If you are a marketing or communications leader, you might be on INK’s website because you’re here looking for “an agency.” But are you really? Or are you looking for fresh ideas? Results? Momentum? You’re under pressure to prove impact, not just activity. You need a partner who can bring clarity when things are complex and who doesn’t wait around to be told what to do.
This is why we turned our secret sauce into a product and built a methodology that captures how we think, plan, and act across every client relationship. It’s called Be There Before®, and we built it to make sure you’re not just getting an agency; you’re getting the momentum you’re really after.
I recently wrote an article for O’Dwyers about how we productized Be There Before, making the usual intangible agency claims (“We’re Different!”, “We’re Proactive!”) into a tangible differentiator for INK. Read on for why it matters to anyone thinking about what they really want when they are looking for an agency partnership.
We started with focus.
This one is obvious, but you can’t productize your difference until you have a clear, validated idea of what it is.
For us, that started with a shared frustration. My co-founder and I created INK to “do it better” than the place we worked at the time. To us, doing it better meant upping our ability to make a difference for our clients’ businesses and not waiting around to be asked or told. We felt it was our responsibility — and the fun in our jobs — to come up with new ideas based on what was happening in the world.
We regularly beat the drum of proactivity, which became our mantra “Be There Before.” Recommend a strategy before your client even thinks to move in that direction. Share insight on how the market is changing based on what media are talking about. Don’t be an order taker, do use your brain, and above all else, be there before the client has to ask.
Our focus on staying proactive became INK’s differentiator, and not just because we said so, but because our clients said it too when asked about working with us.
Then we built the system.
The best ideas in the world don’t mean much if they are inconsistent, hard to explain, or dependent on one person to carry them through. We didn’t just name our approach, we operationalized it.
Over the years, we were constantly on the lookout for tools, software, and ways of thinking that would help us build a systematic approach to our focus on proactivity. We outlined very clearly and often — internally and externally — what proactivity looks like in action across three key pillars: partnership, integrated communications, and analysis.
We wanted a way to build proactive partnerships with our clients as we went through the strategic planning process: enter Think Wrong by SolveNext, a design-thinking method we love and use regularly. We needed to stay ahead of media conversations and feed our integrated comms programs. INK’s media reports — Be There Before, B2B Tech and Be There Before, Energy — were born for that. And our Media Quality Footprint helps us better explain and show the impact of coverage to a client’s business.
Unconsciously and then very consciously, we defined our product. INK’s Be There Before methodology is a proprietary framework and company-wide practice designed to foster lasting partnerships, integrate communications across channels, and drive measurable business impacts for our clients and ourselves.
We hired and trained the right people.
You can’t deliver a great product without great people. Productization meant building a consistent experience across the agency, regardless of team, tenure, or timeline.
To ensure all INKers can deliver what our product promises, we hire entrepreneurial spirits with a curiosity mindset. INKers are creative problem solvers at their core: comms professionals who can GSD (get sh*t done) autonomously while collaborating across teams and functions.
Training on the Be There Before methodology is also a key part of product delivery. INKers have two paths to certify their mastery of the method — one is based on demonstrating their knowledge of the systems that make up the methodology; the other is exemplifying their experience in having led clients and teams through the practice. We mark these certifications on INKer LinkedIn profiles with a badge.
We protected it.
The last step we took in finalizing our product at INK, prior to pricing and promotion, was to protect our intellectual property. We felt strongly that our approach to proactivity wasn’t just an intangible philosophy but a repeatable, protectable process — and the US Patent and Trademark Office agreed. The circle R symbol communicates “only at INK” and adds an element of formality to the Be There Before methodology. This means that you aren’t just hiring an agency, you’re hiring a system designed to help you lead.
What does this mean for our clients?
INK’s Be There Before methodology means:
- You get a partner who shows up with both ideas and structure
- You get strategic value you can see in planning, integration, and analysis
- You get ideas before the ask, and clarity even among the chaos
- And you get momentum, that hard-to-capture, high-impact energy that moves the needle in real ways
In a market where AI is making execution faster, cheaper, and more accessible than ever, the edge isn’t in the what. It’s in the how. We productized our “how,” so our clients could move faster and smarter.
