CREATIVE INDUSTRY SURVEY 2014 THE RESULTS
Transcription
CREATIVE INDUSTRY SURVEY 2014 THE RESULTS
BENCHPRESS Benchmarking for Creative Companies CREATIVE INDUSTRY SURVEY 2014 THE RESULTS BENCHMARK: WORKOUT #3 WHO COMPLETED THE SURVEY Here’s the eagerly-anticipated results of the nationwide survey of the Creative Industry, conducted in February 2014 by The Wow Company & The Drum. Thanks to everyone who took part and helped. The results are really rather interesting. Turnover band Full Service / Integrated Agency 38% Digital / Interactive 30% £0 - £99k 9% Design 9% £100k - £249k 19% Marketing / Advertising 8% £250k - £1m 50% TV / Film / Video 5% £1m - £3m 20% SEO 2% £3m + 2% PR 2% Event Management 2% Artist 2% Designer 2% BENCHPRESS | WORKOUT #3 www.thewowcompany.com 2 How much did you grow turnover by in 2013? We didn't grow last year 19% Less than 5% 9% Between 5-10% 17% Between 11-25% 21% Between 26-50% 18% More than 50% 16% How much do you plan to grow turnover by in 2014? BENCHPRESS | WORKOUT #3 We aren't planning on increasing turnover 4% Less than 5% 3% Between 5-10% 17% Between 11-25% 28% Between 26-50% 29% More than 50% 19% www.thewowcompany.com 3 THE SECRET TO YOUR SUCCESS WHAT ONE THING DID YOU DO LAST YEAR THAT MADE THE BIGGEST POSITIVE DIFFERENCE TO YOUR BUSINESS? RECRUITED SOME GOOD PEOPLE ‘Hired two new developers to support the web team’ ‘Employed a dedicated project manager’ ‘Recruited an experienced sales resource focussed on a specific market’ ‘Created a new department: client services’ MOVED OFFICES ‘We moved to help us recruit better people’ ‘Needed a bigger space so we could recruit’ ‘Setup a London office’ ‘Set up a separate office specifically to recruit tech resource’ ‘Grew the senior management team’ BENCHPRESS | WORKOUT #3 www.thewowcompany.com 4 THE SECRET TO YOUR SUCCESS continued WHAT ONE THING DID YOU DO LAST YEAR THAT MADE THE BIGGEST POSITIVE DIFFERENCE TO YOUR BUSINESS? WE GOT GOOD AT NEW BUSINESS ‘Won awards, got more famous, got lots of coverage’ ‘Set more aggressive targets’ ‘Took on clients with bigger budgets’ ‘Developed a new business strategy’ PUT PRICES UP ‘Decided to stop underselling our services’ ‘Charged a more appropriate amount of time for our services’ ‘Price increases across main services’ ‘Hired a marketing assistant’ ‘Got rid of less profitable / more time-consuming clients’ BENCHPRESS | WORKOUT #3 www.thewowcompany.com 5 How are you planning to grow this year? Proactively sell to existing customers 77% Recruit new expertise 53% Increase marketing spend 52% Increase prices 48% New products / services 43% Focus on vertical niche 32% Strategic alliances with other creative companies 29% Joint ventures with suppliers 16% More overseas work 15% Increased use of freelancers 13% Joint ventures with clients 13% Using while-label offerings from others 9% White-labelling your offers to others 7% Open another office 7% Licence a product that you have created 5% Diversify into completely unrelated area 4% Merger or acquisition 4% Select all that you're planning to do. INCREASE MARKETING SPEND 52% UP FROM 32% LAST YEAR INCREASE INCREASE MARKETING SPEND PRIC£S 52% 48% UP FROM 32% LAST YEAR UP FROM 24% LAST YEAR BENCHPRESS | WORKOUT #3 www.thewowcompany.com 6 THE SECRETS OF AGENCY GROWTH Find out more about how to win new business, recruit the best talent, manage projects more profitably & ensure you never run out of cash with The Agency Collective. The Agency Collective helps ambitious creative agency owners grow faster, through quarterly dinners, insight & support. FIND OUT MORE > theagencycollective.co.uk VIDEOS TO INSPIRE YOU CLICK HERE HOW TO BUILD A £1M CREATIVE AGENCY COME TO AN EVENT > BENCHPRESS | WORKOUT #3 www.thewowcompany.com 7 WINNING NEW BUSINESS WHAT NEW BUSINESS CHALLENGES ARE YOU FACING AT THE MOMENT? Budgets too small 46% Being squeezed on price 41% Lack of sales pipeline 38% Wrong type of clients 29% Not winning pitches 22% Struggling to differentiate yourself from the competition 19% Sales staff not performing 7% Being seen as too small 6% Slow procurement processes 4% No new business challenges for me - we can't stop winning clients! 6% BENCHPRESS | WORKOUT #3 Finding larger clients, with larger budgets, that don’t quibble about price is a common challenge for agencies. The trap many agencies get into is not having a big enough sales pipeline to say no to the smaller clients. These smaller clients end up sapping your time and stop you from going out there to pick up larger, more profitable clients, but you have to work with them to pay the bills. SO HOW DO YOU BREAK THIS CYCLE? The key is to invest in your marketing, and not just money – it’s really important that you get external assistance to ensure you maintain momentum on new business generation. If you’re doing it yourself, the chances are you’ll do less of it as you get busy, instead allocating resource to client work. All of a sudden, you’ve lost momentum, your sales pipeline has dried up and you’re back to scraping around with smaller clients and smaller budgets. So, who do you know that you could hire for a few days per month to help you with your new business generation? www.thewowcompany.com 8 WINNING NEW BUSINESS KIN G TW OR NE TW OR NE PR SE O SE O CH PIT PR H CPITC LE LE BENCHPRESS | WORKOUT #3 AD S PP C PP 62% 56% 52% 41% 41% 38% 37% 32% 29% 28% 28% 27% 22% 21% 21% 21% 19% 16% 16% 13% 12% 12% 6% 4% 3% AD S Networking LinkedIn Twitter Applying for pitches/tenders SEO Focusing on a particular industry niche Email marketing Got in-house New Biz salesperson Winning awards Advertising - online Facebook Strategic alliances with referral partners Content marketing Direct mail Organising your own events PPC Thought leadership PR YouTube, Vimeo or other video sharing tool Telemarketing Advertising - offline Paid events that put you in touch with buyers Buying leads Outsourcing your marketing to another agency/freelancer White labelling offering, sold through other creative agencies KIN G Other than word of mouth, what are you CURRENTLY doing to pick up new clients? www.thewowcompany.com 9 WINNING NEW BUSINESS BENCHPRESS | WORKOUT #3 28% NETWORKING VOTED WINNING BUSINESS AS THE MOST EFFECTIVE WAY OF NEW We know word-of-mouth and referral is by far THE most effective way of picking up new clients. So, when you’re not out there busy working your network and existing clients, what should you be doing? Here’s what you thought were the most effective ways of proactively picking up new business: Most effective ways of proactively picking up new business 01 Networking 02 Got in-house New Biz salesperson 03 Strategic alliances with referral partners 04 Telemarketing 05 SEO 06 Winning awards 07 Applying for pitches/tenders www.thewowcompany.com 10 SOLVING THE RECRUITMENT CHALLENGE How do you recruit talent? OF AGENCIES ARE PLANNING ON Ad on your website 54% LinkedIn 50% Networking 44% Recruitment agents 34% Online ads or job boards 28% Relationships with colleges & universities 28% Headhunting 21% Apprentice scheme 18% Posting in online forums 9% I don't recruit - it's just me at the moment 9% BENCHPRESS | WORKOUT #3 78% RECRUITING IN 2014 www.thewowcompany.com 11 WHAT HAS BEEN THE MOST EFFECTIVE WAY OF RECRUITING? #1 RECRUITMENT AGENTS #4 ONLINE ADS OR JOB BOARDS BENCHPRESS | WORKOUT #3 #2 NETWORKING #3 RELATIONSHIPS WITH COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES How much are you budgeting for recruitment spend in 2014? And who will you get to help you? Here’s who agency owners recommended in our survey: #5 LINKEDIN You might not like paying their fees, but recruitment agents are still the most effective way of recruiting talent. www.thewowcompany.com 12 LET’S TALK TECH EVERYONE IS MOVING TO THE The technology you purchase in 2014, will it be mostly... CLOUD On-premise 74% Is the software you use to run your business now... 24% of creative agencies now run ALL their software in the cloud (up from 8% last year) 26% In the cloud All in the cloud 74% of software purchased will be cloud-based Mostly in the cloud, with some on-premise Mostly on-premise, with some in the cloud 24% 26% 22% 28% All on-premise (up from 49% last year) BENCHPRESS | WORKOUT #3 www.thewowcompany.com 13 LET’S TALK TECH continued What accounting software do you use? Xero 41% Sage 30% Spreadsheets 9% FreeAgent / IRIS OpenBooks 9% QuickBooks 4% Paprika 3% KashFlow 2% I still use paper records 2% Last year 19% of creative agencies were using Xero. 12 months on and this figure has risen to 41%. Xero is now the number one choice for creative agencies. You can find out more about Xero here XERO IS HERO BENCHPRESS | WORKOUT #3 THE XERO REVOLUTION GATHERS PACE... If you’d like a free 30-minute demo of Xero, e-mail [email protected] www.thewowcompany.com 14 MANAGING PROJECTS MORE PROFITABLY Before you can start to increase project profitability, the first thing you need to do is get yourself a great project management system. Here’s what UK creative agencies recommend: What project management system do you recommend? FOR MORE GREAT TECHNOLOGY Streamtime 43% Harvest 14% WorkflowMax 11% Synergist 10% Traffic 7% Paprika 5% Basecamp 5% Develop your own software 5% TO HELP YOU GROW YOUR CREATIVE AGENCY CLICK HERE BENCHPRESS | WORKOUT #3 Click here to find out more about Streamtime THERE IS A DIRECT CORRELATION www.thewowcompany.com 15 SHOW ME THE MONEY How does your monthly remuneration compare to the rest? I’m not drawing money from this business yet 3% Under £1,000 3% £1,000 – £2,500 17% £2,501 – £5,000 55% £5,001 – £10,000 17% £10,001 + 5% BENCHPRESS | WORKOUT #3 www.thewowcompany.com 16 BENCHPRESS Benchmarking for Creative Companies CHECK OUT WHAT’S COMING IN FUTURE BENCHPRESS REPORTS: PREDICTIONS – What does the future hold for the creative sector? INTERVIEWS – With the UK’s top-performing agencies ADVICE – On how to grow quicker & more profitably STATS – Including: Average profit per agency Wage spend Directors’ remuneration Hourly rates Growth figures, by size, by geography Quartile analysis – where do you fit in? Click here to receive future reports