Jun 7, 2021
Over the past month, the world finally feels like it has reopened in significant ways. Fans are back in the stands. Demand for agency services continues to grow. People are looking to actively engage in the economy once more.
Agencies are facing a line-in-the-sand moment. Clients are seeking to double-down on digital campaigns, and with that, comes a greater opportunity for scale.
After speaking with over 400 agency owners this past year, our CEO, Tim Burke, has noticed a consistent pain point. As clients are looking to ramp up their campaigns, many agencies are struggling to staff their businesses with the right people to meet these demands.
As the economy recovers, qualified candidates are hired at record paces. Others have not chosen to re-enter the workforce just yet. Though we’re seeing light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, the light still feels just beyond an arm’s reach in many parts of the world.
This raises a critical question. During such a flashpoint moment, how can agencies scale to meet demand?
Tim, Rob, and TCB Discuss Agency Scalability in Our Latest Video:
Don’t want to watch a video? Keep reading!
People. Process. Partnerships.
Investing in the right people, airtight processes, and strengthening partnerships can equip agencies with the foundation needed to dominate campaigns in this digital frontier. Balancing each one effectively will result in a greater return on investment for both your agency and your clients.
Let’s Start with People
A demand for agencies is a demand for people. As Tim puts it in the video, “Your agency is the people that work there.”
Right now, the challenge is not only finding the right people, but also finding enough of them. With hiring challenges at the forefront of almost every industry, agencies need to staff ahead of the volume coming around the curve.
We see this on the client side as well. At Conduit, we have noticed many clients are bucking tradition and gearing up for running digital recruitment campaigns. Where hiring initiatives were originally reactive, many businesses are adopting an innovative and proactive approach. Now, more recruitment ads are running on non-traditional platforms like TikTok and Snapchat.
Process Prepares for Scale
As your agency gears up to scale, you need to have an airtight process structure in place. When you land new clients or expand existing ones, you can add new campaigns into your operations with little-to-no friction. This means that, once the order comes through, you can fulfill it with confidence.
How do you know if your current process can meet demands for scale? The mindset we share with our Conduit agencies is to say “work backwards from the desired result and GPS the most efficient way there”. Look internally and identify opportunities to streamline and fortify. Are there any unnecessary steps that can be removed? Do some need to be added or modified? Ask your team for their input and work to tighten these aspects of your operations to ready yourself for volume.
As the old business saying goes, time is money. When you implement efficient processes, you position yourself for more profitable scalability.
How can you activate a more efficient process structure at your agency? It starts with time tracking. Integrate a non-cumbersome time tracking methodology so that your team leaders can review elements of your processes consistently and make appropriate course corrections as needed.
Digital Performance Partnership Takes Care of the Rest
So far, we’ve established that your agency requires enough of the right people and a “work backwards from an effective outcome” process in order to scale. What happens, though, when you’re short-staffed or cannot add certain services in-house that your clients are demanding?
The answer is simple: Create true partnerships.
We understand this might sound self-serving because we are digital performance partners with agencies throughout the US and Canada. Did you know, however, that we have our own partners as well?
Whenever we incorporate a new platform into our operations, we turn them into partners. We cultivate relationships with their teams and ensure we have the support and insight from them that we need to deliver for clients.
This is where a digital performance partnership comes in.
At Conduit Digital, we partner with agencies. It’s what we do and we love doing it. In our daily talks with agency leaders, we hear some consistent reasons behind why they’re looking for a digital performance partner. Some of these reasons include:
Changing landscape – The ever-changing digital marketing landscape is near impossible for small, localized teams to stay on top of in isolation.
Ongoing training – Hiring and training a top-performing team takes years. Even then, finding enough of the right people can become a challenge. When you need a turnkey solution, a partnership connects you with a team of other skilled professionals.
Specialization – Hiring a few “digital generalists” used to be the industry standard. Today, we live in a specialist’s world, and having a team of specialists to cover every digital service is not always doable for many agencies.
A true white label digital performance partnership can help you fill the skill gap and expand client campaigns profitably. This gives your agency differentiation where simple platforms cannot. It also allows your agency to pursue clients at a much larger scope and scale than with an in-house team alone.
How do you determine the right digital partnership for your agency, though? Begin with the end in mind and visualize what a successful partnership looks like for your business. Vet potential partners as if they were an internal employee and ensure they align with your strategic goals.
We do this at Conduit with our own partners. We closely vet platforms, turn the ones we use into true partners, and double down on them. Whether this is making the most of Teamwork, Google, Hubspot, or any other of our many strategic alliances, we believe having a partner in your corner gives you a greater secret weapon than any simple platform ever could.
If you are looking for a digital performance partnership please don’t hesitate to reach out to us here at Conduit, we help successful agencies scale. Visit our partnership page to learn more and see if we are the right fit to help you grow your agency.
