We use outside vendors for the creation of almost all our marketing pieces, so Workfront is crucial to the approval process for us. I don't know if that's exactly the situation you're looking for, but I would say the biggest help is to set clear processes for how you want the work done within Workfront and work with the agencies to make sure those processes are the best way to get the work done on both sides.
We also do extensive tracking of the pieces once they're in Workfront and going through the review process to make sure everything is getting done on time, and they have related metrics on their scorecards.
I don't know if any of that is helpful but I'd be happy to help answer questions!
We also use outside vendors for our marketing pieces. We train them just like our own users, and they are great at following process. We, the Production Managers, manage the flow of work that comes back from them before passing it along to our internal partners.
We started using Workfront with external marketing agencies last year (a few select agencies with Review license to allow for content creation workflows via proofing) and this year expanded the number of agencies and upgraded them to Work licenses to allow them to receive New Work Requests and manage work from the request for quote through content creation and production. Happy to answer specific questions!
Wow! This is super useful information. I really appreciate you, @Sarah Stonestreet‚ , @Jennifer Miklasz‚ , and @Elena Dooley‚ for volunteering to help a fellow customer. I'll take this back to the customer and see what they say and if they want to set up a call with you guys. I think this is an interesting conversation in general too, so I'll have to see if we can keep this convo going in some other ways.
Agreed! I'm following this conversation too. We've internally talked about how we can get better alignment when work is outsourced since our marketing department does a combo of in-house and out-of-house.
The main concern from leadership is that adding the agencies to the process would slow them down, even though there isn't any real anecdotal data to support their fear. I'd love to know if there are any stats or benefits you've realized from bringing your external agency partners into the process.
We don't feel that agencies slow down the process at all. We consider them true partners and an extension of our existing in-house team. They are all fully on-board with using Workfront.
I agree with Jennifer - our agencies have been working with our programs for years, so they're pretty in tune with our needs and we worked with them to build out the processes we currently have so it would best embody as well as improve the work they do for us.
