The Definitive Guide to Marketing Agency Leadership
Leading a marketing agency is no easy task. It requires strong leadership skills, strategic vision, and the ability to motivate and inspire your team. Do not be afraid; all of the above are skills you can develop with proper guidance and training. Using the wealth of information we list below, you can create an agency that thrives, meets, and exceeds its goals.
The key insight in this guide is not about the services your agency offers, or the resources needed to scale. The key point about being a great leader is people skills.
In this guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about leadership in a marketing agency setting: from creating your vision and planning the journey to delivering feedback effectively and keeping people accountable. We'll cover the marketing and agency strategies to help you articulate your agency's vision.
We’ll also discuss how coaching can help you get the best out of your team so that everyone works together toward success.
Before we start, you can check out everything else we've got on Marketing Agency Leadership here:
https://www.agencygrowth.events/feed/category/Leadership
Now, let's dive into what it takes to be an effective leader in a marketing agency!
The Essential Skills of Agency Leadership: What You Need to Know
How to Create a Vision for Your Agency and Plan the Journey Ahead
Working with Agency Coaches
Hiring well and Keeping People Accountable
Collaborating with peers
Making decisions based on hard data
1. The Essential Skills of Agency Leadership: What You Need to Know
If you're looking to become a successful agency leader, it's important to understand the essential skills that are required to navigate the industry. From effective communication and strategic thinking to team management and financial acumen, many key competencies can make or break your agency's success.
Just remember, a good leader is a lifelong learner. You need to be open to new ideas, and follow a wide scope of industries your agency serves.
In our recommended articles, you'll find some of the most important traits that every agency owner should possess in order to thrive in today's fast-paced and ever-evolving marketplace. So here's some essential reading to excel in your leadership role.
📌 What are the 7 traits of being a purpose-driven leader?
Whether you're just starting out or looking to take your leadership skills to the next level, these insights will help you to understand what you should do to lead with purpose. You'll learn how your values are transforming brand culture of your Agency.
Read Mark Griffin's article to learn more about leading with purpose and watch his session from Season 1: Leading with Purpose: How Well Are You Exhibiting These 7 Traits, to Lead Your People, Brands and Company with Purpose?
📌 What coaching skills can you use in your digital agency?
Chris Simmance replied to this question in the Agency Growth Book with an article, and at its Launch Event, with a session that covered the question and gives you many more tips about coaching skills to support your leadership. Check out his video blog page to learn more: Coaching Skills YOU Can Use In Your Digital Agency.
📌 Being a conscious leader
This means taking the time to reflect on your own experiences and actively working to heal any past traumas that may be impacting your leadership style. By developing self-awareness, you can better understand how your personal history shapes your decision-making and interactions with others. This can lead to more empathetic and effective leadership, as well as a healthier work environment for your team. It takes courage and vulnerability to confront past traumas, but doing so can ultimately make you a stronger and more compassionate leader.
If you would like to learn more about Conscious Leadership, check out Kelly Campbell's article in the Agency Growth Book and watch her session from the Launch Event: Conscious Leadership for Agency Leaders.
2. How to Create a Vision for Your Agency and Plan the Journey Ahead
Starting or running a company, let alone an agency can be an exciting and rewarding journey, but it's important to have a clear plan for your business if you want to succeed in the long run. A well-crafted business plan not only helps you define your goals and objectives but also outlines the strategies you'll use to achieve them.
By taking the time to plan your agency's journey, you can avoid common pitfalls and set yourself up for success. But how will you do that?
Check out our previous articles to find out the importance of having a vision and plan for your agency, as well as some tips for creating a solid business plan that will help guide your growth and development. Whether you're just getting started or looking to take your agency to the next level, these insights will help you build a strong foundation for success.
📌 To achieve long-term success as an agency leader
It is crucial to create a clear vision and plan for your business. Without a well-defined strategy, it's easy to get sidetracked or lose sight of your goals. By taking the time to craft a solid plan, you can ensure that you're moving in the right direction toward achieving your desired objectives.
Rob Da Costa wrote a great article in the Agency Growth Book to give you some tips about that subject, and you can also watch his session to learn more: Plotting Your Agency's Journey. Rob also has a marketing agency leadership podcast called The Agency Accelerator. Here's an episode where we were the guest speaker.
📌 Working backwards from a desired future state
Karl Sakas helps agency leaders make smarter decisions for smoother growth, and he has his concept named "Advanced Retrospective".
In his own words from The Agency Growth Book: "The “Advanced Retrospective” is a powerful tool I use when I coach agency owners. You’re looking “backwards” from a hypothetical future as if it already happened. This tool helps you get unstuck by understanding what ideal future you want." Learn more from Karl Sakas' article and watch his session: Work Backwards To Spring Forward.
📌 How to create a one-page business plan for your agency?
Peter Levitan answers this question in the Agency Growth Book. One effective approach is to create a one-page business plan that concisely summarizes the key elements of your agency in an easy-to-read format. Check out Peter Levitan's page to find out more: The One-Page Agency Business Plan
3. Working with Agency Coaches
An agency coach is a professional who provides guidance, support, and advice to agencies. They help digital marketing agencies develop strategies for improving their performance, enhancing their skills, and achieving their goals.
They are professionals with extensive backgrounds in the advertising industry who've created agencies, grown, and in some cases, sold them. Their journeys vary from quitting a job as an executive creative director at a full-service agency to starting out as a freelancer and building up from there.
An agency coach can also provide feedback on creative projects, assist with project management, and offer insights into industry trends and best practices. Their ultimate goal is to help agencies become more successful with their existing customers, get new clients, and achieve greater satisfaction with their teams.
Whatever state you're in, if you find the right coach for your situation through sharing their wisdom, they'll most probably catapult you years ahead in your journey.
If you have more questions in your mind about "What does an Agency Coach do?" check our article to learn more.
4. Hiring well and Keeping People Accountable
As the owner of a digital marketing agency, it's crucial to have an exceptional team to ensure success. The competition for skilled professionals is intense, and without the right staff, you could easily lag behind.
We have a great blog post in which we provide valuable tips on how to hire top talent for your agency. In this article, you'll find insights from recruitment strategies to retention techniques, we also suggest ways to create a work environment that attracts and retains talented individuals.
📌 Learn more about our 8-step approach to hiring the best talent for your agency: 8 Steps to Hiring the Best Talent for a Digital Agency.
On the other hand, holding your team accountable is crucial for achieving success. Satisfying clients isn't the sole responsibility of agency owners. While it's true that contented customers are likely to return and generate more business, enhancing your team's capabilities to deliver exceptional service is equally essential.
As an agency owner, your focus should be on improving your team's skills to ensure they provide the highest quality service possible, leading to satisfied clients who will remain loyal in the long run.
📌 Discover how prioritizing agency improvement over client satisfaction can lead to greater success with Tim Kilroy. You can read his article in the Agency Growth Book and also watch his session on Launch Event: Happy Clients Aren't Your Job.
5. Collaborating with peers
Achieve your agency's goals by cultivating strong relationships with open-minded peers. Agency owners should actively communicate with their professional network to keep sharing wisdom with each other and growing small beginnings into big results for all.
By working together, like-minded professionals can bring fresh ideas to the table and develop innovative products and services that meet clients' needs. When you're looking to learn, shed your prejudices and unlearn what you've learnt. Even a branding boutique agency has things to learn from a SEO agency helping local businesses.
This thinking not only benefits existing clients but also attracts new ones who are looking for a team of experts with diverse perspectives.
📌 Chris Bantock has a great article about 3 factors of success: Customers, collaboration, and community. You can read it from the Agency Growth Book or watch his session from Launch Event: 3 C’s to Agency Owner Success.
6. Makes decisions based on hard data
Making data-driven decisions is a key enabler to success as an agency leader.
To drive sustainable growth, agency owners must make decisions based on hard facts and proven methods rather than gut feel. This allows them to better understand their agency's needs and its people, helping the owner to create strategies more tailored to those requirements.
By understanding the data behind customer trends, industry changes, staff performance, and other company metrics, agency leadership can create plans of action that are tailored to their agency's needs and objectives. This allows them to make transparent decisions that create a better working brand culture.
What Skills Make a Great Marketing Leader?
Leaders possess qualities which encourage growth in others and the business. They guide team members and help them achieve organizational objectives in a timely fashion.
Leadership requires several skills such as:
Strategic Thinking is the ability to think ahead and make plans for achieving goals.
Effective Communication is the skill to speak and listen well so everyone understands each other.
Self Awareness is understanding yourself and how you think, feel, and act.
Decision making is the skill to make right choices based on facts and data.
Team building is the skill of working together with others to achieve a common goal.
Conflict Resolution is finding a way to solve disagreements between people.
Ways to Foster Great Leaders in Your Marketing Agency
You being a great leader is not enough to ensure continued success of your Agency. Your organization must promote the development of a culture of growth that encourages leadership skills in others too.
Needless to say, It all starts with you. But you can provide leadership skills training for your team, whether internally or externally. Training sessions could include speakers with unique perspectives and insights. You could also start a leadership book club.
Also, create opportunities for leadership roles within the agency to ensure that everyone has a chance to take leadership positions. This doesn't have to be a new job, it could be leading certain meetings or pitches to clients.
Finally, be sure to give recognition and praise when deserved. Let people know you appreciate their leadership efforts. This will serve as an incentive for others to step up and take leadership roles in the agency.
Trusts your team and delegates
Leadership is not about micromanagement but rather empowering your team to reach their full potential on their own, with your guidance and support. As the name suggest leaders have followers. To reach that level you need to instill trust, buy-in and a positive culture fit in your organisation.
Start by establishing clear goals and objectives, then trust your team to get the job done. Delegate tasks when appropriate and recognize individual strengths of your team members.
Do not treat them only as employees. Remember, you are only as good as your team!
The key points in three paragraphs:
It is clear that leadership plays a critical role in the success of an agency. As an agency leader, you must possess key skills such as strategic thinking, effective communication, self-awareness and decision making to ensure your team reach their full potential.
Furthermore, it is important to foster leadership development within your marketing organization by providing training opportunities for leadership roles and recognizing individual efforts when deserved.
Ultimately, trust your team and delegate tasks appropriately so they can take ownership over their work while still receiving guidance from you where needed. With these practices in place, you will be able to create a culture of growth which enables long-term success for both yourself and the entire organization.
Adopting a culture of continuous improvement is paramount, especially within web development. Continuous improvement involves refining processes, tools, and methodologies while keeping communication channels open within the team. In this video, Stephen Neville, Ceo at BugHerd interviews Kathryn Bruno of SevenRooms.