Carl Witton, Chief Growth Officer at Tangram shares his top tips for utilising agency software for profit.
Don’t be scared to use advertising agency software to maintain relationships and improve profitability. A difficult challenge for any successful agency is to maximise your profit margins without causing any lasting damage to hard-won relationships. The go-to place when looking to increase margins has traditionally always been cutting labour. However, this can decrease your company output and, more importantly, cause lasting damage to client relationships.
Advertising agencies, in particular digital companies, have a huge capacity for improvement in the way they handle their workload. By implementing routines and utilising the right software they can improve efficiency and massively increase profit. The hard part is knowing where to target your efforts in making improvements.
Let’s look at 7 ways that innovative agency software can help your company’s profitability.
1. Using Agency Software to Improve Communication
An enormous amount of an agency worker’s time will be spent in communication, be it with clients or colleagues. You will almost certainly be wasting valuable time if you are not communicating effectively. Select the right project management software and time can be better utilised. If your company adopts one of the excellent project management software systems available, the time saved will outweigh the cost. Systems like Deltek WorkBook can completely streamline your projects, contacts, and communication.
2. Managing Marketing Budgets
Word of mouth recommendations, of course, play a big part in the growth of any business. The time spent on getting one serious client can pay dividends in the future by way of a referral. However, it is folly to rely solely on this kind of growth. At times when you are less busy, an automated system can be working for you. A constant trickle of news, for example, by way of a good company newsletter, can keep your company in the clients’ minds.
3. Keeping Control of Accounting
Control of accounting is one area of your company’s necessary function that has been radically changed in recent years by agency software. Expensive outsourcing of accountancy work can be easily reduced to a simple consultation, once your software has done the donkey work. Agency management software will keep track of all aspects of your company spending. All financial activity can be tracked and even linked to your bank account. Old fashioned bookkeeping is becoming a thing of the past.
4. That All Important Brand Awareness
Companies spend inordinate amounts of money simply trying to push their brand to their prospective clients. However, with the growing use and importance of social media, this should not necessarily be the case. In today’s advertising market, content strategy and brand image can simply be created once. It can then be used consistently through all social media channels. All this activity can be automated and brought under one roof by using solution tools like If This Then That.
5. Controlling Client Support
Client support is an essential part of maintaining any client relationship. They need to know that you are there when they need you. Also, you need to know that they are satisfied with any products that you have provided. Therefore the cost of client support is simply a necessary part of your business. That being said, by automating the process, you will easily spot repeat requests. These can then be eliminated. More importantly, any client requests regarding support will never be missed. The delivery of your support can be fully automated.
6. Accurate Tracking of Your Staff
Un-logged and therefore unbilled work is the scourge of all agencies. Because of the COVID crisis, there has been an increase in working from home. This means there has been a shift in emphasis. Whereas staff attendance and working hours used to be dominant, now it is almost all work done that is key. Flexible working hours are increasingly the norm for all companies. That freedom, however, has increased the need for good tracking of output. Time tracking is an area where agency software really does come into its own. Check out how other agencies manage timesheets.
7. Professional Reporting is Key
It is human nature that we all want to feel valued. Your clients are no different from anyone else in this respect. By providing them with an adequate report on their varying data requirements, you and your clients will maintain a healthy relationship. Always ensure that your results and methodology are made clear to them. By automating this aspect of your delivery, you will keep them fully informed. You will save on labour costs if the collection and distribution of data are implemented automatically.
Increase your profitability with Tangram
We hope that Carl’s list provides you with some insight into how agency software can improve the profitability of your company. Our consultancy services can help you find the right software for your business.
To find out more about our services and how we can work with your agency, contact us.
This article first appeared as an opinion piece by Carl Witton, June 2021.
