Millennials (or Generation Y) are people born between the early 1980s to the early 2000s. Statistics show that in the near-future, millennials will make up most of the workplace. In fact, these young people are the largest generation in the U.S. labor force.
Most marketing agencies will simply not survive if they don't hire millennials now.
Flexible hours and remote working are becoming more and more common options that are offered in order to win the new generation over.
In addition to remote working, young people love technology. For many, it's an absolute must that the agency they work for has the right types of software tools or gadgets. As older generations begin to retire and the younger workforce steps in to fill their…
Don't leave account growth to chance, there's a better approach
We're launching a new guide for agencies next week, in which I discuss my suggested approach to agency growth. The emphasis is very much on ‘planned’. To the point where I mentioned that you should drop the phrase ‘organic growth’ which is often used by agencies to describe how they will pick up new work from existing clients.
That’s because ‘organic’ implies that work comes in by chance or via lucky conversations and serendipity. It doesn’t. Account growth shouldn’t be left to chance; you need someone to lead the conversations that themselves lead to the up-selling or cross-selling of new services.
Which is where account handlers come in and the focus of this post. We have talked previously about how important great account handlers are to an agency, for a range of reasons. To my mind, the primary focus of the…
To find an agency that understands you inside and out, look past cost and reputation - look for value
Few decisions are as important in your business as finding the right agency to partner with. Choose wisely, and a partner can help your business reach extraordinary heights; choose poorly, and you can bleed time, money, and resources with little to show for it. Just ask the 65 percent of high-potential startups that failed as a result of partner conflict.
When the stakes are that high, how do you make such a crucial decision? That's the dilemma BMW is currently facing. In October, it announced it was starting a U.S. agency review. Whether it decides to stay with its incumbent agency or find a fresh partner remains to be seen, but it brings to light the importance of evaluating all the options.
[si_guide_block id="74955" title="Download FREE Resource – Agency digital marketing services – the top…
Five ideas to help supercharge your marketing brief
The ability to write an effective marketing communications brief can be the difference between a campaign that comes to life and generates the results you’re looking for or one that misses the mark and leaves your audience cold and indifferent.
The IPA outlines three reasons why marketers should write a brief:
It leads to better work.
A good brief helps ensure that there is clarity around the goals and objectives of the campaign meaning an agency can focus their efforts in the right direction
It saves time and money.
Efficiencies can be made by helping agencies to get to the right ideas more quickly first time round rather than changing the goalposts several times during the process, all of which costs time and money on all sides.
It makes remuneration fairer.
Make it clear from the start what exactly is expected of the agency and how success…
Which tools and sites do you use to keep up with digital marketing?
The idea for our new guide for marketing agencies ‘keeping up with digital’ came from a conversation that the Smart Insights team and I had earlier this year - around how agencies often struggle to ‘encode’ a way of refreshing their digital knowledge within the business.
Agencies that I speak to or work with will often say that they know that staying on top of all the opportunities that new or evolved digital technologies, platforms, media, techniques - and more - can help them and their clients.
It’s a ’good thing’ to do.
But they find it hard to put a structured approach to that together. Hence the guide.
As we worked on the new resource we realised that many of the most useful digital marketing sites and tools that we recommend are also relevant for other types of marketing…
How to select the very best agency for your business.
So you want to hire a marketing agency. But how do you find the one that will deliver what it promises? What are the things you should ask and, most importantly, what are the answers you want to hear?
Here are some of the answers to these questions and insider tips on hiring agencies (and not regretting it afterward) from the perspective of a marketer.
Before You Begin
First things first. Before you start asking questions, answer a few yourself. You need to be able to get at least a general idea on the budget and your marketing goals.
What do you expect to achieve? How much are you willing to pay for…
Digital Strategy moves into 2nd place whilst Branding advice becomes less sought after
Many senior marketers search for an agency starts exactly where you might expect, by searching.
Agency Spotter, which helps connect agencies and buyers have analysed their search traffic to reveal just what marketers are searching for when they are looking for an agency.
The results can be used to help agencies adapt their offering. The data reveals the services that were being searched for the most and the change over time.
Advertising, digital strategy, social media, as well as marketing strategy and mobile marketing stayed top consistently from 2014 to the first half of 2016. Searches for these terms didn't change much at all over this period, suggesting longevity of the needs for these services.
Branding, design strategy, eCommerce and communication design searches declined heavily over the period. Interest in user experience and email marketing also…
And clients need to stop listening to their HiPPOs
When I first meet a new client team, it’s always interesting to hear about how they got to where they are. It’s always different and often complex – but there are some similarities across the board – from multi £m businesses to start-ups.
The most common theme I hear surrounds clients simply not getting business advice. I use the work business pointedly here.
What can happen is clients have a back-story that then leads them to a self-perceived solution or service that they think will solve the problem.
For example:
I spoke to a really smart marketer yesterday who represented a £100m turnover membership business. She had a ‘web design’ brief for a new website and a budget of £25k. It had all kinds in there – better SEO rankings, new…
A checklist of issues aimed at improving your new business marketing processes and techniques
If you are a big, established agency then you may well run a finely tuned new business or demand generation machine already. If you are a smaller or a start-up agency and growth so far has been ‘accidental’ then where do you start with a more proactive, controlled approach to generating ‘New Biz’?
New business is, I think, is more competitive than ever and there are a few reasons:
The sheer number of agencies of all types. There are 18,000 or so in the UK alone (figures I have seen vary from 16-20,000).
Client (prospect) time is stretched thin with smaller teams and more to do. It follows that decision makers are less willing to hear you out, unless they have a burning need and you catch them at that exact time.
An increasing understanding of all things inbound…
Keeping digital skills relevant in an agency
If you think life is a continuous learning experience, then consider working in a digital marketing agency as a microcosm of this experience.
Flux, evolution and transformation are a constant theme in digital marketing. Digital marketers have to keep up to date with the latest technology, upskill on a regular basis and deliver results in an increasingly competitive market. I have experienced these challenges and in this post, I would like to share my experience of over five years working in digital marketing and SEO agencies. My goal is to give some tangible advice that can help you keep ahead of the flux and be more successful as marketers. Of course, flux is not restricted to agencies! So the advice can be applied to both agency and in-house marketers.
Let’s get started.
1. Project Management and Organisation
Project management is…
