title and e-mail address of the individual who serve as the agency's primary contact during the search process.
   • Agency ownership.
   
   
2. Offices
   • Full service offices in Canada and North America (if applicable) and identify the office that will be serving the account in question.
   
   
3. Clients
   • Top 10 clients.
   • Responding office's Top 10 clients, including length of relationship with agency.
   • Accounts responding office has gained in the past 2 years and reason why agency was selected.
   • Accounts responding office has lost or resigned in the past 2 years and reason for loss or resignation.
   
   
4. Billings
   • Responding office's billings for past 3 years, including a projection for the current fiscal year.
   • Total agency billings for past 3 years, including a projection for the current fiscal year.
   • Identify the number of clients served by the responding office in the following billing ranges:
     • $500K and under
     • $500K - $1 million
     • $1 million - 2.5 million
     • over $2.5 million
   • Percentage breakdown of responding office's business by media type, for example, network television, radio, outdoor, interactive, print collateral production, direct response etc. The purpose for this is to ensure that the agency is as familiar as possible with the type of work you feel you will be requiring of it.
   • Does the agency have a formal cost accounting system by which they can measure the profitability of each account? Is this reviewed regularly with clients?
   
   
5. Staff
   • Provide a breakout of the responding office's staff by function - account service, media, creative, production, planning, research, interactive etc.
   • Provide brief bios of the key management executives in the responding office, regardless of whether they will be actively involve in the account.
   • Provide brief bios of the key account service team who would be servicing the business, referencing also those included in the management group above who will be actively involved.
   
   
6. Specialized Services - In no more than one page each, describe your agency's capabilities in the following areas:
   • Direct marketing
   • Public relations
   • Interactive
   • Sales Promotion
   • Event Marketing
   • Planning and research
   • French/English
   • Other
   It is assumed that the agency has capabilities in strategic development, creative, media and production. You may wish to tailor this list to your own particular needs.
   
   
7. Remuneration - Agency should describe its policy, or philosophy, with respect to methods of remuneration (fee, commission, combination).
   
   Subjective Information
   
   In this section you should identify the key challenges, issues, situations etc. that you want the agencies to address. The more concise your information, the more focused, and useful, will be the responses. For purposes of comparing agencies' responses, you might want to request a limit on their length.
   
   
   • Strategic Approach - Describe the process and methods the agency uses to develop effective marketing communications. Provide examples of how this has worked for other clients.
   • Relevant Experience
     • Describe your agency's relevant experience, directly or indirectly related to the category at hand.
     • Provide at least two case histories dealing with similar or analogous issues.
     • In no more than two pages, describe how the agency is ideally suited to handle the challenges and opportunities of the account in question.
   • Creative Philosophy - Comment on the creative philosophy of your agency.
   • Creative Samples - Request samples of creative work that the agency feels best demonstrate its abilities both related to your category, and outside.

Standard Agency Questionnaire