The pressure for brands to select the “right” digital agency to deliver projects and campaigns has never been greater. So what steps can you take to avoid a digital partnership disaster?
2015 continues to be a golden era for digital agencies. UK online retail sales eclipsed £100bn in 2014 reflecting the nation’s insatiable appetite for buying online. With digital ad spend increasing by 800% between 2004 and 2014 to £7.2 Billion, brands are responding to consumer demand and investing heavily in their online presence. The rapid growth of online investment and increased availability of advertising platforms means that digital marketing roles have rapidly evolved to be multi-disciplined and complex. Agencies are therefore an attractive option for brands looking to deliver quickly on digital campaigns and projects.
Imagine you’re hiring a member of staff
The process of selecting a digital agency…
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…
5 essential sections for a great agency proposal template
First things first: a proposal isn’t a pitch. A proposal is usually used as the first stage of a wider pitch process to filter down a field of agencies. I'm focusing here on the long form written proposal.
As an aside, alarm bells should be ringing if the prospect or client only wants a written proposal sending through with no opportunity for you to meet or at least ask questions. So I’ll assume you have requested and secured a meeting or some form of Q&A before you start creating your proposal. That way you have all the facts you need to answer the request and you’ve also started building a relationship.
'Winning is not everything, but the effort to win is.' Zig Ziglar
There'll be times when your proposal isn't written in a competitive context:
you may be the incumbent and have a great client relationship…
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…
When your agency gets big enough you'll have to think seriously about account handling
Maybe a surprising question (especially to those account managers or handlers reading this post) but it is a question that comes up fairly regularly from owners of new or smaller agencies. And that’s who this post is aimed at.
Actually, rather than being asked if an account handler (at the right stage in the agency’s growth) is necessary, I’ve sometimes been told that it isn’t. Period. To paraphrase some conversations:
“we won’t be recruiting account handlers, clients will deal with a flat structure, we’ll save on overheads and that’ll also set us apart from other agencies”.
Not to sound flippant, but ‘good luck with that’! That approach will be what eventually makes you over run on projects, miss new business opportunities and underserve on proactive ideas. And tie you (the business owner or creative/tech lead) up in knots, trying to…
More clients think their agencies are innovative than ever before!
When it comes to digital marketing, innovation beats tried and tested. No one gets excited by banner ads, but a clever new Snapchat campaign or interactive billboard might just get some attention. So it stands to reason that clients would want and expect a good level of innovation with respect to digital initiatives from their marketing agencies.
A report from SoDA shows how many clients think their agencies really are innovative when it comes to digital. The numbers are looking fairly promosing, almost twice as many cleints thought their agencies were very innovative this year as did in 2015. More also thought they were 'somewhat' innovateive and less thought they were average.
So agencies had better keep up their efforts to become digital innovators, lest they fall behind the competition. If you're a marketing agency owner looking at offering new digital services, you'll…
Agencies and clients disagree on organisational structure, but do think the relationship is improving
The agency-client relationship has always existed in a state of strain and 2016 is no different. The brand uses an agency because it doesn't feel it can deliver campaigns as effective in-house, and that can't help but generate a little bit of healthy resentment or envy. The agency has every incentive to convince the brand to engage in ever more costly marketing activities, and very little reason to tell them pull the plug on costly campaigns that won't deliver ROI. Both partners need each other, but have different goals. It's a recipe for dissatisfaction.
So it hardly comes as a surprise that latest SoDA & Forrester report on the state of the agency-client relationship, based on surveys conducted in Q1 2016, finds the client agency dynamic to be hitting a 'roadblock'. But when you get beyond the negative headlines…
Research reveals how UK marketing consultants and small agencies promote themselves
Over the past few months my team at OST has teamed up with Constant Contact to produce a research report into how UK marketing consultants and small agencies promote themselves. The UK Marketing Consultants: Digital Marketing Report offers a fascinating insight into the marketing activities that experienced, but often time-poor and budget conscious marketing consultants, prioritise.
One of the headline findings is that the top four marketing activities that consultants engage in are: content marketing, social media, SEO and email marketing. This gives a hint (echoed throughout the report) that consultants prefer to use their own knowledge and time than spend their hard-earned cash on marketing.
Another key finding is that while 38% of consultants…
How agencies and other B2B service businesses can avoid a fatal trap
I've been following Ian Lurie of digital agency Portent, Inc for a few years now, enjoying learning from the type of actionable insights around content marketing, SEO and broader Digital Marketing Strategy that I aspire to. So, I was intrigued to see what One Trick Ponies Get Shot was about - particularly since his new book offers the type of contrarian thinking that is all too rare in our Internet marketing echo-chamber. Certainly packed full of original thinking and advice which can change your approach as this interview shows.
Our interview is directly relevant to agencies owners and new biz dev folk, but his analysis will resonate with many and is also relevant for other types of professional B2B service businesses. Thanks for the interview Ian - I like your…
How to use analytics to convince potential clients that they need your help
Analytics are a vital tool for establishing which marketing strategies are successful and which are proving to be a drain on resources. However they can be overwhelming to the untrained eye, which provides the perfect opportunity for you, if you work in business development for an agency, to offer your services and expertise to potential clients.
Using analytics enables you to identify issues and shortcomings in their current strategy and recommend solutions, supported by data.
Your initial step must be to establish their existing level of knowledge. It’s essential that you clarify whether they are a novice, or they are just looking for the input of an expert, and whether the use of jargon is appropriate. Making this differentiation early on will not only save you time in your explanation, it will also prevent you inadvertently patronising or over-simplifying to…
