In my last post, I talked about performance surveys and the importance of acting on the feedback you receive. Today, I’m diving deeper by talking about Annual Partnership Reviews.

Partnership Reviews are in-person meetings that happen once a year between the team leads on the in-house agency side and the business leads on the client side.

The purpose of the meeting is to review the highlights and the low-lights of the preceding year, with each group arriving to the conversation ready to offer their perspective on how the two groups worked together across three key areas:

Strategy—What types of strategies did we employ? How effective were those approaches in moving the needle on awareness/adoption? What approaches worked better/worse than others and what did we learn as a result? How might we use that learning to inform the strategies we embark on in the coming year?

Projects—What major projects did we execute together over the past year? Did we consistently deliver on time, on budget and on strategy? If no, why not? What might we do differently this year to ensure our approach is as streamlined and efficient as it can be?

Relationship—Are we working cooperatively? Do we share information with one another in a timely manner? Do we communicate with enough frequency and about the right things? What more might either team do to enable the success of the other? How might we strengthen our working relationship in the coming year?

Annual Partnership Reviews enable the in-house agency and the client to look back at what worked and what didn’t and openly discuss and resolve root-cause issues. It’s also a time for the two to look forward, setting shared goals for the year to come.

A well-executed Partnership Review helps build stronger, more mutually beneficial working relationships between the in-house agency and its clients. As those relationships grow, the in-house agency becomes increasingly essential to the success of the client, and the client becomes increasingly invested in the success of in-house agency.