Contrary to what you see in movies, working in marketing agencies is not the most glamorous job on the planet. The constant pressure to go beyond clients’ expectations and beat the deadline creates a stressful, almost cut-throat environment.
Many people believe that the success of an agency is measured by the number of clients they have on retainers. When account managers look after 50+ accounts each, then the company is hitting the jackpot. Well, not exactly.
This scenario could also mean that the agency is getting minimum profits for maximum headaches. Let’s see why.
How Most Agencies Plan Their Week
Many agencies accept as many new clients as they can. They are always hunting for new leads and trying to score a sale to get them on the books.
Once they receive a client, they schedule a meeting to discuss further. When they agree to terms and conditions, including the scope of work, timeline, and payment, then the real work begins.
The Account Manager discusses the project with the creative team. While the project is in-progress, many back-and-forth communications happen between the client and the management. Depending on the scope of work, it takes weeks or even months to get campaigns up and running.
It’s easy to lose track of the progress for agencies with too many clients. Account Managers find it hard to fit more responsibilities to an already loaded schedule of their clients. They forget to inform their clients about the status of the project. There is a lack of accountability.
No clear or visual metrics to report on. Most of the time they talk about the impressions and reach they achieved, which doesn’t always mean money in the bank for you.
With a lot of tasks at hand, and too many clients to keep on top of, many agencies work haphazardly. Thus, the results that you need and deserve are not met.
Let’s take a look at what a standard agency calendar looks like:
Other Agencies’ Time Distribution
On average, most agency account managers work for six clients EVERY hour or around 10 minutes for each client per day. It’s simply not enough time to dedicate to an advertising account to give it the attention it needs to get the results they deserve.
Many agencies don’t have a team meeting before their day starts. A team meeting is important to track the overall progress of the project. It’s also the time when the Project Manager identifies potential problems that may arise.
The calendar shows water cooler chats in-between working hours for 30 minutes. This short break is necessary for employees to take a quick break, but I guess they’re using this time to talk about work instead.
Their weekly timetable looks toxic from the outside. This is not how SMRT Digital works.
How SMRT Digital Plans Its Week
We hand select who we work with and never bite off more than we can chew. This is to ensure the results for the handful of clients that we work for. Yes, we need to make money, but it’s not our main objective.
We only choose to work with clients whom we believe that we can achieve great results for, and have been known to turn plenty of clients down for various reasons. We don’t want to over-promise and under-deliver, and would hate to make a promise that we can’t keep or have a bad reputation or negative review left online.
What do our weeks look like?
SMRT Digital Time Distribution
Compared to other agencies, our week is planned out clean, concise and with enough time each day dedicated to each client so that we can guarantee the results that they demand. That’s one of the many benefits of being a boutique agency.
We are early birds. For us, we are more focused and more energetic in the morning. We feel that it’s the part of the day when all our creative reflexes are at their peak and after getting our blood pumping at the gym.
Our team takes the first one and a half-hour in a team meeting where we lay out our plan for the entire day. We love sharing ideas and best practices to make our collaboration stronger. If we still have time, we also have a quick chit chat with each other, exchanging good stories and laughs in between. We need a happy pill before we get down to business.
Then, we reserve at least 1.5 hours to each of our clients per day. Within this time frame, we diligently work on our assigned tasks. Our Account Manager updates our client on recent developments and changes to strategy along the way and we have clear visual metrics to track progress.
Final Words
Our goal is to work with a handful of clients at a given time. We do this so that we will have enough time to work on the tasks and achieve them the results.
At SMRT Digital, we always emphasize doing the right thing for our clients. We take the time to understand every client’s unique goals and create action plans to help their business grow.
This practice gives us a continuous stream of active clients who trust us for many years.
Click on the link below to book a strategy session with our team to find out how we can help your business achieve the results you deserve.
BOOK A STRATEGY SESSION NOW!
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