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How we know our partnerships with clients work...
Over distance
Our longest active account is 500+ miles away. We have a very full schedule on behalf of this client, producing and maintaining several large catalogs, numerous websites and a wide range of sales brochures, product flyers, newsletters, PR, advertisement insertions, and literature fulfillment. In our 21 years working together on a daily basis, we’ve only needed to travel for face-to-face meetings less than ten times.
Over time
Longren & Parks has two clients that have been with us for 20+ years, and many others that have been with us for 10+ years and 15+ years. For many of these clients, we helped bring their marketing communications into the digital age with their first electronically published documents. Over the years, computers and software have changed, and so too, has the content of these documents, but each new generation is a seemless, quick and inexpensive update to incorporate new products, new corporate design standards, etc.
Making square pegs fit round holes – working with what we have to
work with
In a perfect world, everything falls into place like clockwork. In the real world, input for projects comes in all shapes and forms:
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text input from articulate mark-ups of existing documents to cryptic notes and in-house PowerPoint, Excel, Word docs |
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photography input from custom-built units for photography to cobbled together prototypes that have to be back to engineering in a few hours |
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Illustration input from professional illustrators, to engineering department CAD and Excel graphics to sales department PowerPoint to what is appears to be a refaxed photocopy of a fax from a photocopy from a hardcopy of a brochure that no one has a copy of any more |
We take what we’re given and use every resource we can think of. We don’t just try to meet expectation; our job is to create a final product that exceeds the expectation of our client and the audience they want to reach.
Truth in billing
We’ve been advertising managers in the past, and know what it’s like to receive an invoice for something that is far beyond what you thought it should cost. It’s a bad situation all around, because if forces you to spend your time combing through the invoice trying find the mistake or what went so radically wrong and over-budget. It also creates doubt in your mind as to the trustworthiness and integrity of your agency.
This scenario never happens with L&P clients. Our monthly client invoice only includes our flat-rate retainer plus any client pre-approved 3rd party invoices and out-of-pocket expenses. All 3rd party invoices and out-of-pocket expenses are billed at actual cost (without markup) either directly to the client or included on the L&P monthly invoice – basically the same as if we were employees. Primary 3rd party invoices and out-of-pocket expenses include such items as artwork, photography, printing, advertising insertions, shipping costs, business related air fare, meals and overnight accommodations.
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