16 Tips To Avoid Common Challenges That Agencies Face
Every agency faces challenges, but not all agencies have the same problems. Even though every agency is different and will face its own unique set of challenges, there are some common hurdles that most agencies will run into. For example, when trying to grow, an agency may need help with the changes in processes, technology, and culture that come with growth.
These growing pains can hinder progress, but with the right tools, you can avoid the common growth challenges to ensure a smoother transition. This guide will discuss how to avoid common challenges agencies face when trying to grow and how the best agency management software can help. Specifically, we will illustrate how Orchestra can help your agency grow your productized services to reduce the growing pains of expansion.
What Are Some Common Challenges That Agencies Face?
With increased agency competition, things are getting tougher. With more options to choose from, the fight for clients gets tougher.
The Burden of Client Expectations
Clients are becoming more demanding as the industry becomes more competitive, and agencies are under pressure to deliver and exceed these expectations consistently. Your clients are looking for more than fancy-sounding services. They want results and a solid return on investment (ROI).
The Trouble with Communication
One of the biggest challenges new and established agencies face is ineffective communication. Communication covers many different areas, from communication between managers and employees to communication between you and your clients.
When you can’t communicate effectively, it leads to unsolved issues, unspoken frustrations, and, ultimately, a lack of cooperation and cohesion in your agency. Communication is key to building trust. If your agency is suffering from a lack of communication, think about ways you can make things more transparent.
The Challenge of Evolving Technology
Technology is advancing unprecedentedly, transforming how we do business and market ourselves. From AI-powered analytics to enhanced automation tools, agencies must navigate this evolving tech terrain carefully to ensure they aren’t left behind.
While innovations in AI and tech might seem like something out of a sci-fi movie, embracing new technologies can help you gain a competitive edge, for instance, integrating chatbots for efficient customer interactions or leveraging AI tools for data analysis can enhance operational efficiency and overall campaign effectiveness, however, a big learning curve comes with new tech, so investing in employee training is critical here.
The Need for Improving Management Processes
Agencies tend to have less strict and formal management methods than other businesses. However, this can lead to problems with management styles. Consistent management, a clear delineation between management and employees, and constantly changing management processes can derail a growing agency and lead to higher employee turnover.
The Problem of Limited Advertising Services
One of the most common challenges independent advertising agencies face is the limited range of services. An indie agency typically operates with smaller teams and resources, so you might need help to provide a comprehensive suite of advertising services, or access a full range of media buying or enterprise-level technology due to budget constraints.
In an era where businesses are looking for an all-encompassing advertising solution that covers social media marketing, content marketing, SEO, PPC, and more, the inability to provide this range of services can put independent agencies at a disadvantage. For example, a brand might employ an integrated marketing campaign that combines creative planning, innovative ideas, and multi-platform engagement.
However, due to resource constraints, an independent agency might only be able to offer some of these services, thereby not meeting the client’s complete requirements. This limited service offering can make competing with larger agencies with a full spectrum of advertising and digital marketing services difficult. To fulfill deliverables your team cannot provide, it can be a good idea to outsource these aspects of your work to a partner who can back you up and function as an extension of your existing team and service offerings.
The Struggle for Talent Acquisition and Retention
It's tough for digital marketing agencies to find and keep great employees. Many agencies are chasing the same skilled workers, making it a real challenge. That’s why ensuring your workplace is a great environment can make a big difference. If your team loves coming to work, it's a big draw for new talent. Benefits like health plans, flexible schedules, and bonuses also sweeten potential hires' deals.
The Lack of Bandwidth to Handle Complex Projects
Another significant challenge small advertising agencies face is the need for more bandwidth to handle large, complex projects. Ambitious clients often have high expectations and require extensive campaigns that require considerable resources and time. Independent advertising agencies usually work with a leaner staff, which can become a bottleneck when managing extensive campaigns.
When clients have tight deadlines, limited manpower can mean that the agency cannot allocate adequate time and attention to each aspect of the campaign. This can lead to either missing deadlines or delivering work that is not meeting the client’s expectations. Since the advertising business is dynamic, agencies may sometimes need to respond to urgent requests or make quick campaign adjustments.
Limited bandwidth makes it even more difficult for independent agencies to be responsive and adaptive. Until you grow your team to the level needed to take a complex campaign from start to finish, you can outsource individual tasks to a trusted partner. This way, your agency is still in charge of the campaign's vision, but you significantly reduce unnecessary work for employees whose talents could be used for more suitable tasks.
The Weight of Budget Constraints
Let’s be honest: Clients don't always have the most significant budgets to spend, and digital agencies often work with tight financial constraints. Being smart about using your resources is critical when faced with economic challenges. Finding cost-effective solutions and making every little bit count can help stretch every dollar of that limited budget.
The Problem of Not Having the Proper Technology
The advertising industry is rapidly evolving as new technologies emerge every day. From programmatic ad buying to advanced AI-powered data science and analytics tools, technology plays a critical role in the efficiency and effectiveness of advertising campaigns. Larger agencies often have the budget to invest in the latest tools and platforms.
However, the investment required to build and maintain advanced tools can be prohibitive for smaller, independent agencies. With access to cutting-edge technology, you can optimize campaigns, track performance in real-time, or leverage data for more informed decision-making. This technological gap can hamper the ability to provide clients with the innovative solutions they seek.
The Burden of Managing Workloads and Deadlines
Agencies often face a race against the clock, dealing with tight deadlines and juggling multiple projects simultaneously. Effective project management becomes a significant lifeline when faced with these agency challenges.
We want to hit home and say it’s okay to be honest with your clients if a timeframe seems unattainable. They want good quality outcomes and for you to succeed in delivering them. Prioritizing tasks and setting realistic timelines are the building blocks for trust and success when deadlines loom overhead.
The Quest for Generating New Business
Every business needs to grow. Agencies, in particular, can need help expanding and bringing on more clients, as sales cycles can run long and there is a lot of competition. Getting new clients is essential and doable with the right approach.
The Gap of Experience and Expertise to Understand Campaign Nuances
Experience and expertise are invaluable assets in the advertising domain. Independent agencies, particularly newer ones, may not have the historical knowledge or experienced strategists needed to navigate the complexities of various advertising campaigns.
No matter how talented or skilled your team is, a lack of tangible, hands-on experience can lead to less effective strategy development, difficulty anticipating market trends, and challenges in accurately interpreting campaign data.
If you take on a client in a sector you are unfamiliar with and feel you need more experience to make data-driven decisions, you can consult with industry experts. A partner with extensive data access and an experienced team can be an extension of your agency, helping with critical decisions and adding their expertise to your talent.
The Trouble with Adapting to Industry Changes
The marketing and advertising industry changes like the tide, so don’t be surprised when trends and consumer behaviors shift rapidly. For instance, the rise of influencer marketing and the increasing preference for interactive content on social media are recent phenomena that have started reshaping the industry.
Recognizing these changes is crucial, as they directly impact campaign effectiveness. The less effective your campaigns are, the more likely your clients will pack up and find another agency to work with.
The Struggle with Poor Quality Analytical Data and Insights
Data is the backbone of any advertising campaign. The ability to analyze data and derive actionable insights is crucial for campaign optimization. Independent advertising agencies often struggle with acquiring or interpreting high-quality data. You might need access to larger agencies' robust data sources. This can lead to a reliance on lesser-quality third-party data, which needs to be more comprehensive and accurate.
Even if you have access to quality data, a lack of advanced analytical tools and expertise in data analysis can hinder your ability to transform this data into meaningful insights. Today’s clients demand more transparency and concrete results, exacerbated by an agency's inability to provide solid data-backed insights. When an agency cannot offer solid data-backed insights, it fails to justify client ad spend, which can strain the client-agency relationship.
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10 Tips To Avoid Common Challenges That Agencies Face
1. Use Orchestra for Managing Agencies
To tackle typical agency troubles, consider using Orchestra for project management. Orchestra is an all-in-one growth toolkit that helps creatives launch productized services. With Orchestra, you get a white-labeled client portal, task management, and real-time analytics, to name a few features. The best part? You don't need any coding knowledge to get started—just your Stripe account.
If you're a designer, developer, or copywriter, Orchestra will streamline your workflows and let you collaborate with clients seamlessly. You'll maintain a private workspace for your team while letting your clients use the branded experience you create. You can also add integrations like Slack and webhooks to customize your setup. Elevate your services with a platform built to grow alongside you. Try Orchestra for free to develop your productized services today.
2. Create a Detailed Project Scope
To avoid common challenges agencies face, start every project with a well-defined scope. A project scope outlines objectives, deliverables, timelines, and budgets. It also clarifies team roles and responsibilities. The agency and the client should agree on the scope before work begins.
3. Establish a Change Control Process
Changes to a project’s scope can cause unwanted challenges and surprises. To avoid this, establish a formal change control process. If the client requests changes to the project scope, document these changes. Then, assess their impact on the timeline and budget. Finally, obtain client approval before proceeding. This helps prevent uncontrolled scope expansion.
4. Hold Regular Review Meetings
Regular review meetings with clients help keep projects on track. They ensure alignment with the project scope and allow you to promptly address any emerging issues or concerns. This effective communication can prevent misunderstandings and misalignment.
5. Deliver Thorough Client Onboarding
Comprehensive client onboarding helps avoid common challenges, especially for new clients. During onboarding, educate clients about your agency's processes, communication channels, and expectations. You'll also want to ensure clients understand their role across the project life cycle.
6. Create Clear Contracts and Agreements
Transparent contracts and agreements provide structure for successful client partnerships. Draft legally binding contracts that specify the terms, responsibilities, deliverables, payment schedules, and dispute resolution mechanisms. This helps prevent conflicts down the line.
7. Regular Progress Updates
Regular communication with clients throughout a project fosters trust. Provide frequent progress updates, share results, and discuss any deviations from the plan. Transparency minimizes surprises and keeps clients calm and informed.
8. Resource Allocation
Properly allocate resources based on project requirements, including talent, time, and budget. Avoid overloading team members, as this can lead to burnout and reduced quality of work.
9. Capacity Planning
Capacity planning helps ensure your agency can handle the workload effectively. Implement this practice to avoid overcommitting to projects that may strain your resources.
10. Project Forecasting and Reporting
Project management tools can track resource utilization, project progress, and budgets. Review these metrics regularly to identify potential issues early and correct course if needed.
Real-Life Examples of Agencies Facing Some Common Challenges
Wieden+Kennedy: The Challenge of Transitioning to Digital
Wieden+Kennedy, an advertising agency, faces the challenge of shifting from traditional media to digital platforms. Known for its creative work, the agency needed help building new infrastructure to keep up with digital trends and data analytics. To address this issue, W+K invested in digital teams, brought in data scientists and adopted digital storytelling to retain its innovative edge.
McKinsey & Company: The Challenge of Balancing Confidentiality and Transparency
Consulting giant McKinsey & Company faced serious scrutiny when clients involved in controversial industries became public. This created a problematic situation for McKinsey, as it had to maintain client confidentiality while dealing with public criticism to protect its reputation. The agency adjusted by increasing transparency about client selection criteria and the values behind client engagements, aiming to align public perception with its ethical standards better.
Ogilvy: The Challenge of Maintaining Consistency Across Global Teams
Ogilvy found it challenging to maintain brand and message consistency across different markets as a global agency. Local teams sometimes adapt campaigns to suit regional tastes, leading to mismatches with the worldwide brand image. To address the issue, they implemented a centralized strategy for core brand messaging while allowing local teams to customize content within specific guidelines, ensuring flexibility without compromising brand cohesion.
R/GA: The Challenge of Retaining Talent in a Competitive Market
Due to the competitive nature of the industry, R/GA faced high turnover rates in tech and creative roles. Tech giants and other agencies often poached top talent. To attract and retain top talent, the agency introduced new programs for professional growth, flexible work options, and creative freedom, which helped improve retention and employee satisfaction.
Accenture Interactive: The Challenge of Integrating Acquisitions for Seamless Service Delivery
After acquiring several smaller digital agencies to expand capabilities, Accenture Interactive struggled with integrating different cultures, systems, and workflows, causing inefficiencies and client dissatisfaction. The agency created cross-functional integration teams and standardized processes across acquired agencies, enhancing collaboration and improving service delivery.
Publicis Groupe: The Challenge of Navigating Economic Downturns
Publicis Groupe faced shrinking client budgets during economic recessions, affecting profitability and project pipelines. Layoffs became a tough but necessary decision, impacting morale and productivity. The agency diversified service offerings, expanding into data and digital consulting, and focused on more flexible, short-term engagements, helping to maintain client relationships even on reduced budgets.
Try Orchestra for Free to Grow Your Productized Service Today
Launch your productized service effortlessly with Orchestra's all-in-one growth toolkit. Designed for creatives ready to scale, Orchestra provides a branded, white-labeled client portal, task management, and real-time analytics, with no coding needed—just your Stripe account.
Whether you’re a designer, developer, or copywriter, Orchestra streamlines your workflow. It lets you collaborate with clients seamlessly while maintaining a private workspace with your team. Add integrations like Slack and webhooks to customize your setup and deliver a branded experience. Enhance your service with a platform built to grow alongside you; try Orchestra for free and develop your productized service today!
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6 Tips To Run Agencies Smoothly
1. Streamline Your Operations With Orchestra
Orchestra is a software solution that can help you organize your agency so you can run more efficient operations and deliver better client services. The platform provides a customizable, white-labeled client portal that allows you to launch, manage, and grow your productized services quickly. Use Orchestra to create a branded experience for your clients, where they can access their projects, deliverables, and reports and communicate with your team seamlessly.
The software also helps you organize your internal processes to improve your agency’s operations and service delivery. Try Orchestra for free today to discover how it can help you manage your agency for growth.
2. Get a Grip on Your Current Operations
This tip may seem basic, but you may need to understand your current operations clearly as an agency leader. As your team expands, project managers and team members will implement their practices for day-to-day tasks, which may differ from your own. The first step to improving agency operations is to take stock of how things function.
Because your agency operations encompass various aspects of your business, taking a holistic approach and assessing the big picture is essential. Rather than narrowing in on one specific element of your agency operations, like managing projects or capacity planning, try to get a complete view of how your processes, tools, and systems work together to form your overall agency operations.
Agency Tip
As a starting point, you might examine time tracking, project, and resource management data. Another option is to hire an agency operations manager, even on a contract basis, to run a more formal audit across your teams and departments.
3. Collect Feedback from Your Team and Clients
With a holistic view of your agency’s operations, gathering feedback from your team members and clients is essential. This will help shed light on the bottlenecks, pain points, and inefficiencies people are running into, impacting their ability to be productive or achieve their goals. While your team members will offer insights about your internal marketing agency operations, your clients help you understand how your operations impact their experience.
Agency Tip
Feedback surveys are a great way to collect data and insights from your staff and clients. Your human resources department or an operations manager might also interview some of your team members to gain deeper insights. Meanwhile, your customer success or sales team could ask clients for additional feedback.
4. Analyze Feedback and Identify Solutions
Analyze the feedback you’ve collected to identify trends and common grievances. Where are your agency operations failing or leading to frustrations? Remember that achieving operational excellence takes time, and you won’t be able to solve all your problems simultaneously. So, analyze to pinpoint the most impactful changes and start there. Evaluating impact and effort and planning scenarios are good ways to prioritize your to-do list.
Agency Tip
Try implementing solutions individually instead of completely resetting your agency operations overnight. This will also make tracking the impact of each change and adjustment easier. Remember that effective change management will make all the difference start small and then continue to iterate.
5. Standardize Processes and Automate
Effective automations will help streamline everything from your project management to strategic resource planning, reporting, and client relationship management. Before you automate, it’s good to create consistency through standardization. Set up standard workflows, processes, and procedures for successful project delivery, contract management, and other critical areas of your agency operations. Once that’s done, seek out opportunities to automate tasks with technology.
Agency Tip
A good place to start is a time tracking the tasks, workflows, and processes your project teams use the most. For example, are your teams wasting valuable billable hours drawing up client reports? If that’s the case, check out AgencyAnalytics’ automated reporting solution.
6. Launch Your New Operations and Maintain Them
One of the most essential parts of successful agency operations management is regularly reviewing the systems, tools, and practices in place. Your agency operations aren’t a “set it and forget it” type. You must run tests, track their success, and adjust when needed. If you have an agency operations manager or chief operating officer on staff, they will own this process, which will be their primary responsibility.
Agency Tip
Whether or not you have agency operations professionals working on this, the project needs an owner. Beyond a designated project manager, your leadership team needs to be on board and actively participate in transforming your agency operations management.
Try Orchestra for Free to Grow Your Productized Service Today
Orchestra’s client portal lets you take a productized service from idea to launch in record time. Your unique client portal is ready to go when you create an account. From there, you can customize the look and feel to match your brand, set up your service, and add your clients.
With Orchestra, there’s no need to waste time on tedious tasks like creating a website from scratch or building a client portal. You can launch your productized service quickly so you can focus on delivering value to your clients.
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