The 10 Strengths of the Agency of the Future: Jason Baer

The ever excellent Jason Baer at the Convince & Convert blog has just posted a splendid piece on the 10 strengths of the agency of the future, based on a recent survey conducted by IT consultancy Sapient of over 200 chief marketing officers in the US. Jason’s analysis of the findings is spot on. And even though the survey was carried out in the US, there is no question that the same things are happening over here in the UK and Europe. I recommend reading Jason’s full post, but here are a few stand out items:

Clients are switching agencies based on digital marketing knowledge.

90 percent of respondents agree that it is becoming increasingly important that their agency uses ‘pull interactions’ such as social media and online communities rather than traditional ‘push’ campaigns.

An overwhelming 94 percent of respondents expressed interest in leveraging virtual communities (public and private) to understand more about their target audience.

92 percent of respondents said it was ’somewhat’ or ‘very’ important that agency employees use the technologies that they are recommending.

76 percent of respondents deemed understanding customer behaviour an ‘important/very important’ aspect of their agency’s online digital marketing and interactive advertising area of expertise.

77 percent of marketers surveyed ranked strategy/brain trust capabilities at the top of their agency wish list.

65 percent ranked analytics at the top of their agency wish list (for measurement).

These findings pretty much bear out what I’ve been saying for some time re: the changing nature of the online/digital PR/marketing sector. The demand for brain power rather than (inefficient) commodity services has never been greater.

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