Deep-Dive Into the Trials and Tribulations

of the SEM Agency Executive

Acquisio and Agency Executives

• We sell software almost exclusively to agency executives

• Never took the time to really try to understand who they are

• Needed a reality check

• Hired an independent research firm to help us create a persona

• Research lasted 2 months – December 2012 and January 2013

• 15 SEM agency executives were interviewed

• 60 minute interviews over the phone

• Semi-structured interview with open-ended questions

• Interviews were conducted by analyst

• Results were compiled in February

• First time we share this information.

Who is the SEM Agency Executive?

Interview Objectives

• Understanding the problems Agency Executives face in creating, communicating, and delivering value to CMOs.

• Exploring the future of Interactive Agencies by gathering the perspective of the Agency Executives responsible for moving their agency forward.

• Determining the strategic role of technology vendors in making Agency Executives more successful with their clients.

Persona: Brian Ops

15 SEM Agency Executives in ONE!

• The senior-most executive …• Chief Operating Officers, VP of Interactive, SVP of Integrated marketing

• Adult-level problems and budgets, typically at larger firms with a broader portfolio of offerings to CMOs

• Manages the blend of operations and customer-focused services with a futuristic view

• Responsible for the productivity of the agency…• Increasing revenue and managing cost of sales (SG&A)

• And the alignment of the cross-functional resources required to achieve results.• Working with sales and marketing leaders across the organization

• Views productivity as a system, not an individual activity

• Focused on working backwards from what CMOs want

Who is Brian Ops?

SCALING AN AGENCY:

20 MOST IMPORTANT ISSUES

ACCORDING TO BRIAN OPS

Brian’s Charter

“My core charter involves making sure our existing

customers are growing their business with us.

That means they need to be serviced in the proper way

and they need to achieve the results we agreed to.

I need to do that in a profitable way.

On top of that, I need to think about the future

services and products to offer, identify new acquisitions,

and find the right technology partners.

We need new capabilities to enable digital performance

on a global scale by maximizing all channels,

and also adding new channels over time.

We need to make sure that is done in a holistic manner

by leveraging our people and our processes to achieve

the growth we need to stay competitive --

and somehow do that in a way that says

‘we’re different than the other guy’”

It’s all about customer

growth and satisfaction

SPECIALISTS / GENERALISTS?

Brian on Change

We are so KPI driven that we often fail

to think about things like messaging, storytelling, etc.

Today my clients work with 1 advertising company,

1 digital company, 1 media company,

1 creative company, 1 web agency,

1 technology company, 1 PR company,

1 social media company, etc.

And all these companies don’t necessarily

work together to adapt to the customer.

If we could address all of these things,

We could address more of the value chain for clients.

We need to change how we’re working

so we can be more valuable to customers.

We Need to Change How we Work

Brian on Enabling “Performance Marketing”

“A lot of how we work is done

in silos inside the agency.

In other words when a contract comes in,

there is a process involved, and that process

needs to be enabled.

When we look at

how we work, and what is required

to bring our team together, to make decisions,

and then take action on behalf of clients,

there is a lot of complexity.

We need to enable that somehow

so that we can continue to evolve.

I think this is how the industry

needs to evolve as well ”

We Can’t Continue

to Work in Silos

Brian on the Need for a Vision

A lot of what we sell is “smarts.”

We work hard to break down silos internally

and force a more coordinated effort to focus

solely on the customer’s integrated view of digital.

We don’t want to run search just for the sake

of running search. Our value lies in

adding the art to the science.

That means we’re bringing something

different to the CMO – often what

they don’t even know about.

So, we’ve got to be different

– everyone says ‘we can perform better’ –

but it goes beyond that – so what is it?

We’re Selling Smarts

Brian on the value contribution to clients

“My job requires that I grow our client base

and improve the satisfaction of clients

with our organization. I need to make sure

our clients are serviced correctly and

that we are increasing the profitability

of each client engagement.

We need to deliver in a holistic manner

and add value to marketers in a variety of ways,

not just in one or two channels.

That means we need more of a 360 degree view

of the objectives we’re driving for marketers

– everything from the partnership we’re creating,

to the way the channels blend to drive incremental value,

to the value we’re providing related

to the latest trends in mobile and social.”

We Need to Add Value at

Every Touch Point

BECOME A STRATEGIC ADVISOR

Brian on his value to marketers

We need to be driving business results

and revenue for our clients. We need to do this

over a long-term – it’s not just a one-time project.

Through our relationship we need to uncover

the formula for success and iterate with clients over time.

They are struggling with what they are doing

and the results they’re getting.

Our job is to help them overcome those challenges

and get the most out of their marketing spend

in a way that drives more profitability

and results for their company.

We’re Selling Results

Brian on Improving the Customer Experience

“We are the digital strategy lead

in a lot of our client companies.

We actually become part of their team.

We take the needs they have

and translate that into specific actions

that will get them their results.

We work with customers in a way

that helps them acquire more budget

and more resources to achieve their results”

We Need to Become

Part of Their Team

Brian on Aligning the Agency to the Customer

“We find that we often have to help our

clients evolve their business strategy.

We push them to think about the real issues

and to become more and more precise.

We bring a holistic lens that helps them

innovate and integrate their thinking.

That requires us to maintain a high level of intimacy

with them while we’re focused on continuously

improving results over time”

We Influence Our Clients’

Business Strategy

Brian on Providing thought leadership

“We have to stay on top

of what’s going on with technology and best practices.

We need to provide thought leadership and guidance

to help translate strategy into

results through better execution.

We sometimes have to educate the marketer on

digital media best practices and we sometimes have

to have more strategic conversations that are

more business oriented to provide a solution

of how digital can complement their strategy.

That means we have a role to play in future proofing

what they’re doing as a business.”

We Need to Educate Clients

to Drive More Business

Brian on Creating a Forward-Looking Strategy

“I try to get a variety of different perspectives from

our C-Level customers in order to find out

what their challenges are and what

their most pressing issues are.

When I do that, I need to make sure that

we’re able understand those problems

and add that to our current level of expertise

and thought leadership in a way that drives towards

enabling the marketing needs of the future.

We need to build these insights into a

corporate strategy to help our

customers become smarter marketers .”

Our Customers Help Us

Understand The Best Way Forward

Brian on Differentiating From Other Agencies

“We need to help CMOs and marketers

get to where the consumers are.

Digital is becoming more of a commodity.

The industry is trying to do traditional strategies

with digital approaches and the challenge is

reaching targets at a lower cost.

Agencies will face increased price pressure

to do more with less.

We have a heavy human focus, where we

are labor intensive. That manual nature

of our work causes us to compete on

the lowest common denominator.

We need to automate where we can

so we can differentiate in our ability

to execute and add value.

Can’t Compete on Lowest Common

Denominator

OVERCOME OPERATIONAL ISSUES

Brian on Organizational Issues

“A lot of what we do is art informed by science.

The value we provide to marketing executives

is largely found in the expertise and skills

of our employees.

We work hard to retain

the best talent, and make sure we’re helping

them stay on top of the newest trends.

When we find a great person, it’s really hard

to scale that person’s expertise out across the organization.”

Our Overall Staff Retention

& Expertise are Crucial

Brian on Agility

We try to offer flexibility so we can deliver

more campaigns more rapidly than before for our clients.

That means we need to be creative

in designing a strategy that is adaptable ,

the strategy needs to support a trial and error approach,

so we can put that strategy into action

in a way that drives efficiency, effectiveness

and drives impact for our customers.

To keep it simple, we need to eliminate

as much operational waste as possible,

so we can rapidly improve traffic

and sales for our customers.

Flexibility Also

Drives Better Results

Brian on Measuring and Analyzing Results

“A lot of times when we meet with the CMO,

their analytics/data guy is right there with them

in the meeting. Clients expect us to add value

when it comes to understanding and leveraging data

across the various channels and across their

various brands and sites.

We need to start hiring more mathematicians,

programmers, scientists and statisticians and less

History and Philosophy majors.”

We Need a Deeper

Understanding of Data

Brian on Communicating value to clients

“When it comes down to it, we are really selling outcomes.

Outcomes like revenue growth and sales.

Some of our clients are interested in the journey

to get to outcomes, others want to know what

technology we’re using.

Some CMOs probe on the results more than

on the strategies we employ, but more and more

of them are becoming savvy to what’s going on

because they want to drive accountability

and responsibility.

They want to know are we getting

enough out of this channel and is it performing

well or not? We need data for that”

Clients Want More Detailed

Information Than Ever!

Brian on Optimizing Internal Resources

“Our customers need to make choices.

They need to decide if we should go ahead

and build out best practices across the board

right away, or if we should find the low hanging fruit

and prioritize the work by identifying

what’s working, what’s not working,

and what needs to work better.

What that then requires us to do is

prioritize our work accordingly.

The way we prioritize what we do

and how we do it will drive the initial workflow.

That workflow needs to adapt quickly to changes

in strategy and execution requirements.

We are constantly trying to optimize

each client’s workflow to serve our clients better “

Workflows Need

Constant Optimization

Brian on the Role of Technology

We need software with real workflow in it,

that provides consistency in the business sector

we need to operate in, and will allow us to

move more quickly and drive more

consistency with customers.

The integration of the horizontal business processes

like customer relationship management

and the workflows involved in prioritizing

what we do with clients and

how we do what we do

is becoming more important.

We need to rely on technology

to sift through patterns, sort and group,

and handle the complexity around us.

Technology has a huge role to play in

helping us prioritize, manage time,

and improve speed to put things

into the right order.

We’re on the clock,

and our clients are too

Brian on Managing technology and infrastructure

“There is a rapid evolution in client maturity

which we need to get ready for.

There are more and more

sophisticated performance marketers

seeking help from agencies

to operate technology platforms,

and there is an expectation of receiving

highly sophisticated services

that fully leverage data and technology

That means our staff needs to be experts

at taking full advantage of best in class technologies.

It also means we need to make our own choices

in technology to manage our workflow

and help us move from reactive to more

adaptive processes and approaches.”

Technology makes

us more productive

• Need to Integrate Disciplines / Channels Beyond Search

• Agencies Need Reorganization (Specialists and Generalists) and New Skills (Data!)

• More Automation is Required to Help Differentiate and Add Value on Strategy

• Agency Team Needs to Become One with Client Team and Take the Lead on Strategy

• Educate Clients and Establish Thought Leadership – Become Trusted Advisor

• Need to Improve How They Communicate Value to Clients

Summary of Findings

THANKS!

Questions?

Contact me for more info: marc@acquisio.com