Jane Nugent discusses the value of an outstanding marketing agency

Our podcast, ClientSide, launched at the beginning of the year. Brands and marketers were planning to make 2020 their most successful yet, and while many still are, there have been significant and completely unexpected difficulties thrown our way.

Throughout the relentless trials of COVID-19, we have continued to publish ClientSide episodes on a fortnightly basis, providing not only a sense of stability, but also allowing us to interview leading marketers and explore how varying industries are rising to the challenge.

Our first episode was recorded long before the crisis was threatening the UK, however, so in this instalment you will hear nothing of the pandemic, but plenty of interesting and valuable ClientSide insights.

Welcome to ClientSide, Jane Nugent

In her episode, Jane Nugent, Marketing Director at The Marketing Centre, covers various themes, such as the importance of client-agency relationships, and shares useful lessons from her decades of senior experience covering all aspects of successful marketing campaigns for organisations such as Trinity Mirror and Speedy Hire.

Listen to ClientSide featuring Jane Nugent

Although Jane has had a remarkably successful career, her senior marketing role at Thomson Reuters stands out as her largest accomplishment, particularly due to the importance of navigating the UK newspaper industry’s shift to the digital market. Jane now works with ambitious SMEs, providing insights on how to build a successful agency-client relationship, and the cornerstones of effective marketing strategies.

No time to listen? Here are some of the key points covered in our interview.

The importance of having a genuine brand marketing strategy

“It’s all about the brand… everything else is a bit of a waste of time.”

Jane often sees family-owned, second-generation or entrepreneurial B2B businesses that neglect the need for a genuine marketing strategy. As she says herself, “they get to a point when they realise, despite doing some marketing – because every business has – that it’s not really achieving anything. That’s because they’re just doing stuff rather than having a strategy sitting behind it.”

But how do you come up with a perfect marketing campaign? The key is knowing exactly what your brand is and knowing how to play to its strengths. “It’s all about the brand. If you don’t know what your brand’s about, if you haven’t got a clear proposition, if you don’t know what your positioning is in the market and how that fits against the competition, everything else is a bit of a waste of time.”

The value of a great agency relationship

“I haven’t ever had to end a relationship with an agency because their work has got too poor.”

Throughout her career as a Marketing Director at companies such as Speedy Hire, which has a £400 million turnover, Jane has had to become a jack of all trades, and the main reason for this is because she doesn’t like to place too much power into the hands of an agency. While a successful agency-client relationship is a priority, she also says it is important to not “just believe everything they say because they tell me.”

Working with agencies can also be a tricky business, with many examples of relationships that have turned sour over the years. However, for Jane, being upfront and tackling the problem straight away is essential. “I haven’t ever had to end a relationship with an agency because their work has got too poor. We’ve always been able to have those conversations, and they get back on track.”

Listen to Jane’s episode

Succeeding as a Marketing Director is rarely simple and straightforward, especially in high-pressure environments, but this is exactly what Jane has done as a result of her dedication to her craft, commitment to client-agency relationships, and a clear eye for marketing a brand.

Listen to Jane’s episode on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or on the ClientSide website, here.