As well as an obvious cultural fit, the commercial alignment between Agent3 and The Craft was very quickly obvious to us as we began to get to know each other.
Since we created Agent3, we’ve had a very clear objective of helping our customers sell more to their key and named accounts by combining the three agents of change in modern marketing; data, technology and content, to identify, target and engage their key accounts. As we’ve grown Agent3 and expanded from London into New York, San Francisco, Sofia and Sydney, we’ve recognised that to deliver really effective, true ABM, end to end, requires a broad range of specialist skills.
To explain; if you’re identifying and selecting accounts, you need the right data sources (and have the ability to interpret that data!) to make the right calls on which accounts to include in your program. Or when you are building programs, you need the right creative ideas to ensure cut through. And if you are trying to scale programs, you need technology solutions that allow you to personalise, at scale, efficiently and effectively.
Accepting this premise, we have been rigorous in identifying specialist skills and incorporating them into our offer, wherever we could. It’s why, for example, last summer, we launched our creative brand team, This Machine, out of our San Francisco office by adding three senior creative executives who have deep domain expertise in building creative platforms for global brands. And it’s why we are now delighted to announce that we are bringing The Craft into the Agent3 family to massively enhance our ability to help our customers better position themselves, strategically, for commercial advantage.
I first met the founders of The Craft, Mark and Nat, through a mutual client who simply said ‘you both do great work, so I think you should meet.’ On meeting Mark and Nat, I was immediately struck by just how passionate they were about the value they deliver to their customers; they regard their work as fundamental to ensuring that any organisation’s ability to win in the marketplace is based on absolute clarity of positioning. For them, strategic positioning and messaging is, well, a craft!
As well as an obvious cultural fit (straight talking, transparent, pragmatic, obsessional about customer success etc), the commercial alignment between Agent3 and The Craft was very quickly obvious to us as we began to get to know each other. Early in our discussions, we recognised that, by coming together, we can:
- Provide customers with access to a truly end to end ABM model, founded on deep specialism at every stage of the program delivery, giving them confidence that they have ‘best in market’ capabilities to draw from
- Better support our combined customer roster by offering each respective customer base access to a broader, deeper set of services and skills than was previously the case when the businesses were standalone
- Introduce The Craft team into the US market through our existing Agent3 office infrastructure to help them scale into the US quickly
- Create broader career paths for all employees by allowing them scope to learn from new specialists with the opportunity to move between teams should it be appealing to them
By joining forces, we’re confident that Agent3 and The Craft (and we’ll be keeping The Craft brand for some time to come…) is even better equipped to help our customers create strategic and tactical clarity from the chaotic and fragmented modern sales and marketing landscape. Look out for more details on how we are going to, jointly, achieve this, in due course!