Integrated agency without a digital team?


A simple overview of this difficult agency problem with information from clients and candidates. Could be useful if you are facing this challenge currently.

You are not alone.

With recession pulling hard on the marketing purse strings it's well known that the measurables of digital have been attracting the eyes of marketing managers all over the country. Indeed with figures released this week showing advertising mediums across the board in recession except for digital the need for an integrated digital offering is becoming a business essential.

While all integrated agencies obviously are dealing in digital there is an enormous difference between working with partners that have inherent knowledge and expertise to help your clients, for a cost, and developing your own resource. In some ways this is the nub of the problem.

If you are not developing your resource you are in fact moving further and further behind because you are not growing with digital, gaining insight and technical knowledge needed to give your clients the marketing advantage that they need.

Having worked on a few of these now I thought I might useful to give some insight into the challenges faced based on information from clients and candidates

Questions to consider when bringing Digital into a traditional Advertising or Design business

1 Choose a path

If you have no digital currently where will you start? Who should be your first 'Digital' employee and what skills should they bring. Candidates tend to come from two camps:

Production or hands on
These are Web designers, producers or Developers that have worked their way up through the ranks in digital companies to reach a senior client facing level.

Marketers or Digital Account Managers
Account managers or marketers that have specialised within the digital area and amassed a great understanding of the technical challenges along with experience of implementing digital strategies. These candidates will generally be more expensive then their production style counterparts.

This is a little of a chicken and egg problem and really it depends on your current team. If you have an excellent Account team then it makes sense to utilise them to the max by brining in a more Production hands on person who can educate and develop the delivery mechanism.

If you feel that you really need a greater digital understanding at an Account level to develop new digital business then someone with more strategic or client facing experience makes sense. Ultimately you will still need someone to manage the production of the digital work and a Marketer may not have the in-depth understanding to achieve this.

A third option may be bring in a Digital marketing candidate on an interim basis to help to educate the agency and teach the account team how to develop their digital ideas and work with their clients across the digital spectrum from search to social Media


2. Get everyone on the bus

If your senior team aren't all singing the digital tune this can cause real problems when developing the new resource.

As owners or directors it is imperative that the whole agency understands the need for digital integration and ensures that the new Head of Digital gains access to all the clients in order to develop their digital needs.

Failure here can be disastrous and often nervous Account Managers and Account Directors will need assurance that their relationship with the client is still the most valuable on the team.


3. Allocate the right time and Resource

Like all aspects of business, a new digital offering will take time to develop and a realistic time frame with measurable goals needs to be agreed. Make sure that everybody involved knows what is demanded from them and ensure that the whole agency is focussed on integrating the new digital team.

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