Bold Session Recap – Strategic Planning for Agencies

In a recent Bold Session we spoke about strategic planning for agencies with Vicky Lalwani, General Manager at Adrenalin.

Adrenalin is one of Australia’s leading independent digital product design and technology agencies. Vicky’s background spans from development to agency operations. His passion for fostering business expansion through strategic planning led him to his current role.

Below, a recap of the session.

If I think about it, what we did 5 or 10 years ago is still the same thing we’re doing today. We’re still building digital products and platforms, and we’re still finding ways to engage brands with their customers through digital channels.

What has changed is customer behavior. We’re supporting our client brands a lot more than we did a decade ago. Brands want new apps quickly, and their customers expect a great experience when using them. Good enough is no longer good enough. I feel like brands sometimes struggle to fully understand that and that they need to keep up with those demands.

As I mentioned before, the outcome is the same, but the creative process has rapidly changed in the last 5 years. You can collaborate with a lot of people at the same time, receive feedback, and implement changes in a much shorter time frame. That’s built a lot of efficiency and allowed us to leverage open-source platforms and get things done more quickly. The future ahead has a lot of AI stuff going on in the ways of working – be it how we are inspired or how we can leverage generative AI to be quicker in producing artefacts. Agencies really need to keep up so they can do what they’re doing, but better and faster.

Within Adrenalin, we tend to try and separate the concept of strategy and planning since they’re two different things.

A great example of planning would be a set of tasks or milestones. Once you’ve completed them, on to the next one you go. But completing tasks doesn’t really tell much in terms of future growth and competitiveness. This is where strategy comes in.

Strategy can seem daunting—especially if you’ve never done it before. All you need to get things rolling is a vision and a bit of ambition. When you’re forming a strategy, you’re actually explaining what it is you’re trying to achieve. Putting it simply, you’re defining the things that you will do, but more importantly, things that you won’t do. Maybe your agency is excellent at design and development but not that great at hosting. Put your focus on design and development and forgo the hosting. There are a lot of ways you can work around it.

Here’s a list of questions that can help you come up with a solid strategy:

Strategy constantly has to change and shift based on what you’re experiencing in the market. Having good systems and routines in place will allow your agency to react and adapt more quickly. You can’t really guarantee the outcome of a strategy, no matter how much logic or data you use, and that’s what’s so interesting about it.

We look at the model called “What is your core?”Essentially, what we want to know is what we’re very, very good at. Once you know your core, you can keep developing in that direction. For some, it might be design, user experience, or web development. Starting out this way really lets you perfect your game, and then later on, you can look into adjacent products and markets.

Your core product will let you acquire loyal clients, which, in turn, opens a sea of possibilities for adjacent products. You might’ve built a website for a client that’s now looking for an agency that can build an app. Since you already have their trust, they’ll probably be more open to your agency doing the work rather than looking for someone else to do it. Having the ability to develop and use those adjacent products and markets is a great way to know where to make investments for your agency to grow.

Another important concept is alignment. You have to have a vision, a set of ideas, and goals that you’re chasing. You’ve got to make sure that whatever you do within the agency is aligned with that vision. You want everyone in the agency to ensure that what they’re doing is aligned with that vision way above.

We found that the objective and key result model (OKR) works really well for us. It focuses on the alignment I spoke about. All of our objectives have to be relevant to certain objectives above until we get to the overall vision. It’s a bit of a struggle in the beginning. People don’t really realize it’s not a task list that you just cross off. You might hit your objectives without actually meeting your key results—this is where a few training sessions really made a world of difference. Now, we agree on our OKRs every quarter, and we make sure it’s no more than three to five things so we know everything is going to get done.

If you’re thinking about implementing OKRs, make sure to take some time to sit down and plan everything out. This isn’t something you can do in 10 minutes. Make sure you sit down with your team and think about what can be achieved realistically.

I’d say it’s got to be transparency and proactive engagement. By prioritizing clients with active investments in their platforms, account managers are able to nurture relationships beyond the initial project delivery. Your client conversations should be focused on future investments, potential improvements, and long-term planning.

Moreover, the implementation of a CRM system like HubSpot can provide transparency and automation, enabling better resource allocation and timely decision-making. Streamlining your agency’s processes is a game-changer. Your client communication is better, your project transition is smoother, and you can minimize last-minute hiring.

In addition to transparency and proactive client engagement, you really have to make sure your agency maintains a consistent pipeline of proposals. This allows for a buffer against potential losses and ensures a steady flow of new opportunities. Correctly identifying decision-makers early on in the sales process also helps avoid any miscommunication. You can kind of make out which ones are the transactional clients, and which are the strategic clients. Transactional clients don’t want alternatives, they want things done as specified—they’re on a timeline and on a budget. Strategic clients, on the other hand, want your help. They’re looking to build a relationship with an agency by leaning on your expertise to help solve their business problems.

Feedback plays a key role in the continuous development of both external services and internal operations within the agency. Client feedback is a great way to see if your vision is aligned with your customer’s needs. You’ve got to address and fix common issues of frustration among customers and be quick about it. You can also use NPS to see how satisfied your employees are and identify any areas you can improve on. However, NPS tells you what a client thinks, not why they think or feel that way. Make sure you follow up with a conversation when you get neutral or detracting scores.

External market feedback obtained through the likes of SoDA (Society of Digital Agencies) is also pretty valuable. You get a sense of the market, and you can validate what you’re doing. You have to be open to feedback and challenges from like-minded people. It’s a good growth opportunity.

Whatever you’re doing, make sure that you’re communicating it clearly to everyone in the business. Don’t be afraid of strategy, but try not to make it into a set of tasks. There’s a lot of great frameworks out there. Try a few and see what would work best for your agency.

Developing your talents is also crucial to the steady growth of your agency. In the creative industry, your staff are your best assets, so you should invest in them and nurture their talents. This way, you can offer more to your clients and ensure a steady stream of new business.