2018: 35 Reasons to up your game

Posted: January 31, 2018 by Robert Craven

If you are a glass-empty kind of person, then I would reach for the Prozac now.  

The following list of external pressures (real or potential) on your agency cannot be ignored:

1. Brexit – creating uncertainty for all business, clients, and partners 
2. Trump – see above 
3. Rising cost of digital staff 
4. Increasing costs in running business 
5. Increasing numbers of clients going bust or paying late  
6. Cheap, cheap prices from growing supply of off-shore alternative suppliers 
7. Over-crowded marketplace with low barriers to entry 
8. The inability of agencies to get on top of their own costs and utilisation rates 
9. The inability of agencies to understand strategy, marketing and people in their own business. And finance.
10. The inability of agencies to understand what clients really want 
11. The overwhelming banality of every agency wittering on vaguely about value for money and their unique culture 
12. Possible levies and taxes for trading outside of Europe 
13. The continuing downward pressure on price demanded by advertisers with similar pressures 
14. The increasing power of what is a duopoly of Google and Facebook 
15. The increasing power of Amazon countering the standard PPC model and demanding a different business model for clients 
16. The growing number of claims that key platforms manipulate the marketplace for their own ends and don’t police content effectively 
17. Increasing anti-capitalism and anti-advertising movements 
18. The rise of Craft/bohemian/alternative lifestyles 
19. The rise of brand as an alternative to performance agencies 
20. AI, bots, etc making agency work much more efficient than using staff 
21. The rise of the use of effective adblockers 
22. Cheap apps to replace agency activity 
23. The rise of messaging as an alternative to the big platforms 
24. Alternative search engines 
25. GDPR 
26. EU e-commerce legislation 
27. Freelancers undermining your staff 
28. Millennial staff with little long-term loyalty of commitment despite what they say 
29. Hopelessly out of touch agency owners stuck between Generation X and the millennials not getting their clients or their staff 
30. Marketing agencies absorbing digital 
31. Management consultancies absorbing digital 
32. No playbook 
33. Still using old models to look at the future 
34. The declining reputation of agencies in the eyes of their clients 
35. Every distraction you can remember

What have I left out? 

Pick any five and figure out how you are going to deal with them