Kaffeen Espresso podcast: The Annual Marketing & New Business Survey

Back in February and March 2020 Charlotte Ellis Maldari spoke to design agencies up and down (and in some cases, out) of the country for the Kaffeen Annual Survey.

The culmination of these discussions is split across two episodes of our shiny new podcast, which are packed full of juicy insights into the state of marketing and new business activities in design agencies just like yours. The other half of this survey will be published in a couple of weeks.

The survey remains open. Here’s the link if you’d like the opportunity to vent your marketing wins and woes.

Transcript

You’re listening to Kaffeen Espresso, a shiny new podcast series that delves into the way we grow our design business. I’m Charlotte Ellis Maldari, a new business, and marketing consultant, and every other week I’ll be interviewing a guest, taking your questions, or delving deep into a topic that clients struggle with, and generally try to make growing your agency feel more achievable and less like a job that keeps getting pushed off the to-do list. 

It’s an excuse for me to pick the brains of some of the people I most admire and address topics that pique my interest. Like how not to feel yucky in the sales role. What do clients want from their new agency? And how to not spend half of your studio resources each month on new business. This is a podcast that combines little things and big things. Because as you know, managing an agency is made up of both. 

Today, for this very first episode, I’m talking to…. Wait for it…. Myself.

Back in February and March this year I spoke to agencies up and down (and in some cases, out) of the country for the Kaffeen Annual Survey. This survey is, at least in part, a selfish endeavour. It helps me to get a clearer picture of what are common challenges amongst agencies beyond my coaching clients, and to shape which products to build next. You can check out which already exist at Kaffeen.club.

But I found that the agency owners themselves welcomed a conversation about the state of marketing and new business in their business, and many said they felt relieved to have just chatted their issues through out loud. I was pleasantly surprised by number of respondents who preferred to chat their answers through, rather than fill the survey in remotely.

That being said, the form remains open, you can find a link in the show notes if you’d like the opportunity to vent your marketing wins and woes. Before I dig into the results. Here is a little bit of background about the survey.

• The survey had a total of 43 respondents 

• 5% were design agencies of over 100 people

• 20% were 20 - 100 people

• 75% were design agencies of less than 20 people

• All have a mostly FMCG clientele

I followed set questions in a google survey but I conducted most of the interviews by phone call (with me scribbling up the answers as we talked) which allowed for a deeper discussion on interesting points. Because conversations were free-flowing, the output is a veritable forest of information. And because of that, I’ve split the content into two episodes. 

It’s worth saying that the phone calls took place pre-COVID, and the answers might be a little different now. However, the recent consultations I’ve been having with design businesses of 2-10 indicate that the break-in pace has allowed them to focus more heavily on their marketing and new business activities. Most expressed relief about this, and because of the FMCG nature of the majority of their clients, most didn’t seem too fearful of what was to come.

So let’s get stuck in:

Question 1 - Of your current clients, what percentage did you find vs. what percentage got in contact with you first?

An average of 70% was inbound traffic - ie. the phone is ringing with new business inquiries

And 30% were agency initiated connections - ie. clients the agency intentionally went after.

On the surface, this seems healthy. 70% inbound traffic means that the agencies are doing something right - their profile is high, their clients are pleased and referring them on. They’re visible to their prospects. But later conversations revealed how much time the agencies who depend on inbound traffic, spend dealing with unsolicited new business calls that don’t lead anywhere. Of course, not all time spent doing new business will result in sales. 

But ‘wasted time’ feels more constructive if it’s the type of client you want to work with, as you can put your learnings to use with the next prospect on the list.

Question 2 - How much time do you spend on marketing and new business per month?

This question prompted responses as wild and varied as could be imagined. At best, in a two-person agency, they reported 2 hours per day across marketing and new business. They’d been doing this for a few months, and in this format, in their words “it didn’t feel like too much of a task.”

At the other end of the scale, one agency reported that they ‘do marketing and new business’, once a year, during the quiet months, generally January. When they’d do a rebrand, redo the website, try new tactics, reposition themselves, work LinkedIn, cold email. Sound familiar?

But you might be comforted to know, that the most common response was 10% of working time per month.

When I originally posted this question it was divided into two: how much time spent on marketing, and how much on new business. But most smaller agencies didn’t feel that the two could be divided up simply, which says something of the many hats we wear in agency life. 

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Question 3 - What frustrates you about marketing and new business?

Every response was very unique, but it roughly boiled down to the same 9 things:

1. Lack of time

2. lack of money

3. lack of results

4. How to say something unique and interesting

5. getting cooperation within the agency

6. feeling like they're pandering to the design industry, rather than their clients and prospects

7. not being expert enough

8. free pitching

9. and lastly, how it makes them feel.

But what was interesting was the detail interviewees provided. Here are a few of my favourites. 
Although maybe that’s not the right word.
But here goes:

“What we sell is ambiguous for want of a better word. It's creative problem solving, there's no one solution, no right or wrong, so how do we communicate that to clients?”

“It feels like marketing works about 1% of the time. How can we keep motivated to do something consistent with that hit rate?”

Of feeling uncomfy in the sales role, one agency owner said, “I feel boastful when I do marketing and new business. It just doesn't feel natural. Wouldn’t a client prefer to be having a pint and a chat with me, instead of this courtship in a boardroom?” 

Which poses an interesting question: why are so many client relationships still so formal? It seems that that might change in the age of working remotely. And also as a new generation of marketing bods phase through into leadership roles.

Several also bemoaned the digital nature of marketing and new business, reporting a 0% success with cold contact via digital means.

Another common complaint was that “I'm annoying prospects by contacting them”

There was a lot of groaning about how awards judging felt too subjective and in some cases, biased. But there was also an acknowledgement that aside from awards that focus on effectiveness and ROI, it’s impossible to judge design objectively.

Another concern was the process of winning new biz: the expectation to take part in free pitches. esp with smaller brands, larger ones tend to have a pitch budget. 

One thing that newer agencies found particularly frustrating was when they are invited to present a proposal, but later on, are ruled out of the running for a project because they have no previous category experience. The same companies who raised this also depended on inbound traffic, which highlights the argument for outbound efforts that are crafted to a particular prospect.

When it comes to respondents saying that they “don’t feel expert enough” and “not knowing what to do”, time worries were uttered in the same breath. Ultimately, when you have a few short hours per week or month to focus on raising the profile of your agency, it feels imperative to have a to-do list ready. Otherwise, they just waste the time brainstorming ideas, and never have time to execute. 

I thought the comment “We want to make sure we’re reaching open ears and the right people” was an interesting one. 

As was “poor quality of leads puts us off new business”. Sometimes when we find the time to “do” marketing in the busy agency schedule, it can feel scattergun and comes with a kind of “hope for the best” quality to it. 

Ironically, no one benefits from an initial 2 hours of new business planning better than the time-strapped agency. After all, if you’ve got limited time, it’s best to use it on activities planned to reach your intended target. The agencies who feel time poor, are probably losing more time throughout the year because they were too busy to do the planning in January.

We all feel rejection. And if you don’t, please let me know your secret. So it’s no surprise that “lack of responses, negative responses, or being rejected” featured multiple times when we questioned people about their frustrations with marketing and new business. 

I don’t have a silver bullet for this. But knowing you have a plan, and a plan b, c, and d means that it’s easier to dust yourself off, and skip (or at least not limp) on to the next opportunity. Again, ironically the ‘rejection’ that can feel the most brutal is from inbound new business inquiries. I.e the people who scoped you out led you down the garden path, but then said goodbye as you reached the door. Another reason for a smidgen of fore-planning, so any inbound new business feels like a bonus, rather than something to grasp on to.

Anyone who’s in an agency over 10 people likely feels this one: “I get frustrated getting buy-in and cooperation within the agency. People don’t appreciate how important it is, it brings value to the whole company but they don’t realise it. It’s tricky to navigate.” 

Sadly we tend to bite the hand that feeds us, and the creative team and clients are rightly held on such a pedestal in the design agency, that ‘house jobs’ often take a back seat. This is right, but only in moderation. There needs to be more transparency in most design agencies about how revenue is generated. Often, below senior management, the role of marketing and new business is underestimated, which ironically makes it less effective and more expensive to run. 

But a few ideas I used when I experienced the same frustrations might help:

1. Involve stakeholders from each department in marketing - even if it’s as small as taking 10 mins to discuss their role and thoughts on the project before writing a press release.

2. Reporting back regularly agency-wide - marketing can be a source of pride to the wider agency, especially if they understand how it impacts them.

3. Making marketing activities open to the wider team when possible- ie. if you’re hosting talks, make them open to staff as well as clients and prospects, attend trade shows together, involve them in the company blog are a few next to free ideas.

4. And last but not least, make house briefs as creative as the budget and sense will allow These are all ways to create awareness about how the business gets its business. So to speak.

So here is where we’re going to call it quits for today. You’ve been listening to the very first episode of Kaffeen Espresso with me Charlotte Ellis Maldari.

There are still another 6 topics to go, and you’re going to want to hear the answers to questions like: When you think about marketing, what’s currently working for you? What’s your annual marketing budget? And what would you focus on first if you had the time and money to do so? So join me again in a couple of weeks to hear the down-low on what your peers are up to.

If you like what you heard, please do subscribe on Spotify so you can enjoy more episodes out every other Monday. And if you can’t wait until then, head to Kaffeen.club where you’ll find a growing wealth of free resources and advice to help you grow your design business.

Thanks for taking time out of your busy day to listen in, and until next time, keep at it because if there is one thing I know for sure, it’s that the world needs more creative problem-solvers like you.