The Bedford Group, Atlanta

3343 Peachtree Road NE Suite 333
Atlanta GA 30326
United States
  • Phone: (404) 237-4565
  • Country Phone Code: 1
Founded in: 1986

Philosophy & Competitive Advantages

Agency Search and Selection

Searching for a new, compatible marketing partner can be extremely time-consuming and disrupt current marketing initiatives. The Bedford Group's goal is to simplify the search and selection process to create the most strategic match of partners while minimizing any disruption of daily business. Based on a comprehensive evaluation of the client’s needs, we "prescreen" candidate firms and present our client with a set of candidates that are both compatible and qualified. Our intervention minimizes the duration of the search and ensures the partner selected is aligned with our client’s objectives and culture. This alignment, across a wide range of dimensions, is the foundation of a successful alliance.

We can help assess and select any number of marketing partners including:

  • Advertising Agencies
  • Branding and Identity Consultants
  • Direct Marketing Agencies
  • Interactive/Digital Agencies
  • Media Services
  • Multi-Cultural Agencies
  • Public Relations Agencies
  • Sports Marketing Agencies
  • Other Specialties

Client-Agency Relationship Evaluation

Inevitably, many relationships encounter rough terrain. Poor leadership or strategic advice, diminished creative quality, bottlenecks, and management restructuring are a few of the issues that contribute to the deterioration of a partnership. Some relationships will not endure. But, difficulty does not necessarily mean the partnership must be abandoned. Sometimes, it is in the best interest of all parties to terminate the relationship. If necessary, we can assist in negotiating terms of the termination. More importantly, we help you select a new, more compatible marketing partner and provide transition tools to be used in the move from old partner to new. We can help evaluate and improve your client-agency relationships through:

  • Relationship Assessments
  • Counseling
  • Contracts of Expectations
  • Monitoring and Coaching

Marketing Communications Strategy

Strategically focused communication is vital to the success of any organization. Over time, the internal and/or external communications efforts may become unfocused, internally focused or simply poorly executed. The Bedford Group can provide an objective, independent analysis of the impact, consistency, and appropriateness of your internal and external messages. In addition, we can evaluate the staff, structures, processes, and agencies you rely on to create your communications messages and materials.

Services include:

  • Message and media audit and analysis (internal and external)
  • Communications planning
  • Messaging strategy
  • Staff and agency skill assessment
  • Competitive and best-practices message analysis

Marketing Organization Design

Your marketing structure directly impacts the ability to respond quickly to the unique dynamics of your industry, marketplace, and corporate objectives. Far too often, marketing organizations find themselves less effective because they are disconnected from the business they are supporting, are structured to meet yesterday’s demands, or have experienced a talent-drain. Over time, the function can lose touch with the marketing knowledge and skill levels needed by the company, becoming distanced from those driving the business in sales, the market and executive management. Many companies struggle with the balance of centralized vs. decentralized marketing resources and the reporting relationship between the two. Unresolved, these issues can lead to inefficiencies that influence the overall corporate structure. Noticeable gaps and redundancies may propagate throughout the company.

Our areas of expertise include: Marketing organization assessment and design

  • Skill and knowledge assessments
  • Productivity evaluations
  • Job design/skills requirements
  • Marketing skills training
  • Capability building
  • Marketing executive coaching
  • Marketing process assessment and workflow systems
  • Marketing ROI analysis
  • Budgeting right-sizing
  • Organization-wide marketing spending audits
  • Allocation/prioritization Peer (or "rival") best practices evaluation

Marketing Resource Assessment

The Bedford Group’s review of Internal Marketing Resources provides an evaluation of your internal marketing department against Best Practices of other corporate organizations.

Our assessment includes:

  • Goals and mission
  • Strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for improvement
  • Organizational design, processes, and practices
  • Team skill-set analysis and roles

The Bedford Group is experienced at extrapolating assessment data into both snapshot and expanded analyses and strategic plans, developing a more focused and higher performing organization. Our firm provides direction on process improvements, training sessions, competency models and job descriptions. 

Experience

The Bedford Group has worked with a wide range of companies on a variety of projects including complex agency searches, contract negotiations, relationship reviews and strategic marketing management optimization strategies. Our clients are Fortune 500 organizations that span a range of industries including:

  • Associations
  • Cable/Broadband
  • Fashion Apparel
  • Financial Services
  • Food Products
  • Health Care
  • Home Products
  • Hospitality
  • Insurance, Health and Auto
  • Manufacturing
  • Pharmaceuticals
  • Publishing
  • Real Estate
  • Retail
  • Telecommunications
  • Utilities/Energy

Our segment experience includes:

  • Business-to-business
  • Business-to-consumer
  • Retail, Trade, Associations
  • Not for Profit
  • Durables, Consumables, Services
  • Start-up, Emerging, Mature, Declining
  • Global, National, Regional

Clients include:
Federated Department Stores (Macy’s), Bank of America, Coca-Cola Company, Cox Communications, PNC, Novartis, Newell Rubbermaid, Bush Brothers, Orkin, IBM, Reily Foods, SunTrust, SCANA Corporation and USAA. For a full list of clients, click here

Practice Areas

Our broad scope of service practices is tailored as required to meet the specific needs of each individual client. Our skills adapt to both urgent and immediate concerns, as well as long-range planning.

The Bedford Group provides the following on an engagement or retainer basis: