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 info@thewowcompany.com
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?
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