In today’s market design skills are not enough
In a difficult market, the agencies that win won’t necessarily be the ones producing the best-looking work. They’ll be the ones who demonstrate they understand their clients’ business pains and gains.
They don’t sell design; they sell business performance.
There’s no doubt it’s a challenging time for design studios. Clients are watching their budgets, projects are taking longer to approve and there’s more competition for the work that is available. We’re not saying anything you don’t know.
So what’s the answer
In a tight market you look at your peers and competitors before you look at the potential clients.
What we are seeing is more email campaigns by agencies wanting new clients or work. The agencies have also stepped up their LinkedIn posts detailing the latest award win or new project. Some are doing thought leadership pieces but most not. Then you have the increased use of Instagram.
Consider this from the intended recipients viewpoint. They are being swamped to the point they take no notice. We are hearing of a few wins but the % is so low it proves it’s a gamble.
Most Australian agencies need very few clients
Think about it. For every full time designer you need about 20 x $10k jobs per year or you need one client who spends about $200k per year on your services or two @ $100k.
That defines the number of people you need to pitch and the regularity of your pitching. If you are mainly jobbing you need a constant turnover of projects. If you are working with clients who give ongoing work you need far fewer. The answer is to find clients not jobs.
Finding those clients is easier than convincing them to give you the work. It needs targeted communications; indepth understanding of each business, the people in it and the problems they face. This calls for a small number of contiguous comms pieces delivered directly to the prospect outside of their socials or inbox
When peers go digital you go analogue
It’s called direct marketing; using targeted, designed pieces delivered by hand to the prospect. These demonstrate your understanding of their business pains and gains and how you have solved these for other clients.
That’s not easy, otherwise everyone would do it. We have seen it work in the current market. Would love to tell you exactly what and how but we have NDA’s in place.
So here’s the real challenge. How are you going to use your research, scoping, strategy and design skills to do this. Treat it as the most important project you have and give it the full treatment.
Like to discuss this Contact Greg to arrange a chat.
Greg Branson
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Related articles about direct marketing
A design agency and their take on direct mail. Check it out and apply it to the marketing of your business.
Some examples of direct mail (not email) campaigns.
The 3-3-3 rule. An interesting article for when you are thinking about campaign content
About Greg
Greg’s passion is the research and development of methods that improve design management and the role of design in business.
In 15 years of mentoring through the DBC and 27 years of running a successful design agency Greg has seen all the problems an agency owner can have.
Always happy to chat, I can be contacted here.
