THE AGENCY

GROWTH
GUIDE
How small marketing agencies
compete and win in the digital era
Contents
3 Executive Summary

5 It’s Getting Harder to Grow an Agency

10 A Guide: How Agencies Compete and

Win in the Digital Era

14 Creative Workforce as a Subscription

16 Design Pickle: The New Way to Do Creative

18 Case Study

23 Next Steps

24 Endnotes

25 About Design Pickle

Executive
Summary
It’s always been difficult to grow a marketing agency, and it’s only getting harder. Competition is
intense from other agencies, freelancers, and even software tools that give in-house marketing
departments capabilities they lacked before. In fact, more than 50% of agencies stated that was
a major challenge to growth — but it’s more than that.

Service businesses are inherently hard to scale because they are extremely labor intensive.
Projects are typically unique to the client, with little that’s transferable to other client projects.
More projects mean more labor, requiring more hires and significantly increasing financial risk.
The question then becomes: What does an agency do with all these newly hired people if
demand drops?

This is a predicament that happens often. The demand for marketing agencies’ work goes up
and down even in good years, and marketing budgets are the first to get cut when the economy
tanks.

So, how can an agency scale without incurring a lot of overhead that is hard to shed quickly
if demand disappears?

The answer to that lies in transforming the agency business model to one that scales relatively
well so that an agency can take on more business without a corresponding increase in
employees needed. Not only will that reduce financial risk in bad times, but it also significantly
improves profitability and cash flow.

So, how do you make this work as an agency?

The key is to divide your total service offerings into three categories:

1 what you will absolutely retain in-house because it is what defines you and makes you
unique;

2 what can be automated so you don’t have to spend as much time and labor on it; and

3 what can’t be automated and can be done by others just as well as you (if not better).

THE AGENCY GROWTH GUIDE 3

The items in this third category will be turned over to a partner, and you will simply subscribe to
get what you need.

With this setup, you can aggressively market your agency and be confident that you can scale
to meet new business demands without worrying about how you will deliver. In fact, this is how
even the largest entertainment and media studios such as HBO and Netflix produce original
content — they work with dozens, even hundreds, of partners that provide the myriad of
specialized skills required rather than hire them in-house. That’s how they reduce risk and
scale their billion-dollar companies.

This paper provides you with a guide for transforming your agency into
one that can scale multiple times using a few strategic steps you can take
in a matter of weeks — and increase your profit margins by as much as
50%.

First, the paper makes it clear that the challenges agencies like yours face don’t go away on
their own and are likely to escalate with time. Next, the paper outlines the blueprint for the
transformation — the steps you can quickly take to put your plan together.

Finally, this paper describes how a world-class partner can take over the responsibility of your
agency’s creative production output, allowing you to focus on developing the creative concept
and managing your marketing, so you can double and triple the amount of work your agency
produces with the same staffing level you have today.

Average Annual Freelancer In-House Design Pickle

Cost $62,400 - $104,000 $58,500 - $109,200 $30,000

Avoid unnecessary
Your Cost $32,400 - $80,102 $28,500 - $79,200 hiring costs to increase
Savings 52% - 77% 49% - 73% your profit margins by
up to 50%.

THE AGENCY GROWTH GUIDE 4

It’s Getting Harder to
Grow an Agency
Once upon a time, marketing agencies were profitable businesses.
They were tough to get into and get the first few accounts, but
competition was reasonable and the business model provided
sufficient profit margins.

Today, that is no longer the case. It is very easy to get into the
business, but it’s very hard to grow an agency and make money for
many reasons. Six of the toughest challenges are listed below.

01 Scaling: An Inherent Service

Business Predicament
The most profitable businesses scale very well — the cost of both
adding more customers and servicing customers drops as more
customers are added. This is not the case with service businesses.

The only two ways to scale a service business are to land large,
multimillion-dollar projects or to offer repeatable services sold in mass
quantities. The first is very difficult in a field saturated with firms and
new entrants, especially since the marketing field is shifting away from
retainer contracts to individual projects. The second method, inspired
by product companies, is just as difficult to pull off as it requires the
particular service to have a large customer base and resemble a
product that can be componentized and mass produced.

By definition, service businesses offer a custom solution for each

customer. Therefore, a project done for one customer cannot be resold
to another, at least not without significant customization and changes
that result in significant new costs. According to a 2015 report by
The Economist, the traditional marketing skills of creative, graphics,
advertising, and branding are resistant to scaling.

This is in direct contrast to the software companies that compete in

digital marketing. For example, consider Facebook’s native advertising

5
platform. Facebook must hire software engineers and graphic
designers to create the platform, but it does not need to hire them at a
rate directly proportional to the number of clients using its advertising.
Revenues can grow much faster than costs.

Similarly, small agencies must find ways to increase their ability to

scale, meaning they must efficiently find new customers and service
them at a much lower cost than they currently are.

02 Growing Competition
from Everywhere
For marketing agencies, the threat of competition is acute: A 2019
study on digital agencies by website builder Wix found that competition
is the top challenge. There are relatively low costs to setting up a new
digital marketing agency, so it is easy for new competitors to appear
at any time. Fifty percent of agencies named competition as an issue,
while the second greatest challenge noted was adapting to new
technology.

Competition especially affects smaller firms: 94% of digital agencies

have fewer than 50 employees.1 Yet, competition for clients among
these firms is greater than that statistic implies. The majority of large
firms are agency holding companies that own a number of specialized
agencies. Consequently, these large companies can work with
competing businesses and capture different segments of the market.1

New technologies are constantly revolutionizing the face of digital

advertising, while new businesses launch in response to innovation.
Recessions actually increase competition as laid-off workers start
their own businesses. Despite current economic turbulence and
high unemployment, the rate of new business growth remains high.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Business Formation Statistics
(BFS), new business applications grew each year from 2013 to the
present.

In 2020, business applications increased 54.2% over 2019. The scale

of the competition is daunting: Promethean Research’s 2020 Digital
Marketing Agency Industry Report estimated a 23% increase in the
number of new firms since 2019.1

Given this striking growth, small agencies must find ways to compete
and win in the face of such relentless competition from everywhere.

6
03 Differentiation: Both
Necessary and a Hurdle
to Growth
In software and other product companies, the differentiation scales
with the product. Whether a vendor produces one or one million
softwares or products, each one contains the same differentiating
feature.

With service, the differentiating feature is the service provider — the

intellectual capital found within the individual doing the work. The
differentiator, the creative work, is custom and doesn’t scale. This is a
paradox in that to compete and win business, marketing agencies must
differentiate from competitors and demonstrate value beyond what
in-house marketing teams can provide. Yet, this differentiator becomes
the hurdle to scaling and growing.

Furthermore, there is a skills gap in the marketing world between

agencies that need employees with technical and soft skills and the
job candidates on the market. A report by The Economist and Marketo,
which surveyed marketing executives worldwide, predicted this talent
gap would drive the marketing world.6 The report states that CMOs
“want people with the ability to grasp and manage the details (in
data, technology, and marketing operations) combined with a view
of the strategic big picture.” Another report by Econsultancy and
SmartFocus surveyed 500 marketing agencies and found that 30% of
respondents rated “finding marketers with the right skills” as highly
difficult.

This labor shortage creates another major problem: high churn rate.
According to a 2018 LinkedIn analysis, the turnover rate in marketing is
the highest of any industry.

500 marketing agencies found 30% of

respondents rated “finding marketers with
the right skills” as highly difficult

7
04 Difficulty in Providing
Proof Before Buying
A barrier to attracting new clients is the difficulty of proving
competency. Clients only hire agencies they trust. In the absence
of reassurance before jumping into a contract, corporations tend to
choose in-house marketing.1 CMOs believe it is easier to track ROI
internally, and when they do hire outside agencies, performance
matters most.6

Once a marketing agency takes on a project, ROI is still difficult to

prove, yet clients need quantifiable results. Thus, finding new clients
is very difficult, as shown by a 2018 HubSpot survey, which found that
60% of agencies struggle.10 As a result, most agencies rely on referrals
and repeat business, which is not scalable.

05 First to Get Cut When

the Economy Sours
Marketing services are price-elastic. When demand is high, marketing
agencies can charge high prices, but when demand drops, the price
that clients are willing to pay drops. In a downturn, marketing budgets
are the first to go. Beyond severely curtailing budgets, economic reces-
sions change the nature of the marketing field itself. The 2008-2009
financial crisis accelerated the pivoting of B2B marketing to online
marketing, social media, and analytics.

The current 2020 economic recession created by the global

coronavirus pandemic dramatically differs from previous downturns
due to its cause. While unemployment remains at a historic high, the
S&P 500 also remains high and retail sales grew by 1.2% in July. The
long-term effects on the marketing world are still unfolding, but the
impact is uneven. The tenure of CMOs is decreasing, yet a small part of
the market is growing. The Association of National Advertisers found
that 36% of CMOs have increased their technology investments and
12.5% have increased their media budgets.

Still, consumer spending in general continues to decline. This, in turn,

causes marketing budgets to shrink. Competition for remaining busi-
ness is intensified by the high number of new firms.

8
06 Digital Marketing: Both an
Opportunity and a Threat
On the demand side, technology such as SEO, Google AdSense,
Facebook Ads, and other platforms has caused an increase in com-
panies doing in-house digital advertising instead of outsourcing it to
digital advertising agencies.

Digital marketing has contradicting implications for small marketing

agencies. On one hand, more of the marketing is done digitally, and
technology improves scalability and turns insights into results. On the
other hand, digital marketing lowers the barriers to entry. Small
agencies must not only compete with new competitors, but also with
in-house marketing departments that feel they can do marketing
themselves.

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the shift to digital marketing, and

e-commerce is one area of digital marketing that’s currently growing.15

Janet Balis, Ernst & Young’s Americas marketing practice leader,

stated that the current recession “has created a dramatic acceleration,
first and foremost in terms of customer behavior, and then in terms of
leadership priorities, where things that would’ve taken years are now
taking a matter of weeks or months” with respect to digital marketing.15

Digital marketing increases competition for clients, forcing marketing

agencies to struggle to distinguish themselves. With social media, it
is easier than ever for rival marketing companies to copy social me-
dia approaches and online strategies. New players with technological
solutions often offer low prices in order to enter the market and attract
clients, and more companies take advantage of digital tools to conduct
in-house marketing.4

As we have seen above, small marketing agencies face a number of

challenges and must find viable, cost-effective strategies to compete
and win profitable business in this new age. The next section provides
an effective guide for addressing these challenges.

9
A GUIDE:
How Agencies Compete
and Win in the Digital Era
The central thesis of this paper is that as a service business, marketing agencies have inherent
roadblocks to scaling. They must differentiate themselves to win new customers, but creating
differentiated projects for each customer is extremely expensive, requiring a large workforce of
talented professionals that are hard to find and just as hard to keep.

So, how can a marketing agency scale and profitably grow? How can it differentiate its services
adequately to stand out without having to take on the huge risk of staffing before it has secured
the necessary customers?

In short, how can it stay lean but be ready to take on any number of customers as they come
on board?

We believe that there is a powerful guide available for small marketing agencies to achieve just
that. The key lies in creating the right mix of fixed and variable costs, and the steps are
described below.

THE AGENCY GROWTH GUIDE 10

Step 01 Analyze the Whole Product
As we said before, service businesses are hard to scale because everything is custom and they
try to produce everything in-house, thinking that will ensure quality. However, this is not
necessary, especially today. Marketing agencies must first define their whole product, the mix of
offerings that is compelling to a very specific group of customers. The key to analyzing this is to
break the product into two key parts: the core product and the rest of the product.

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Your core product is what makes you unique and irreplaceable from your clients’ perspective. It
doesn’t mean there is no one out there that can do what you can. Rather, it means that what you
can do is not easily found, making you sufficiently differentiated in the eyes of your customers.

A powerful tool for analyzing this is the Value Prop Canvas developed by Alex Osterwalder.
Think of the Jobs, Pain, and Gains of your customers and analyze your pain relievers and gain
creators.

ONCE YOU HAVE CREATED THE WHOLE PRODUCT, BREAK IT INTO THREE
CATEGORIES:

1 those that you will maintain as your proprietary competency (turn this into a
fixed cost);

2 those that can be easily automated; and

3 those that can’t be automated and can be done better by others (outsource
these and turn this into a variable cost).

THE AGENCY GROWTH GUIDE 11

Step 02 Keep the Strategic Differentiators
Consider these questions: In all that you do, what holds a very special meaning for you, is very
unique, and is in high demand by your customers? And what stands out being uniquely you, but
is also what customers need very much?

Those very few things that you can do better than almost every other agency out there become
the core of your service, the specialties you will own in-house and turn into a fixed cost (which
turns into payroll).

These are your strategic differentiators and you should invest all your time, energy, and money
into growing these. For example, if you have a unique way of researching the right markets for
your clients or developing compelling messaging, keep this internal.

THE TWO IMPORTANT RULES TO FOLLOW ARE:

1 Keep the list of offerings you will provide in-house to a short handful (two to
three is great).

2 Everything else goes in the outer layer of what makes the whole product
but is not the core product.

Step 03 Automate the Standard

Of the many things you offer, what can be automated using digital tools?
Think about the many things you offer and what can be automated using digital tools.

Time-consuming tasks such as report-building should be automated. Cleaning and maintaining

lists, scoring leads, workflows based on lead scores and activities, and the like should all be
running on autopilot as much as possible. Continue to look for new tools and technologies that
enable you to automate more and more, driving your costs of servicing customers lower and
lower.

THE AGENCY GROWTH GUIDE 12

Step 04 Outsource the Critical
Finally, ask yourself which of your offerings should be outsourced because a) it can’t be
automated, b) it requires a great deal of human attention and time to do, and c) you know
there are many other firms who can do it pretty well, maybe even better than you.
Outsourcing these aspects of your offerings enable you to gain three important benefits:

1 By not having to do these anymore, you can focus all of your efforts on your
core product — your true differentiator — and increase the value of that
offering, making you even more irreplaceable than ever before.

2 By finding a partner that can do this critical component even better than
you can, you increase the overall quality and value of your offering without
a corresponding cost. The beauty is that you don’t have to continue to
invest in improving this component of your offering as it becomes your
partner’s responsibility to execute.

3 By turning this into a variable expense, you increase your ability to take
on new business when demand suddenly increases, and you lower your
financial liability when demand suddenly tanks. As we have outlined above,
marketing budgets tend to get cut first during a recession and come back
slower when the economy increases.

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THE AGENCY GROWTH GUIDE 13

 Creative
Workforce as
a Subscription

Workforce as a Subscription is Nothing New

The concept of a subscription workforce is not new — staffing agencies have been providing
temporary help to businesses for decades. Many technology functions today are fully
outsourced, as are accounting, payroll, and other financial services. In the tech world, much
of the quality assurance and testing and even the development of certain modules have been
outsourced. Furthermore, the vast majority of technical support is outsourced to companies
other than the owner of the product. The list goes on.

Alternatively, many marketing agencies try to do everything in-house including: research,

developing a creative concept, writing copy, developing original artwork, placing ads, and
tracking results. Typically, these agencies are adverse to outsourcing any of their service
offerings because they believe outside providers would be more costly than hiring in-house
or that they won’t get what they need when they need it and have control over the quality.

However, this is more about the potential partner rather than the concept itself. Through proper
vetting and written service level agreements, agencies can control both the quality and ability
to meet deadlines with a subscription workforce.

THE AGENCY GROWTH GUIDE 14

 Creative Production is More
Efficient with a Subscription
Workforce
One critical area of expertise that can be outsourced is the
production of creative work.

Imagine your creative director supervising the production of the

creative concept and working with any number of highly creative
designers.

Whether those designers are on your payroll or a partner’s

should not make any difference. Your creative director has full
access to them.

Think of your typical project flow. For example, let’s say last
month you needed six pieces of creative work completed and
this month you need thirteen. Maybe next month you only need
four. How many designers do you need internally to match this
level of
variation? Do you hire for four or thirteen projects per month?
Do you pay idle designers, risking burning through your cash
reserves? Or do you tell your clients to wait until you can get to
their project?

Controlling What You Subscribe To

You can see that the subscription model makes more sense.
What you are likely worried about are the risks. How do you
control for quality? How do you know the work will be done
exactly as you want it, no matter how many iterations it takes?
How do you know you can get the final product on time exactly
when you need it? And how can this financially beat the cost of
doing the work in-house?

All of these are great questions. And the answer is that the qual-
ity, delivery time, and cost of service can be at least as good as
what you can do in-house, if not better.

THE AGENCY GROWTH GUIDE 15

DESIGN PICKLE
The New Way to Do Creative
Design is expensive and time-consuming. But, it doesn’t have to be.

The Design Pickle model presents a dramatic change in how agencies do business. It enables
them to focus on the truly creative work, leaving the production work to Design Pickle.

With this new model, agencies get the best of all worlds: the experience of a long-term
employee, the flexibility of a freelancer, and the full power of an agency, all in one flat-rate
subscription model.

The Design Pickle Platform has been built to enable an agency’s creative director to make new
product requests and manage these through completion, with full control over the quality of the
creative work and the timeline.
Plug in Design
With Design Pickle, agencies Pickle here
have a global workforce available
to them, coordinated on a
cutting-edge technology platform N
that stores all of their assets, CTIO
work requests, revisions, D U
markups, and communication O
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THE AGENCY GROWTH GUIDE 16

Altogether, Design Pickle, its global workforce of designers, and its world-class support team
enable agencies to deliver higher-quality creative production faster than they can internally
deliver.

Like an Employee, Only Better

With Design Pickle, no matter what you request, your
monthly subscription remains the same. When you want to
add more production, however, that’s when you fully see the
benefit. Unlike hiring employees, you don’t have to add on
a new headcount and payroll just to increase production by
20%. With the Design Pickle subscription model, you simply
increase your subscription by 20%.

With this model, you never have to worry about an

employee being sick, on vacation, or even leaving you high
and dry to find a replacement. Your requests will always be
met at a high-quality level and on time. These factors are
what agencies care about, and what Design Pickle excels at
delivering.

With Design Pickle, you can sign up and start the same day,
with access to world-class designers and the ability to add
more as your business grows. You can also manage new
requests or find the perfect stock asset and use it within your
own systems.

There is no HR, no interviews, and no drama. In a few clicks,

Design Pickle gives you access to a professional designer
ready to dive into your creative ecosystem.

Next, find out how one client was able to scale their
business, working with as many as eight designers
producing up to ten original graphics each day.

17
 Case Study

“
We have seen our social
media footprint improve by
600% because we are able
to create custom graphics
for each post through
Design Pickle.

”
Andrew Spilsbury,
Global Vice President
of Gallagher Bassett

Overview Gallagher Bassett’s mission to be the premier provider of

claims services throughout the world. As one of the largest
third-party administrators, the company manages claims on
behalf of insurers, brokers, government bodies, and
self-insured organizations.

Challenges Gallagher Bassett serves more than 4,800 organizations in

every sector of the economy and manages claims in over
Faced 60 countries. To properly communicate to its audience, as
well as internally, Gallagher Bassett’s marketing team
manages the company’s messaging and visual brand
identity.

THE AGENCY GROWTH GUIDE 18

 However, with a robust need for content, the team found
it did not have the manpower necessary to satisfy the
number of requests.

“Our biggest challenge was volume,” said Andrew

Spilsbury, the global vice president of brand strategy,
management and growth. “Our marketing team was
responsible for doing all of our graphic design requests,
which meant we could only do a limited amount of design,
and that design work was always distracting us from
marketing work.”

In order to streamline the content production process and

allow the marketing team to shift its focus to strategy,
Gallagher Bassett needed a cost-effective solution for its
daily graphic design needs.

How Design Spilsbury led the marketing team’s transition to Design

Pickle. To relieve the strain on their in-house designer, the
Pickle Helped team began testing the graphic design platform to fill its
content voids. Before long, the time savings and output
value were apparent.

“We started small and experimented with it for some of our

smaller jobs,” Spilsbury said. “We now have eight individual
designers we work with who produce 10+ graphic design
jobs each day.”

With an increased capability to create, Gallagher Bassett

took advantage of opportunities to reach its clients and
employees in new ways. The marketing team was able to
identify communication priorities and generate greater
creative output through their designated Design Pickle
designers. This led to Gallagher Bassett achieving its
marketing goals at an unprecedented pace.

Results Improvements to Gallagher Bassett’s content quality and

output significantly altered its social media presence and
engagement with its audience. With custom-made graphics
and informational materials, the marketing team was able to
increase its reach and received praise within its industry.

THE AGENCY GROWTH GUIDE 19

 “We have seen our social media footprint improve by 600%
because we are able to create custom graphics for each
post through Design Pickle,” Spilsbury said.

In 2019, the company launched a free online poster design

platform, powered by Design Pickle, that allowed website
visitors to customize and download their own workplace
health and safety materials for their office. The tool was
used by more than 2,500 organizations and earned
Gallagher Bassett recognition with the 2019 InsurTech
Business Insurance Innovation Award.

SIMPLE. SCALABLE.
RELIABLE.
Take a look at the Design Pickle features.

A friendly and
professional designer
We match you with a designer who knows you by
name, understands your brand and your needs, and
seamlessly plugs into your creative ecosystem.

Unlimited requests and

revisions
With Design Pickle you can request as many
designs as needed — even if you’ve already
submitted 100. Plus with unlimited revisions, we’ll
keep designing until it’s perfect.

THE AGENCY GROWTH GUIDE 20

 Incredibly fast turnarounds
Get content created faster with a Design Pickle Pro
designer on your side. They’re available on Slack
during your business hours, and can provide a
same-day turnaround on requests and revisions.

Slack, Email, or In-app

Communication
The intuitive Design Pickle Platform offers a
streamlined way to request new designs and
communicate revisions to your designer — and the
Pro plan includes real-time communication with your
designer. You can also connect Design Pickle with
the apps you already love using our Zapier
integration.

Free FreshStock Access

All Design Pickle customers get access to
FreshStock, a purpose-driven stock vector library
with thousands of socially-inclusive, premium
vectors and templates. The FreshStock library has
more than 25,000 (and growing) unique designs,
showcasing the diversity of our world.

THE AGENCY GROWTH GUIDE 21

 24/5 FREE Customer
Support
Our Customer Success team is friendly, personable,
and always available to help. You can expect a real
human to answer your support questions within 20
minutes.

ROI of a Subscription
Workforce Model
Avoid unnecessary hiring costs and achieve close to 50% profit margins
for your creative work.

Freelancer In-House Design Pickle

Average Annual Cost

$62,400 - $104,000
Average Annual Cost
$58,500 - $109,200 $30,000
Your Cost Savings Your Cost Savings
$32,400 - $80,102 $28,500 - $79,200
52% - 77% 49% - 73%

THE AGENCY GROWTH GUIDE 22

Next Steps
So far, we have discussed how agencies must find a way to transform their business models to
reduce their risks, increase their competitiveness, and improve their ability to scale.

We provided you with a guide you can follow to identify what you want to keep, what you will
automate (if you haven’t already), and why you should outsource the rest. We also introduced
you to how you can start outsourcing your creative production through a subscription service
rather than producing content in-house.

The next step is to actually test this out to see how it works for you. Here is a low-risk approach
we believe is a good place to start.

01
Look for a few small
02 03
You can use our
Book a free
creative work consultation with a
projects that you calculator to get a Design Pickle Pro
have not yet been sense of your cost product specialist
able to work on savings. and learn how
internally. Design Pickle will be
the secret sauce to
scaling your agency
fast.

Get Inspired Calculate Savings Book Free Consultation

THE AGENCY GROWTH GUIDE 23

Endnotes
1 https://prometheanresearch.com/digital-marketing-agency-industry-report/
2 https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/the-secrets-to-scaling-a-services-busi-
nesses-hint-think-like-a-product-business.html
3 http://futureofmarketing.eiu.com/briefing/
4 https://www.clickz.com/top-challenges-for-digital-marketing-agen-
cies-for-2020/253371/
5 https://www.census.gov/econ/bfs/index.html
6 https://adage.com/article/news/agency-future-survival-fittest/312949
7 https://econsultancy.com/how-to-bridge-the-marketing-skills-gap/
8 https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/talent-analytics/2018/
these-are-the-5-types-of-jobs-with-the-most-turnover
9 https://storage.googleapis.com/wordpress-www-vendasta/content-li-
brary-files/ChallengesAgenciesFace_ebook.pdf
10 https://offers.hubspot.com/agency-growth-research-report
11 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233494104_How_marketers_can_
respond_to_recession_and_turbulence
12 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0148296313001161
13 https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/stock-market-news-today-
sp500-record-jerome-powell-fed-speech-2020-8-1029541878
14 https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/14/heres-why-this-recession-has-been-differ-
ent-from-any-other.html
15 https://www.marketingdive.com/news/3-months-in-how-covid-changed-mar-
keting/579594/
16 https://www.biznessapps.com/blog/6-common-problems-for-marketing-
agencies-and-how-to-fix-them/
17 https://www.vendasta.com/challenges-agencies-face/
18 https://www.strategyzer.com/canvas/value-proposition-canvas
19 https://www.singlegrain.com/res/digital-marketing-agency/outsource-or-not/

THE AGENCY GROWTH GUIDE 24

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