As a digital agency owner, you must create a vision that outlines what you want to achieve and how you plan to get there. A well-defined vision can help guide your team, attract clients, and distinguish your agency from competitors.
Developing a clear vision for your agency also helps to motivate employees and contributes to their sense of purpose as a team. This drives up engagement, stabilises retention, and can even inspire better teamwork amongst employees.
All in all, vision benefits your clients and your company. In this guide, we’ll explore the essential steps you need to take to create a vision for your digital agency that inspires and drives success.
Section 1: Understanding the Purpose of Your Digital Agency
To create a vision that aligns with your agency’s purpose, you need to understand the reason for its existence. Every agency has an origin story, and it’s up to you to share it with the world.
Ask yourself questions such as:
- What problems are we trying to solve?
- What value are we adding to our clients’ businesses?
- What impact do we want to make in our industry?
These questions will help you to define your agency’s purpose and lay the foundation for your vision.
Something important to remember about purpose in the context of a business is that it needs to be authentic and honest. Draw on real experiences and motivations to sell the idea of what kind of world you as an agency are trying to create.
It is also helpful to consider your agency’s vision from the perspective of current and future clients. Make sure it stays relevant to them on both a practical and value-based level.
Section 2: Setting Long-Term Goals
Once you understand your agency’s purpose, the next step is to set long-term goals. These goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART).
Identify what you want your agency to achieve in the next 3-5 years and break it down into manageable tasks. These goals will guide your vision and help you track progress over time.
Some examples of goals you could set for your agency include:
- Foster more diversity and inclusion in the marketing industry
- Master the art of brand messaging
- Provide WOW-factor services
When it comes to vision-oriented goals, you want to focus more on the big-picture stuff than specific, practical deliverables. Of course, those kinds of goals are still important, but when it comes to vision, think beyond productivity KPIs into social, cultural, and industrial shifts.
Section 3: Defining Your Agency’s Core Values
Your agency’s core values are the guiding principles that define your culture and influence your decision-making. These values should be specific to your agency and reflect what you stand for as a company. Developing core values is important for a number of reasons, such as:
- Help you connect with your clients on a deeper level, and add structure to your vision as a whole
- Lead to higher levels of employee motivation and satisfaction
- Increases your agency’s self-awareness, and drives company growth
Brainstorm a list of values that resonate with your team and align with your agency’s purpose. These values will help you make important decisions and guide your behaviour and attitude towards clients and employees.
There are so many different values you can adopt as an agency to inspire vision and growth – none of which are necessarily better than the other – it’s more about choosing values that authentically translate to your goals as a business and can connect effectively with clients.
Some examples of core values other marketing agencies embrace include:
- Results – Are you a no-fuss, highly results-driven agency? That’s a core value, too. You can resonate with many big clients by showcasing reliability as your strength.
- Creativity – Creativity is deeply important to the marketing industry. If this is a strength and a part of your team’s vision for the future, utilise it as a tool for attracting clients.
- Teamwork – Does your team pride itself on close collaboration and communication skills? Use that as a core value to share with clients.
- Diversity – If diversity and inclusion form a big part of what you bring to the table, share that with the world.
- Continuous learning – Clients always appreciate agencies that are open to new ideas and innovations. If you pride yourself on your evolutionary spirit, lead with that.
Setting one, two, or even three of these values as the pillars of your vision for the future can help clients gain a clearer picture of what your agency stands for and compel them to trust you on a deeper level. Values and principles denote trust.
Section 4: Communicating Your Vision to Your Team
Your vision won’t be effective if it’s not shared and embraced by your team. Communicate your vision to your team and encourage their input and feedback.
Share your long-term goals and core values and explain how they relate to your agency’s purpose. Encourage your team to think about how they can contribute to achieving your vision and making it a reality and be open to what they express.
Sharing your agency’s vision with your team is an integral part of the vision-building process. Everyone should clearly grasp and resonate with the underlying message of your brand and be able to apply it to their everyday work.
This can be harder to achieve the larger your team grows, but with enough communication and dedication, vision and values can be something that ties your team together as one cohesive unit. When you’re all on the same wavelength, the vision will come to life more effectively.
A Clear View to Success
Crafting a clear vision for your digital agency takes time and effort, but it’s a vital step towards achieving long-term success.
By understanding your agency’s purpose, setting long-term goals, defining your core values, and communicating your vision to your team, you can create a vision that is clear and inspiring and will guide your agency towards success.
Keep in mind that your vision should be flexible and adaptable as your agency grows and evolves.