2020 Agency New Business Report – Part 2: Small Agencies Have Work To Do

2020 Agency New Business Report – Part 2: Small Agencies Have Work To Do

We’re continuing from our last episode based on our 2020 Agency New Business Report, which you can download at no cost at the URL at the end of this post. 

In that episode we talked new business success and opportunities, what that looked like, and in this episode, we get more tactical. 

Let’s kick it off with your first takeaway: 

58% of larger agencies, that is fifty employees or more, versus 38% of smaller agencies, say the loss of trade shows has “somewhat” or “significantly” impacted their prospecting efforts. 

We talked about the need to pivot when it comes to new business in our last episode and this is, unfortunately, a perfect example of that. 

Networking, trade shows and those types of outside sales activities, effectively disappeared with COVID, and are still on pause.

I’ve talked with a lot of agencies since March who had personal success, or a salesperson who counted on those types of activities to drive new business, and that all stopped.

Many of those individuals didn’t find success in the transition to all inside-sales. 

If you’re thinking about hiring for a new business position internally, you have to look at someone with inside sales experience, or at least both.

Someone who can write effective sales emails, who isn’t afraid to pick up the phone, but can also do that in an effective and non-generic way. 

Technology and automation can certainly help your effort, but they’re not a replacement for experience-it counts.

Alright, your second takeaway: 

53% of larger agencies create new case studies every month. Only 16% of smaller agencies do. 

An initial reaction might be wow, that’s low. 

But I will say, and we’ve talked case studies before in this series, this is doable for smaller agencies. 

We released an eBook on just that, and the key to accomplishing it-create a template. 

You don’t have to design a new case study every month-design a template once, and then drop in the relevant information. 

Even saying that, I don’t think smaller agencies need to create one new case study every month.  

If you start with five or six as a base, one a quarter will still be effective. 

OK, and your final takeaway: 

78% of agencies said their website was either “somewhat” or “not at all” fully optimized to help them win new business. 

That includes small and large agencies. 

That’s not good.

We could have a whole episode on what “optimized” means, but at a minimum level, it’s proper key words, cutting to the chase in your site copy, focusing on showing your prospects why they should work with you-making it easily navigable and easy to grasp what type of firm you are and what you provide. 

Easy, right? 

In all seriousness, we put together an eBook on that as well and will have the link in our description. 

Your site is the first thing most prospects see. If nothing else, there are most likely improvements you can make right now, versus a complete redesign.  

Download RSW/US 2020 Agency New Business Report.

More on it:

This year’s survey and the resulting RSW/US 2020 Agency New Business Report are of course taking place in a time like no other, and while our survey wasn’t focused around the pandemic’s effects, it was impossible not to ask and answer our questions through that lens.

Over 5,000 Agency executives nationwide had the opportunity to participate, and in fielding the survey, we wanted to discern how the challenges and dynamics of agency new business efforts have evolved with the relentless pace of rapidly developing media channels and marketing technologies.

Our hope is the key findings and implications of the study presented in this report provide value to you as you develop your plans for the remainder of 2020 and into 2021.