https://soundcloud.com/newfangled-agency-marketing-matters/episode-9-the-two-main-factors-that-will-determine-your-marketing-success
Mark:
Hello, and welcome to Agency Marketing Matters. This is a biweekly podcast that’s about different digital marketing targets that are of interest to agencies. We’re Newfangled. We’re a digital marketing consultancy for agencies. We help them implement these different strategies and tools to further their marketing. I’m Mark O’Brien, the CEO of Newfangled.
Lauren:
I’m Lauren Siler, the Director of Marketing at Newfangled.
Chris:
I’m Chris Butler. I’m the COO of Newfangled.
Mark:
Today’s topic is about the primary factors that do and do not affect an agency’s ability to market themselves. There’s a lot of confusion about that. Lauren and I recently took a trip to Manhattan. It’s great going to New York because there are thousands of agencies it seems there. That might actually be true. We were there for about a little less than forty-eight hours and met with five different firms. We met with a five-person firm, a 12-person firm, a 120-person firm, a 300-person firm, and a 2,000-person firm. All in again the span of fewer than two days.
It was just so interesting to see how consistent their struggle was, how difficult it was for all of them to market themselves, how they’re all really facing the same problems, even though they were incredibly different agencies, obviously beyond just the headcount, which was quite diverse. The market areas they focus on and their history, their growth trajectory, all these things are different for each of those firms. They struggled with the same things when it came to marketing themselves. I think that agencies are oftentimes confused about what does and does not affect their ability to market themselves.
Lauren:
We talk about building marketing plans for agencies in a specific way. When we think about the sort of elements that influence an agency’s success, we talk about how you need to be well positioned. We talk about effective use of a CRM or automation tool in conjunction with a site that’s built in a specific way that’s ideal for lead development. We talk about having the right content strategy, the right contact strategy. When we sort of lay all these elements out for agencies, a common question we get is, “Is this possible for my agency? Am I too small? Are we too large? Are we too complex organizationally to be able to effectively do this?”
It’s been interesting because we take different approaches, and we’ve seen that different approaches are necessary for each agency. Headcount, as an example, has never really been a factor. We’ve had agencies who have been incredibly successful on this model who’ve been quite small. Then scaling all the way up to thousands of employees. It’s interesting that that’s not really what it’s about.
Mark:
The small agencies assume that it’s easier for the big agencies to pull this off because they’ve got more resources.
Lauren:
Yes, and the larger agencies sometimes assume that it’s easier for smaller agencies because they can be more nimble.
Mark:
Right. They’re both right, but those things don’t actually end up being true oftentimes. The larger agencies do have more bureaucracy and that holds them back. The smaller agencies can be more nimble as long as they dedicate to these tools. One thing that is not a factor, that does not need to affect your success in marketing your firm is headcount. Headcount is pretty much irrelevant, so that’s off the list. That’s not something that will impact your success or your ability to succeed.
The two things really that we see that are the main determinants of whether or not you’re going to be successful with this are desire and commitment. Do you actually want to do this? How badly do you want it? Sometimes agencies really want to market because they’re concerned. They’re in a position of fear because maybe sales dried up. Sometimes they really want to do it because they’re in a strong spot and the want to stay there. They’ve had it. They’ve tasted the success, and once they’ve tasted the success, they don’t want to lose it.
Lauren:
I think it’s important too when we talk about desire, it’s important that it’s not just desire of an individual. Marketing in this way really needs to infuse the culture of an agency. Getting internal buy-in is really important. That can look a lot of different ways for agencies, but having desire across the board and commitment across the board internally is really what you need to be able to embark on a journey like this successfully.
Mark:
Yeah. The desire and the commitment, the play between those two things is the desire of an individual. Oftentimes it does start with at least the ability for an individual to embrace this idea and to really believe in it. They oftentimes, or a small group of people, need to basically carry that torch until the larger agency, a larger group within the agency really does believe in it. That gap, that gap between the point when someone or a group of people decided to do this, because they really do fully believe in it, and the time when they get their first great lead, that’s the most dangerous space to be in when it comes to marketing. What happens all the time with agencies is they get stuck in that gap and never get out of it.
For example, someone inside the agency might decide, “Well, let’s adopt automation.” They get really excited about it. They tell the agency about it, and they’re going to do this. Then somewhere between the time they decide to do that and before they actually get real traction, it falls apart. The agency gets distracted. They lose focus. Or they’re going to hire a consultant to come in, and what happens then? Will they actually take the advice of the consultant? Everyone gets excited about it, or they adopt a CRM or whatever it might be, a content strategy.
Lauren:
Right. Another thing that has come up recently that doesn’t necessarily affect an agency’s ability to effectively market itself is this idea of your specific growth plans for your agency. We were on the phone recently with an agency who had just wrapped up their three-year planning process. They told us that they’re not looking to grow exponentially in size with the next three years. They’re pretty happy with where they are. The question that was posed to us was, “Does marketing really matter for us if we’re not looking to quadruple in size over the next three years?”
Mark:
Yeah. That was a great question. We love when we hear those questions, because it shows they’re thinking pretty deeply about the topic. Our response to them, and our response to anyone who would ask that question is that really marketing isn’t necessarily about growth in terms of headcount. It’s control, and it’s about the freedom to choose in the sales process. The more marketing you do, the more opportunity you generate, and the greater ability you have to take on the right clients. We always talk about the idea of elevating the client base that many of our agency clients, they only take on two to four new clients every year. They only have a total roster of maybe 12 to 20 clients. Roughly, things are different from agency to agency, but roughly every five years, the agencies have the opportunity to completely recycle their entire client base.
If they’re marketing effectively and being really in touch about who the right fit clients are and who they want to bring on, they have the opportunity to essentially change the makeup of that agency. Even the same number of people, the amount of impact they can have on the client, the amount of profit they can make, the level of happiness, the kind of work they’re doing. There are lots of little other levers to move aside from just headcount.
Lauren:
Right. That kind of growth is something that’s never really ending for an agency. That’s the kind of goal that can be set and then accomplished and then reset time and time again. If you look at marketing as forever being able … this journey of forever elevating your clientele, that’s kind of a more effective way to look at whether or not marketing is right for you and if it can be successful for you, rather than just growing, opening the floodgates to get in a bunch of accounts.
Mark:
Yeah, yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. It’s interesting. When it comes to marketing, we do believe it comes down to the ideas of desire and commitment is, “Are you ready for? Do you really want it? Either because you’re a little afraid of what the future might hold, or because you really love the present and you want to hold onto the present?” Then holding on long enough and having the right plan in place, the right comprehensive solution, not a one off silver bullet solution, like just getting an automation tool or hiring a salesperson, but a real deep, comprehensive solution that you believe in that will allow you to bridge that gap between the time you do commit based on your interest in improving marketing to the time that that first really strong lead comes in. Once that first really strong lead comes in, the entire culture changes. The habits change. The beliefs inside of the agency change. It really worked.
In terms of timing, we find that usually happens within about the first nine to twelve months after the system goes live, after you start using the system. You have the right content strategy. You have the right supporting website. You have the right outbound strategy, all of those things put together. It takes about nine months for that engine to turnover for the first time. Nine months can be a long time. A lot can happen in nine months. In a big firm, you might get thirty RFPs in nine months or whatever it might be. That can distract you. In a small firm, the few staff who are committed to it might get tired out.
It’s really a matter of holding on through that first year for the system to start working. The moment it works, everything changes. It’s really exciting to watch that. These are just a few of the ideas that we have around this topic based on some conversations and some trips we’ve recently taken. We just always appreciate the opportunity to talk about these things, and hope you got some good takeaways from this session. We look forward to our next time together. For now, I guess we’ll sign off.
Lauren:
Yeah. Thanks for listening.