TheMarketingblog

How to keep your marketing agency running smoothly

Marketing agencies are often high-pressured environments.

Usually split into accounts, sales, design, and editorial, they are frequently working at maximum capacity with numerous deadlines on the horizon.

Any agency director will know that a problem or accident can suddenly cause an already stressful environment to grind to a halt. If you truly can’t afford to lose any time on your day-to-day schedule, then here’s how to keep your agency running smoothly.

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Industry training

On the one hand, training your employees does cost money, and so this is why many agencies ask their employees to stay loyal to them for two years in exchange for training days.

On the other hand, it’s also the best way to stay on top of what’s new.

Attending industry events and sending your colleagues away for extra education will prevent you from slowing down as a result of a lack of knowledge.

Learning as you go and self-training is sometimes useful for intuition, but when you’re up against deadlines, it can be very stressful, and sometimes counter-productive.

IT Support

Whether it’s Adobe Photoshop freezing, your CMS system crashing or other forms of communication not working, information technology is really the backbone of any modern agency.

Having ineffective IT support can, therefore, be incredibly aggravating. Using a high-quality, local IT support provider who can always be just an email away is the best way to keep your business up and running. Searing for ‘IT support Birmingham,’ for example, and contacting local IT support services should be your first step.

Keep on track of your cash flow

Investments are so important to your company, but it’s important to make sure those costs are ultimately covered. If you’re a relatively small agency, you will need to keep a close record of your cash flow. This is also essential if you’ve taken out any business loans to get your company on its feet. You should always ensure that debt is being paid back regularly, and ideally above the minimum requirement.

Create a culture of delegation

It doesn’t matter how complex the job is; instructions should be relatively simple to follow.

If they’re too complex, or written by someone who didn’t take the time to check how comprehendible they were, you could run into productivity problems. Many managers fall into the trap of keeping all their secret hacks and information in their heads while they press on with work.  You will need to take some time to write a plan of action:

  • No need to write a full manual: do you have some simple bullet points that can be accessed and understood by everybody?

  • Are your processes too convoluted? Could you simplify them so everyone can learn them and get on with their work?

  • Could you spare an hour or so to train your team effectively?

Keeping your marketing agency run smoothly might feel like an impossible task, especially when you have so many different teams working to different deadlines.

However, it is always worth taking time to check your processes and backup options.

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