Master your creative agency workflow: tips, tools and best practices

Everyone loves being creative. Not everyone loves the creative process. It can be messy, full of stops and starts, disagreements and blown deadlines. 

The best creative agencies thrive on processes that empower, rather than restrict, talent. A smart creative agency workflow helps your team produce their best work, balancing all the moving parts and expectations that drive a good client-agency relationship. 

Whether you’re a project manager establishing a process at a new agency, a veteran touching up your workflows or a freelancer looking to make your presentation more professional, this article will give you some tried-and-tested process points.

What is the creative agency process? 

The creative agency process is a replicable series of steps by which an agency produces creative work for clients. It combines strategic thinking, creativity and cross-company collaboration to translate a client’s vision into reality. 

Sometimes that involves helping the client figuring out what their vision is in the first place. Other times it may consist of adding the finishing touches to a much broader project. 

No matter what, it should play to your team’s strengths while reinforcing the brand identity of the client. Your agency’s process is the roadmap to this ideal end state.

Types of creative agencies

Let’s be clear: “creative agency” is a pretty vague term. It’s like calling a restaurant a food room. Your first question may be: what kind of food are we talking about here? 

Some of the biggest creative agencies strive to do it all, and the best of them absolutely can. But increasingly, agencies are highly specialized based on output, discipline, niche and industry. Many large companies keep a bouquet of agencies on their roster to produce more targeted work. Some types of agencies include: 

• Advertising agencies. These focus on creating splashy marketing campaigns, resulting in advertisements on everything from billboards to TV.

• Digital agencies. Similar to advertising agencies, but specializing in the unique challenges of advertising online, these companies specialize in disciplines including web design, social media management, search-engine optimization and paid marketing. 

• Design agencies. Design agencies concentrate on visual elements, including logos, packaging, print materials and the overall color scheme and vision for a brand. 

• Web development agencies. If you need a website, a web dev agency will help you figure out its sitemap, user experience and overall content scheme. 

• Content agencies. On the other hand, if you already have a website and are trying to figure out what to put on it, a content agency can help you come up with and regularly produce blog posts, videos and infographics. 

• Social media agencies. A social-media agency lives and breathes the biggest as well as the newest social networks, creating content, responding to users and managing these highly visible, always-on channels. 

• Video production agencies. Videos often require speteams collaborating on real-life sets as well as a suite of specialized post-production roles. Video production agencies have the rosters of talent to pull this off. 

• Boutique agencies. Niche creative agencies specialize in everything from music promotion to product launches to guerrilla marketing. 

Why do creative agencies need a standardized workflow?

When clients approach you with a project, they want to know it’s going to get done. 

There’s a certain amount of trust involved in this process no matter what. But a clearly articulated agency workflow can help put them at ease. Running prospective clients through these steps and what to expect during each one lets them know that things will proceed logically and coherently. 

But more than that, a good standardized workflow should actually ensure good output. Catered to your team’s needs, it builds in the appropriate time for creative tinkering, internal reviews and client alignment. A good workflow is a win-win-win: happier clients, happier creatives, better work. 

Phases of the creative agency workflow

Let’s take a look at some of the phases that should apply to any creative agency’s workflow, whether they’re producing memes or massive TV spots. 

Note that not every project will need every phase. But every project should go through the process of at least assessing whether or not it needs each phase. 

You shouldn’t skip an evaluation of the right roles for a project just because you’ve done similar work before. At least a quick gut-check across all of these phases is essential to tee up the best possible work. 

If you want a more holistic look at the creative process, check out our guide to building a creative workflow that really flows.

1. Meet with the client

The client need is the big bang that sparks the whole project. Maybe they found your agency through a blog post you published. Maybe they’re a former colleague of someone from the sales team. Maybe it’s your uncle. No matter what, the client’s budget, needs and positioning are the key to everything that comes next. 

In a bigger agency, the process typically involves multiple steps. Sales pass the client through a series of touchpoints and rope in an account manager who will maintain the relationship. For smaller agencies, this might mean the CEO presents a deck, seals the deal over lunch and then outlines the project scope.

At the end of this process, there’s likely a sales brief and some pretty high-level notes about the nature and budget of the project at hand, which will soon go to project managers and creative leads to operationalize. 

2. Operationalize the project

Now the creative agency workflow really kicks into play. Here the project manager hammers out a handful of major things, including:

• Establishing the project scope in very clear terms. This could include rounds of revisions, the terms of ongoing support or the scale of research to be conducted. 

• Sorting out roles — which sorts of strategists, technologists and producers (for example) are required to complete the given project. Here you can either assign team members to the project or source contractors or freelancers who can help fulfill the vision. 

• Setting milestones for the project. This helps figure out the major phases and deliverables as key points to rally toward. 

• Creating a brief that outlines all of this. This may be done in collaboration with other team members, including strategists or a creative director.

Once you’ve got a brief in hand, it’s time for the internal kick-off, outlining potential risks and ways to mitigate them. Then, bring the client in for an external kick-off to align on the plan and meet the team members bringing it to life.

3. Begin production 

The moment is finally here: the creative agency gets to create. This is really where the workflow needs to work for you, ensuring each member of the team has what they need — in terms of time, resources and information — to do what they do best. 

Let’s take a look at a couple sub-sections of the creative agency process. 

Research

Research might include desk research, in-the-field interviews, stakeholder interviews, deep immersion with the client’s preexisting work and internal materials, data analysis and much more. 

For a branding project you may spend a considerable amount of time analyzing competitors. For a video production project you may start studying the subject matter more. Research can take many forms in creative agencies, but it’s typically essential to help generalists better understand the client, their problem and possible solutions. 

Strategy

Strategy is a phase that turns all of the research into a specific plan of action to solve the client’s business needs. A strategic plan is a great moment to align with the client again on a broader POV, as well as metrics for measuring success, before moving into full creative ideation.

Creative

Now that the team has deeply immersed themselves in the area and aligned with the client on a strategic direction, they can start making the product at hand. 

Web development agencies may begin creating wireframes and mock-ups; video-production agencies may create early storyboards; content agencies may create editorial calendars. It’s the fun part!

How this plays out, obviously, differs greatly from situation to situation. It may involve one or several touchpoints with the client in order to retain alignment. Ultimately, though, this is an exciting part of the project, when all of the hard work of preparation tees up talented people to do what they do best. 

This is also the time when collaboration matters most. But nothing kills momentum like waiting for hefty media files to sync or download, especially across remote teams. That’s where a tool like LucidLink steps in — letting your team instantly collaborate on files of any size, no matter where you’re working from.

4. Deliver the product to the client

Presenting work to a client can be an exciting — and nerve-racking — time. The best-case scenario, of course, is that the client says it’s perfect on first blush. But this rarely happens. 

Not because clients are difficult, but because they know their brand and unique situation inside out. They can offer insights you might not have considered. Ultimately, their feedback leads to a better product

All of which means that iteration should be built in here. After that, delivery can be different based on the type of product you’re making. Video, for example, may require exporting in multiple formats and resolutions for different platforms. 

Again, this is where LucidLink shines, letting your team share files of any type, or size, instantly. The client gets immediate access to the latest version, making the review and approval process faster and smoother –– even on projects involving large video files or high-res designs.

5. Measure results

During strategic work or early stakeholder interviews, you should align with clients about what sort of metrics they’re interested in. Depending on the project, it may take a while to get this data. But it’s important to follow up to see if your team’s work moved the needle it was supposed to move. 

On top of this, creative strategists can help isolate and monitor specific metrics that may be relevant to a given project. A social campaign can be measured in reposts and sentiment analysis, while a content campaign can be measured in organic traffic (as an example). 

Sometimes all that’s available for measurement is qualitative analysis — did the CEO like it? If that’s the case, follow through to ensure that the project was a success from the client’s POV. 

6. Debrief

Hopefully, it was a huge success, it smashed all the metrics and the client was over the moon. But even if they weren’t, the creative agency should get together to debrief. 

What went well? What didn’t go well? Could the workflow be improved for future work like this? Could the team be restructured to get in front of certain issues? Are there questions to ask clients before undertaking work like this next time? A good debrief is an essential part of a creative agency’s operational hygiene. 

How LucidLink helps creative agency workflows

Creative teams are increasingly distributed across the globe. You can manage the copywriter you want from Austin and the graphic designer you like from Berlin from your home office in Lima — all for a client in Los Angeles.

The key is ensuring that your team can still collaborate in real time. No matter what kind of project you’re working on (or where), LucidLink helps keep your workflows flowing:

• Stop worrying about version control — everyone gets instant access to the latest version of a file at the same time.

• Share large files easily, without waiting for uploads and downloads. 

• Collect feedback from clients and team members straight away by simply pointing them to the latest iteration on the LucidLink filespace.

• Iterate on projects in real time, whether teammates are across the room or the globe.

Here’s how the team at Casual puts this into practice to run a round-the-clock video production workflow for its clients.

Tools to help creative agency workflows

As we've seen, agencies need flexible tech that makes life easier for teams. Today, a cloud-based tech stack is a smart way to keep agencies in sync across different teams, projects or time zones. 

Here are a few tools to consider for your creative agency’s workflow. 

• Asana is a remarkably full-featured project management tool, allowing you to assign tasks, create templates, automate approvals, plot out milestones and much more. It has a generous free tier but scales to full enterprise needs, meaning you can start small with it.

• Miro is an online whiteboard that is great for conducting a good old-fashioned brainstorm. Pop ideas on an infinite canvas using familiar sticky-note squares, then rearrange, reformat, and share. 

• Slack is a communication platform that integrates with pretty much everything, making your workflow run smoother. You can create channels for each project or department and communicate in a more casual manner than you might on something like Asana. (The two platforms integrate and complement each other well.)

• Harvest is a time-tracking tool that lets you keep tabs on how much time each phase of the project is taking. This is essential not just for managing your current workflow and scope but refining your pricing for future, similar projects. 

• Figma is a collaborative design tool that lets different visual thinkers work on the same canvas. Designers can create a huge moodboard together or slowly hammer out deliverables while teammates and stakeholders can pop in to leave comments (when invited, of course). 

For more of our tips on top tools, check out this piece on marketing agency software.

Tips for managing creative agency workflows

A creative agency workflow isn’t a machine that just runs itself. It requires oversight, maintenance and refinement over time. Here are a couple of tips for managing your agency’s workflow: 

• Use SMART goals, both internally and with clients. These should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. 

• Write a great, usable brief. There are a zillion templates and best practices out there for making creative briefs but the best one is the one catered to your team’s needs. Give them all the information they need to succeed at the outset. 

• Keep scope in mind constantly. There’s a totally understandable tendency to want to do everything a client asks, as well as everything a creative team needs, but this isn’t sustainable. If you’re the person managing the entire workflow, you should be willing to hem people in where necessary. 

• Make sure to incorporate clients early and intelligently. A strategic sync early on, for example, ensures that creative treatments aren’t wildly off-base from what the client wants. 

• Brainstorm! This can be a great way to harvest ideas from the team, but it’s also just a way to inject fun and creativity into the process, as well as building buy-in throughout the organization.

Our final tip: LucidLink connects your team, no matter where they’re based or what they’re working on. See how storage collaboration can transform your workflow with a free trial today.