V.O. Guy
Hello and thanks for coming along to …And we have an office dog, the digital agency podcast where we talk to agency owner, directors and learn more about what makes them tick from the things that make them similar to the things they’d rather have known sooner where they’ve had success. And where they’ve learned some hard lessons. All will be revealed. With your host, Chris Simmance, the agency coach, and he’ll be talking to a different awesome agency person in each episode, asking them four questions and seeing where the conversation takes us over the next 25 minutes. OK, so let us begin over to you, Chris.
Chris Simmance:
Thank you very much, Voice Over Guy. OMG, it’s a good old day when you’re talking to Claire Hutchings. How are you doing, Claire?
Claire Hutchings:
Hello! It’s a lovely sunny day. Nice to see you.
Chris Simmance:
Welcome to the podcast. Claire, first of all, tell us who you are, what you do, why you do it, and why should an agency care?
Claire Hutchings:
Hi, I’m Claire Hutchings.
Chris Simmance:
Boom straight in, go!
Claire Hutchings:
So I’m the founder of Chime Agency and we are a marketing agency for agencies. The reason why I set up the agency about a year ago is because it’s sort of all I’ve ever known really. My whole career, the last 15 years or so of it has been working in agencies and consultancies, but as an in-house marketing professional, as a marketing manager, head of marketing, I got made redundant in the pandemic, started freelancing. grew the freelance business and it evolved into the agency that it is today. And in that process of sort of freelancing for agencies, I kind of realised the scale of the problem that almost all agencies face when it comes to their own brand and their own marketing, and realised that there was a business in what I have always done. And I had, I didn’t really realise that until I was in it and self-employed.
Chris Simmance:
And finding a gap in the market is always the first point. And I mean, I love the kind of agency inception style type thing here, but there is a very good reason for what you do. Apart from like the obvious why the gap in the market, why do you do this? Because agencies are hard.
Claire Hutchings:
Adjectives are hard, but
Chris Simmance:
Hehehe
Claire Hutchings:
as I say, it’s one, all I’ve ever known. So I’ve only ever known being that kind of usually a sole marketer within an agency or a bit of a lone wolf. But you’ve got to know everyone and have everyone in the business on side. So it’s sort of all I’ve ever known, number one. But number two, the reason why I first got into being a marketing manager in an agency is that I love sounds a bit geeky. I love marketing. I’m not selling widgets. I’m
Chris Simmance:
nerd.
Claire Hutchings:
not selling, you know. something boring. I love marketing and I get to work with people that love marketing and comms and digital and I get to talk about that and sell that all day every day which is great.
Chris Simmance:
awesome that’s awesome and give a mini elevator pitch so agencies that are listening in their droves right now they’re
Claire Hutchings:
Thank you.
Chris Simmance:
wondering like what is it that I can buy from Chime Agency
Claire Hutchings:
Sure. So anything from strategy, which may look like positioning and the articulation of who you are, what you do and how you do it with your clients through to the content channels, campaigns and kind of tactical marketing plan that you need to be able to promote yourself. That. I’ll either give that back to an agency for them to execute if they’ve got the resource to do so in house. or we help them do it either on retained or project basis. And we produce a lot of content for leadership, big research projects, trying to find the big hero moment that any agency needs to really sort of ladder back to their positioning, hang their hat on and become known for.
Chris Simmance:
And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the big study that you did recently. Do you wanna tell us
Claire Hutchings:
Okay.
Chris Simmance:
a little bit about that? And when this does go live, we’ll link to the study as well. So do you wanna tell us a little bit about that?
Claire Hutchings:
Yeah, great. So we wanted to have a big overview of the industry. One of the great things about the work that we do is that we work with all sorts of different agencies, all different sizes and specialisms. And so we wanted to kind of have a look and see what they were all doing with their marketing, what the biggest challenges and barriers are for different agencies, sizes, specialisms, types of businesses. So we involved our competitor matrix into a scoring system and put 100 agencies through it. So we assessed their proposition, their website, their social content, the profiles of their leaders and their strategy. And we now have some benchmark data. So we’ve got a lovely research report and a whole lot of content off the back of this, which really digs into the commonalities that all agencies seem to face. It’s generally sort of independent agencies that we’ve surveyed. But it also digs into the very specific challenges and needs and areas of improvement for depending on an agency’s size or specialism.
Chris Simmance:
Okay, so you’ve spoken to a lot of agencies, you work with a lot of agencies, you’ve worked in agencies. What do you love most about working with agencies?
Claire Hutchings:
I love working with independent agencies when they’re founder led, because working with a founder when they’ve got a team around them that are all really aligned to that vision and mission of the founder and they all want to grow a business is so exciting. And it’s definitely the more fun end of the agency spectrum for me. I’ve done time in kind of big network agencies, both working in-house with them and with them as clients. I feel like often that’s where some of the stereotypes of what agencies are like are born from. There’s like more politics and egos and bureaucracy in those kind of big machines. And I love working with independent agencies. And I’m seeing a lot at the minute that indie agencies are having kind of more formal commercial partnerships with each other, which
Chris Simmance:
Mm.
Claire Hutchings:
is really exciting, both for them and those businesses, us working with them. But I think it’s also really exciting for the clients that get to work with them as well. And I think regardless of the sort of turbulent times that we’re in at the minute, that’s making our independent agency landscape really interesting.
Chris Simmance:
Oh, excuse me, coughing away there. It’s gonna go for a mute button, but you ended this sentence at the wrong time. Oh,
Claire Hutchings:
I’m sorry. It’s gonna be six seconds
Chris Simmance:
God. For
Claire Hutchings:
for
Chris Simmance:
those of
Claire Hutchings:
us.
Chris Simmance:
you listening to this right now, it’s because I’m lazy and I don’t edit these things. We go for authenticity here. So what’s one of the things that you kind of find as a niggle or a frustration? Some of these agencies, the founder led agencies that you like the most, we’re all fallible and we’re all a little bit hard work, and it’s probably why we… work for ourselves. So what’s like a little niggle that you have with these guys?
Claire Hutchings:
Oh, that’s a good one. So one of the hardest things for any marketing function, however you go about executing it, is getting the resource and the time out for people that you need within the business. And sometimes it’s purely the founder that we work with and sometimes it’s a much broader spectrum across their team. getting the resource and the time that they need to dedicate to it, it can be really challenging. And often it’s a kind of it’s a mindset shift that needs to happen as well. The other thing is from a pure marketing perspective, because I’d always describe Chime Agency as a sort of top of funnel, more awareness, end of the sales funnel spectrum. Helping clients understand that that’s not a quick win, it’s not a silver bullet, there’s not a one-size-fits-all approach that within a couple of weeks or months even, you’re going to start seeing results and leads rolling in. It’s very much a long-term commitment to building brand equity. And so even though we’re working with entrepreneurs and business owners, leaders that get marketing. sometimes that can be a bit of a gap either in their knowledge or expectation around when they’re going to start seeing results and what those what we should be tracking and what those results should be.
Chris Simmance:
Yeah, and that top of funnel stuff is really, it’s easy to quantify to a degree, but it’s hard to measure when and how that makes an impact at the very bottom. And
Claire Hutchings:
Yes.
Chris Simmance:
I think when you’re working in, especially digital agencies offering services where you can attribute that last click to something, and it’s a very hard invisible service to offer to people who are very used to delivering invisible services. And, you know, when you’re working with a, an owner founder of an agency, money’s tight usually, resources are tight and very often you’re the one that has to make decisions on stuff. So you guys come in, you set the strategy, you help them through it and then it’s a case of, right, well, I’ve got to get going now. Oops, I haven’t got the time for that. So that goes in the pile of other strategies that are sitting there. So there’s an accountability traction push that needs to happen, I guess, as well.
Claire Hutchings:
Yeah, definitely. And we do that with some of our clients actually, where they believe and they want to resource it in house. And we kind of stay on a quarterly basis to be that accountability partner. They have to provide us with something to be able to audit and then help them plan for the next 90 days. So, yeah, we do that, because that’s definitely an issue. Yeah, I think the other thing is there seems to be a tipping point around kind of. 15 to 20 person agencies where the budgets that they have available to them feel less like they’re coming out of the owner’s back pocket and it’s more like the business money and they are at that point a bit more open and happy to commit to it and there’s sort of a mindset shift and we see that in our research as well. There’s agencies below 15 people score below our benchmark, the around the average. our overall matrix is 15 to 30 person agencies and then 30 person agencies plus is where they start exceeding what our benchmarks are overall. It’s a mindset shift and there’s a lot of operational things which happen around that size of agency as well and there’s your profitability changes around that time and that size and you’re a bit more established. Yeah, so agencies that are kind of 10 to 15 people that want to then make a jump, they know that they want to scale to be more than a 30 person agency, or perhaps they’ve got an eye on an exit at some point,
Chris Simmance:
Hmm.
Claire Hutchings:
there does need to be this shift from thinking about all of your leads coming through referrals through your leadership team and building a brand behind the agency so that you are able to scale because you can’t scale. one person very effectively or not very often anyway.
Chris Simmance:
Absolutely. If I had a pound for every single time an agency leader very proudly said, we don’t do any marketing, we only get referrals, I’d have at least 10 pounds.
Claire Hutchings:
Good luck.
Chris Simmance:
It’s great, referrals are the easiest sale you’re ever going to get. But that isn’t something you can build a business on. It’s nice to have pride in. getting referrals, but most of the time that lasts a good 18 months or so, two years tops, because the referrals you get are because
Claire Hutchings:
Yeah.
Chris Simmance:
you’ve just put a line in the sand saying, hey, I’m here doing this thing.
Claire Hutchings:
It works when you’ve got a network around you, you’ve built your network in the industry that you’re in, however you’ve come in to starting up your business. And sometimes I would argue that it can last probably up to four or five years for an agency as well that they’re getting, that’s their main lead source. But if you want to enter a new market, launch a new product or service, start talking to other people, or you want to start building much bigger clients as well, that’s often a catalyst for people starting to work with us. They know that they have to scale to work with larger businesses. You don’t have that network around you. That’s immediately there. The referrals are then harder to find as well.
Chris Simmance:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think there’s a there’s a expectation that there’s a best and the rest. You can hear the office dog for free on this podcast. This is going really well today. And there’s a there’s this kind of expectation that size means success. But when I asked this, when I asked, you know, what sets the best from the rest outside of size and scale of agency, what makes an agency a good agency?
Claire Hutchings:
from a marketing perspective, because that’s where we get involved,
Chris Simmance:
That’s
Claire Hutchings:
right?
Chris Simmance:
it.
Claire Hutchings:
Like, we don’t get involved with any of the operations or kind of, you know, the lifting beneath the lid of how an agency operates. But from a pure marketing and brand perspective, what we found from our research was that about 74% of agencies have a really terrible positioning. Like, they’re not hitting half of our marks in that. element of our scoring matrix. But what was really interesting was that of the agencies that did have a strong kind of value proposition and positioning, they scored 38% higher across the rest of our matrix. So if you’ve got a strong proposition positioning, you and the rest of your business are very clear about what you do, how you do it, who you do it for and why you do it. The rest of your marketing is a lot easier. What was also interesting from the research is that even agencies that could say we are a digital marketing performance marketing agency for professional services, they didn’t then go into, you know, they might be clear about what they do and who they do it for, but they don’t always talk about the challenges that they solve for their clients, even within their case studies, actually. And I think there’s about 44% of agencies aren’t doing that. So. If you can get that bit right, you get your positioning right, the rest of your marketing is easier. And if you can be really clear on the challenges that you’re solving for agencies, how you do that and add value around that piece and thread that throughout your marketing, that would be kind of like my top tip and what we love to see when we work with agencies.
Chris Simmance:
That’s really hard to do though, right? Yeah,
Claire Hutchings:
Yeah, it’s hard.
Chris Simmance:
and it sounded flippant, but like, you’re focusing on growing your agency and putting fires out and hiring people and all the other stuff that, you know, you’re the CEO, you’re the CMO, you’re the CTO, you’re the CFO, you’re the COO, all at the same time. When do you, how do you start that process? Like, it’s hard, right?
Claire Hutchings:
It’s really hard and it’s really hard to be objective as well. Particularly if you’ve run your business for a number of years, you know it inside out. A lot of founders would probably talk about their business as their baby, rightly or wrongly.
Chris Simmance:
Yeah.
Claire Hutchings:
So it’s hard to be truly objective when you’re in it. It’s hard to look above when you’re from within. But there’s a ton of coaches and experts and people that… you can bring into, you know, you know, non-execs, board directors that can help be that extra pair of eyes, you know, or a partner.
Chris Simmance:
Yeah, I mean, it often takes a different perspective,
Claire Hutchings:
Yes.
Chris Simmance:
not to tell you what to do, but to help you see what to look for.
Claire Hutchings:
Yeah, and sometimes it’s a validation of what you already thought. Sometimes those people, you’re kind of, you know, the friendly, critical friends around you will
Chris Simmance:
Hey.
Claire Hutchings:
sometimes they’ll shine a mirror up and sometimes they’ll be like, no, you’re doing great. This is right. Carry on. And that’s equally as valuable, I think, for a founder on a more kind of practical level. I think there’s quite there’s a few different ways that it can be cut and done to actually get that consistency. across your marketing, because that’s another thing that we just see time and time again with agencies and their marketing. There’s kind of peaks when they’ve got a bit of downtime, then a new biz pitch comes in and their messaging or their positioning project gets dropped, a big client deadline and nothing’s posted on their socials for three months. And so there are different ways that you can kind of cut that. So some agencies will build out a team in-house. purely there for marketing. That comes with a lot of other issues often, but that is one way of doing it. There are some agencies, very few, but when it’s done well, it works really well where the whole team is accountable and their appraisals and their job specs and their targets, there are marketing KPIs within them. And that has to be like leader, founder, CEO
Chris Simmance:
Mmm.
Claire Hutchings:
level down that that’s instigated. Clearly you can outsource as well. How we’ve done it is we’ve kind of like, kind of dedicated, got our research obviously, and so it’s a dedicated project with a deadline on it that has to be delivered on a deadline. That’s why events are really good for agencies because it can’t just be like, you can’t just kick it down the road if you’re saying you’re gonna do something at a certain time.
Chris Simmance:
Amen.
Claire Hutchings:
But also when you do have that downtime, because we do work in this rollercoaster world, kind of batch creating as much as possible across a team in a really intense period, and then using it for months and months afterwards, that can work really well too. So, join.
Chris Simmance:
So Chime has spent years and years and years and years doing loads of R&D, loads of development, and you’ve somehow managed to do the unthinkable. You have created a magic wand, but it can only be used once. You can use it once to fix some tiny aspect or a large aspect of an agency. What do you choose to do?
Claire Hutchings:
Oh Chris, I would love if every agency’s audacious ambition was to become their own best case study. So I would love it, because that’s what we’re trying to do. We want to, with our own marketing, be the best case study for ourselves. And if every agency did that, if every, you know, if you’re a web agency and you want your best case to be your own website, and you treat it like a client project, you invest in it like you would a client project, like that would be a future agency landscape from a marketing point of view that I’d love to see.
Chris Simmance:
There we go, well, get working on that wand. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Claire. It’s been fantastic talking to you. Wonderful having you as an OMG partner as well because I know that you know what you’re talking about and I know that you actually give a damn about this stuff as well. So it’s really important to have good people and good people behind you in the OMG fold. So thanks very much.
Claire Hutchings:
Thank you so much for having me.
Chris Simmance:
and we’ll undoubtedly speak again soon.
Claire Hutchings:
Definitely, just saying. Thanks
Chris Simmance:
Thank you
Claire Hutchings:
Chris.
Chris Simmance:
so much. Thank you.