For Agencies

Whether you’re starting an agency, scaling it up, or have a long-established business, growing your client base is no easy task. From defining your growth goals to developing a scalable business model, achieving success in such a crowded field requires careful planning, a willingness to push boundaries, and a desire to learn from your successes and failures.  

For marketing, PR, and creative professionals, new business meetings are sometimes an unwelcome, if necessary, addition to already busy schedules.

After 17 years working with brands of all shapes and sizes, we’ve narrowed down the top drivers of the new business/pitch market, particularly in the ‘creative’ space.

The time for revolution in marketing procurement is now - so the argument goes. We’re already seeing a big shift in the way brands think: less saving, more value. Procurement demands fewer potential partners and healthier rosters with strengthened relationships. This can hopefully rid the procurement profession of bad practice. Cue The Positive Pitch Pledge.

With our new business events driving so much success for agencies in 2022, we’re hoping 2023’s calendar of events will be no different. But what can our team tell you about getting the most out of the day?

It’s been a bizarre couple of years. The agency landscape and a client’s ‘marketing mix’ has changed considerably. However, have the rules of attraction between clients and agencies changed to the same extent?

Years ago, I sat in a meeting with an agency's top talent, in which there was a 20-minute discussion about whether to “link in” with a prospect before or after a meeting. The days of this being the only thing to think about on the platform are long gone......

The tail end of the 90s heralded the very beginning of marketing’s long term love affair with the internet. A relationship that has altered the way brands communicate with consumers forever. It started with enabling people to find and receive information, but boy has that changed. We’re looking at you, social media.

While it’s a great time to be in recruitment, it’s been an incredibly frustrating period for those struggling to build a future-proof team of marketers. Whether it’s content, events, PR or new business, one of our most common client enquiries is, “We’re recruiting for X, do you know anyone?” (This is second only to, “How do we get [and win] more briefs?”)

We reached out to our research partners over at ImpactSense and together we surveyed 150 senior PR and communications professionals about their willingness to adopt Artificial Intelligence (AI) – and for what purposes.

This was also a comment on the ephemeral nature of the trade media: today’s razor-sharp insight is tomorrow’s greasy food wrapper.

As the great Fleetwood Mac once described, there’s nothing worse than being Second Hand News. In other words, don’t let someone beat you to your own message: take centre stage yourself.