Agency Management 101: How to Start
I understand you, in charge of managing an Advertising, Marketing, or Communications Agency.
The company’s routine is quite complicated, managing campaigns, analyzing results, attending to clients, among many other bureaucratic tasks, right? Well, nothing new under the sun.
So, look at what we’ve prepared for you: a complete guide, full of tips and strategies to manage your business!
I know, I would also be very happy with news like this. So, just keep reading the article to stay updated on possible solutions for managing your Advertising Agency!
Understanding Agency Management
Managing an advertising agency is essential for the success of your business. This strategy is nothing more than controlling all activities of your company.
This involves all sectors, employees, demands, goals, and even customer satisfaction. In other words, everything that involves the agency’s daily activities.
Its goal is to bring efficiency through specific actions.
These actions can be:
- Internal training;
- Business planning;
- Use of tools and software;
- Process optimization.
Among many other ways to improve your agency’s daily life and results.
Why Agency Management matters
As you and I already know, the routine of an advertising agency is hectic and requires a lot of attention.
That’s where management comes in. It is what will ensure that planning, execution, and achievement of established goals are successfully met, in order to improve business results.
What are the Types of Management My Advertising Agency Should Have?
Well my friend, there is no single magic recipe to apply to your business.
But, don’t worry, because we have already separated here the types of advertising agency management on which your company can focus.
People Management
People management is essential for your employees to remain engaged and motivated, so don’t ignore this topic.
When your employees are well and happy, it directly impacts the quality of your services’ delivery.
Thinking about what you can do to promote people management? Just check the checklist below:
- Promote team integration;
- Develop a pleasant environment in the agency;
- Create career plans;
- Create reward programs;
- Give constant feedback;
- Offer adequate salaries;
Workflow Management
Workflows can be defined as processes involved for the client’s request to be converted into an action or advertising campaign. This flow can be divided, in a simplified way, into:
Demand reception → Planning and elaboration of the briefing → Content production → Broadcasting → Evaluation of results.
For this workflow management to be successful, follow the tips below:
- Map processes;
- Create a strategic plan;
- Automate processes;
- Invest in design thinking;
- Monitor results.
Financial Management
Financial management is a topic that has been bothering advertising agencies, as they are experiencing a decline in negotiation power with clients.
Therefore, we will talk here about strategic financial management. A strategy involving various actions to make the business’s economic situation as advantageous as possible.
Remember that the goal here is to reduce expenses, monitor expenses, make periodic balances, and elaborate the cash flow.
For this, pay attention to the following points:
- Control accounts payable and receivable;
- Research the credit history of new clients;
- Offer flexible models for good payers;
- Send automatic reminders;
- Reduce costs with cost management;
- Track cash flow;
- Monitor all financial operations;
- Separate company accounts from personal ones;
- Have well-defined goals;
- Adopt specialized agency software.
Business Intelligence
There is a lot of data and information received by your agency, right? Well, that’s why we’re going to talk about Business Intelligence (BI).
BI is the perfect tool for those seeking to optimize their decision-making, as it involves transforming raw data into valuable information for the company.
Still don’t understand what the BI team or tool will do? Let’s go:
- Extraction of relevant information for the agency;
- A reengineering of processes performed within your creative company is done;
- Analysis of the entire workflow;
- To finally arrive at the restructuring of the entire process.
How to Manage an Advertising Agency? 7 Important Tips
Now that you know what advertising agency management is, its importance, and its types, let’s go to best practices!
Carefully read these actions, as they will be responsible for good project management, aiming to make the most of your agency’s productive capacity, whose goal is constant and conscious growth.
Track Time Spent on Activities
Regardless of the project or demand requested, you need to know how much time your employees spend getting their hands dirty. Only in this way will you know if the activity is within your budget.
For this, you can use:
- Gantt chart – a bar chart that illustrates a project schedule, listing tasks to be performed on the vertical axis and time intervals on the horizontal axis;
- Kanban Method – control and management system that uses post-its, due to colors as indicators.
Manage Full-Time Employees and Freelancers
Have an overview of an employee’s schedule, so it’s easy to measure their workload. You can do this through tools like Trello and Asana, to check tasks, and even Google Calendar, to check their schedules.
Remember not to leave any employee underutilized or overloaded.
Have Complete Resource Management
Do you know all the tools, equipment, spaces required, and responsible parties that will carry out campaigns for your clients? If you still can’t answer that question, it’s time to arrange resource management now.
Only with a complete view of resource use in your agency will you have an idea of what still needs to be done to improve processes.
Have Metrics and Reports at Hand
Not every project will go as planned, after all, the scope, deadlines, and pieces can change. And, to avoid getting lost, you need to have a quick way to access metrics and reports on team performance and resource usage.
Invest in project management systems, such as Trello, Asana, and Operand, or even ERPs.
Through them, you can access various financial reports, as well as BI reports.
Adopt an Efficient Workflow for Both the Team and the Client
To have an efficient workflow, it is necessary to optimize and standardize your processes.
This strategy will require you to:
- Use tools that schematize processes;
- Create an inventory of resources;
- Document processes and their respective connections;
- List processes in chronological order;
- Build a scheme to guide processes;
- Have an automated customer service and lead capture, such as with chatbots.
Bet on Process Transparency with the Client
Under no circumstances deceive the client. Always make it clear to what extent your advertising agency can help them and how it will do so.
As soon as possible, inform all services offered and their limits, focus on transparent and direct communication, always aiming for a good customer experience.
This way, frustrations will be avoided.
Use softwares
Software will be your best friends in advertising agency management. Let’s list some of the best ones for each management area.
CRM
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is customer management software aimed at facilitating the organization of information, data visualization, and developing your sales contacts.
Marketing Automation
The marketing automation tool is software responsible for centralizing information and automating routines of sales and marketing processes.
Scheduling Tools
If you are looking to schedule a meeting quickly, easily, and efficiently, bet on Meeting Scheduling tools:
Project Management
Remember what we talked about regarding activity, deadline, and time control? Well, in addition to Trello and Asana, these other software tools also greatly facilitate your work.
Chatbots
There are several types of chatbots. However, a marketing and sales chatbot can automate and facilitate your entire lead capture and qualification process.
Check out some of the top chatbots available for this function:
What did you think of our article? Now, there’s no way your advertising agency management won’t be a success.
Check-out our free trial here on this link. Start using Leadster today and revolutionize your lead generation!
