From Day One to Done Right: How to Kick Off with a New Ad Agency

Choosing the right ad agency is a big decision, especially if you’ve worked with others before. You’re not just looking for great ideas — you need a team that truly gets your vision and feels like an extension of your business.

At Targa, we understand that the first steps together are critical to building trust and laying the groundwork for success. That’s why our onboarding process goes beyond the basics, offering a collaborative, personalized experience that prioritizes your goals and ensures a seamless transition. Ready to see what sets Targa apart? Let’s dive into how we make starting fresh with a new agency not just easy, but exciting.

Why We Prioritize Onboarding

At Targa, our onboarding process is more than a bunch of paperwork — it’s a preview of what it’s like to work with us. While some agencies treat onboarding as a formality, we view it as a critical foundation. We’re not just here to provide services; we’re here to grow with you, understand your goals, and invest in your success.

Step 1: Getting the Essentials Sorted

Before we dive into projects, we have to get the paperwork squared away: contracts, NDAs, MSAs, billing info, all that jazz. Once we’ve got these basics handled, we can focus on what really matters: delivering great results.

Step 2: Laying the Foundation

To ensure we’re aligned, we’ll confirm our understanding of your needs and goals. We’ll start with a kickoff meeting, where we’ll go over what we’ve learned about you so far, and discuss any additional insights on your goals, challenges, opportunities, and so on. Our ultimate objective is to be an extension of your team, to the point where you almost forget that we’re not actually on your payroll! The goal here is to ensure we’re fully equipped to support your objectives from the start, and every day after.

Step 3: Let’s Get Acquainted!

Relationships are everything to us, so we’re interested in getting to know the people behind the business. That means you! We want to know about you and your team — hobbies, favorite snacks, birthdays (and half-birthdays…yep, that’s a thing!), kids, pets, you name it. This is business, but we are people. It’s more fun – and more productive – to work with humans you feel connected to.

Step 4: Communication & Project Management

We’ll discuss how you’d like to communicate and how often. We’re flexible: some clients prefer weekly check-ins, while others like project-specific updates. We adapt to your style, your pace, your preferences. We’re experienced with a variety of tools like Asana, Monday, and Slack, so we’ll align with whatever works best for you Additionally, we’ll provide a Targa Welcome Package that includes timelines, workflows, and all the necessary details for smooth collaboration.

Step 5: Let’s Get Rolling!

With logistics handled, we’re ready to get going! Every project at Targa follows a structure — beginning, middle, and end. Beyond that, every project is unique! We’ll establish scope, budget, timeline, and specific objectives; then we collaborate with you on edits and reviews until the project is finished and amazing.

Bringing on a new client isn’t just a process for us; it’s the beginning of what we hope will be a long and productive partnership. At Targa, we know that the first 90 days set the stage for the relationship ahead, which is why we’re fully committed to making onboarding seamless and impactful. But what we really look forward to is a relationship built to last!

Ready to enjoy a unique un-agency experience? Get in touch with us!

Jason’s Take

I’m happy to help you with your checklist, whatever your current team
looks like or goals ahead. Alongside our own engagement process, I’ve
shared 5 steps for getting the ball rolling in the right direction.

I’ve admittedly fallen in love with a few heart-based discoveries. And though it’s easy to slide back into business-as-usual semantics, I’m unmistakably drawn to that core element that makes marketing efforts not just seen but felt: human connection. Deep down inside, we all realize that to truly resonate with our audience, we must lead with something more profound, more innate—our hearts. I’ll share my thoughts on heart-based marketing and why we must all lead out with heart, and anchor our strategies in empathy and authenticity.

The Heart of Marketing: Connecting Beyond the Brand

Marketing with heart is not just a strategy; it’s a philosophy. It’s about transcending the conventional transactional approach and fostering a deeper connection with your audience. By leading with heart, marketers embrace the vulnerability and authenticity that come with genuine human interactions. This approach isn’t about leveraging emotions for manipulation but about understanding and respecting the emotional triggers of your audience. It’s a call to be curious, to listen deeply, and to engage with sincerity.

“Project semantics and timelines often distract us from the core element that makes marketing efforts not just seen but felt: human connection”

Marketing to Human Beings, Not Just Consumers

At its core, marketing is all about communicating with human beings. It’s easy to get lost in demographics and forget that behind every data point is a person with emotions, aspirations, hopes and fears. Heart-based marketing reminds us to see our audience as people first. This perspective shift allows marketers to craft messages that resonate on a human level, fostering a sense of belonging and understanding. It’s about marketing from one heart to another, where empathy and kindness become powerful tools for engagement.

In Conclusion…

Heart-based marketing feels to me like a shift from the traditional to the transformative. It challenges us as creatives and marketers to be “fierce and kind” (a term that I heard just last week from Brené Brown and her book Dare to Lead.) Brené’s perspective on heart-based leadership creates limitless tools for creating marketing momentum in campaigns, both large and small. This approach goes beyond mere transactions, fostering deep connections that enrich both the brand and its audience.

I seek every day to transcend the transactional, craft messages that can resonate.

I know I’m not the smartest marketer in the room, but I remind myself that my job is to bring authenticity to our projects. In the journey of marketing, let’s not forget the ultimate destination: to connect, to resonate, and to engage from one heart to another.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, so let’s start a conversation or 2. Please reach out to me with your own views on the human aspects of your marketing roles.