Core Values Spotlight: Building Transparency Through Trust

At Statwax, our core values serve as foundational pieces for how we do business and the culture of our company. We believe that culture is always evolving. As our team and business evolve, our core values remain the same. They are the building blocks to being a company employees are proud to work for and agency partners are proud to work with. 

2020 has been a rough year for both employees and businesses, however, our core values have helped us through some of those trials and tribulations. You might be asking yourself: does company culture actually lead to success in a time like this? With a solid set of core values and strong company culture, your company and employees will thrive through thick and thin. At Statwax, we’ve decided to spread the knowledge and share how our core values, starting with transparency, have positively impacted our company, internally and externally. 

Using internal transparency to build trust with employees

We believe our employees should know every detail about our digital marketing agency, inside and out. How can our people operate at their best if they don’t understand what’s happening at each level of our agency? To ensure we’re living the core value of building transparency through trust with our employees, we:

Hold quarterly agency meetings

During these meetings, we share a synopsis of how our company growth is looking from a financial, employee, and client perspective. We do this type of meeting for a few reasons. One is to show our team where we’re at as a business compared to previous quarters. Secondly, these meetings are meant for every employee to understand the factors that go into business decisions at our agency. As our folks move into leadership positions, they’re able to see the inner workings of our business. That knowledge helps them lead their teams and services, and make decisions that are best for the marketing agency as a whole.

Have a transparent hiring process

Each employee is a part of a team at our digital marketing agency. However, we don’t want team structure to make our new members feel like they aren’t a part of the larger picture. That’s why we involve our entire team in our hiring processes. From the time we decide to add a new job listing to the time of onboarding, we keep everyone up-to-date. This transparent hiring process means there is less of a communication barrier and everyone gets to know each other from the beginning.

Participate in team surveys

We conduct an all-team survey twice a year. The goal is to gauge how the team feels Statwax is succeeding as a marketing agency. Surveys are anonymous so our team members have a safe space to be honest with leadership. Even if the feedback includes individuals’ challenges, we share that information with the entire agency for added transparency. We believe this helps us work together as a group to find solutions and improve our business and company culture.

Using external transparency to build trust with clients

We believe transparency in business is one of the leading factors in successfully building trustworthy relationships with our clients. Each of our clients have a right to transparent communication with our digital advertising specialists and agency leaders. For us, trust begins by sharing with our clients every detail that is happening with their digital marketing campaigns and collaborating with their internal teams to get the best results.

To ensure we are living the core value of building transparency through trust with our clients, we:

Create reports using real-time dashboards

Dashboards help our client partners see how the metrics of their campaigns are doing at any time. We don’t hold data hostage or only update our clients when they ask. We believe that full client transparency from our digital marketing agency is a right of each client. To us, this added value of transparency is a sign of a true partnership, versus merely serving as a vendor. 

“I love the real-time dashboards – they play a big role in my perception of transparency. I don’t ever feel like you are hiding anything from us and you’re always willing to tell us what’s going on – good or bad and I appreciate that.” Rebecca Koonse, Digital Marketing Manager, Mizzou

Illustrate advertising spending and campaign budgets

We want to make sure our clients know where every dollar in their marketing budget is going, whether to search advertising platforms or individual digital marketing campaigns. Our real-time dashboards not only show results. They also show campaign spending and the return on investment. Additionally, we believe it’s our duty, as a good business partner, to be transparent with ad spend recommendations when extra money is leftover from campaigns. If we feel our digital marketing campaigns have no need to spend additional money a client may have, we’ll let them know what’s in their best interest and where to allocate the surplus.

Communicate openly and consistently

Providing real-time dashboards and a direct look at campaign spends can bring up interesting conversations with clients. We’re always prepared to have transparent talks around anything and everything with our partners. Additionally, we believe in regular meetings with our clients to keep them updated on their digital campaigns. This transparent communication process includes phone calls, video conferences, and emails. Our goal is that a line of consistent communication is always open between our agency team members and our clients.

Being a transparent company has helped us build better relationships with clients and our team members. We work together with each of our audiences to solve problems and accomplish our business goals. Our approach to transparency helps bridge strong, long-lasting relationships with our internal teams and our clients. These relationships have been critical when facing obstacles of any kind, including an international pandemic. 

Want to learn more about how we put our core values into action as a company? Follow us on our social media channels.