Recognizing When It’s Time to Expand Your Marketing Retainer
Spin Creative • June 26, 2020
When your brand is first dipping its toe into creative marketing campaigns, it’s normal to be cautious about how much content you require from your agency on retainer. What marketers should know, however, is when it’s time to start scaling up.
One of the major benefits of working with a creative agency
for the long term is the ability to easily expand your marketing efforts using their services. This means marketing leaders are responsible for identifying the right time to scale up and having conversations about expansion with their agency partners. Unfortunately, pinpointing the exact time for expansion is more difficult than it seems.
Creative agency retainers are scalable
When a brand’s marketing efforts are succeeding month over month, and they feel ready to expand into new mediums or campaigns, one of the biggest barriers they must overcome is having the manpower to handle the extra work. Companies who hire a creative agency
on retainer don’t have this problem.
Creative agencies provide companies much more flexibility and scalability than may be possible with an internal creative team—largely due to cost and time. By renegotiating your retainer contract, your brand can quickly expand your content strategy with new deliverables and services from the agency. In short, hiring an agency on retainer gives brands the freedom to expand their marketing efforts with less risk and typically lower costs than if they manage marketing in house.
How to know if your company is ready to scale up
Not having the barrier of scalability is only part of the problem, though. Brands must also identify the most appropriate time to expand their marketing efforts. Scaling up with your creative agency partner will still come at a cost and some risk, so it’s very important to look for key indicators that expansion is necessary and executable.
• Your existing marketing efforts offer returns:
One of the most important things for brands to know before expanding their creative retainer is whether the campaigns they’ve run recently were successful and had good returns on investment. Throwing money at an underperforming campaign is unlikely to yield positive results. Rather, expanding a marketing campaign or creating a similar effort to one that yielded high returns can be a positive for the company. This also shows you have a strategy that’s proven to work.
• Your internal team is doing creative, too:
Are you or your colleagues doing creative work to accompany the content being produced by your agency on retainer? Would your energy and time be better used elsewhere?
If so, you may want to consider offloading those content pieces to the creative agency you have on retainer. While it will likely increase your fee, it will allow your team to focus on other areas of business growth for better returns.
• You have a clear plan for expansion:
Brands should never expand their marketing efforts without first taking the time to consider what that plan looks like. What additional content or services do you need, and what purpose will they serve? Never jump into a marketing expansion without have a clear plan of action.
A marketing retainer’s clear, up-front pricing helps businesses budget for outsourced marketing efforts. Unfortunately, this number might make marketers hesitate to expand and pay more. However, for brands with a successful marketing strategy, clear plans and a bold vision for their campaigns’ futures, expanding the retainer with a creative agency you trust can provide immense value.
Is your brand ready to work with a scalable creative agency on monthly content? Say hello!
About Us
Spin Creative is a video production company and creative agency helping marketers create winning video and creative strategies that engage, inspire and activate targeted audiences. Spin is headquartered in Seattle with offices in San Francisco and London, serving brands around the globe.
In 2025, digital marketing continues to be a dynamic force—shaped by shifting consumer behaviors, ever-changing platform algorithms, and increasing privacy regulations. For brands looking to maintain relevance and performance in a crowded space, staying ahead means being strategic, adaptive, and creative. At Spin Creative, we believe that clarity in brand storytelling, paired with a smart digital approach, can help brands rise above the noise.
A great video marketing campaign doesn’t start with creative—it starts with strategy. To make an impact, your brand needs more than a beautiful video; it needs a plan that aligns with your audience’s needs, your business goals, and the right distribution channels.
In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, it’s easy to focus on short-term wins—but true brand success is built on campaigns that create lasting impact. At Spin Creative, we believe in the power of long-term brand storytelling and strategic planning to drive sustained growth and meaningful connections with audiences.
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