I assume you create smart strategic plans for your clients, but do you do the same for yourself?

We are currently in the midst of 2025 planning for all our client programs – a practice we implemented many years ago.

In the past, we didn’t think quite as strategically and focused on short-term needs rather than developing a truly long-term vision for programs.

However, now we can see past our noses and the shift in focus has helped create the best client programs possible. We set up a roadmap that aligns with the goals of the head of sales or marketing—one that we can agree on—and follow it throughout the year. This approach enables us to objectively evaluate our programs, identifying what works well and what needs improvement.

You need to adopt this same mindset for yourself.

Ask yourself: What do you want to achieve in 2025? Not just the numbers, but what you truly want to accomplish.

For example:

• Elevate my perceived expertise
• Broaden my appeal into new sectors
• Increase the number of high-visibility clients in the portfolio
• Better diversify the portfolio
• Strengthen our perceived client service offering
• Increase our perception of being a value-added player

These are just a few examples of the objectives we consider for our client programs.

You should establish similar goals for yourself.

Here’s the bottom line: you have to lay out some objectives beyond the numbers and create a plan to achieve them. If it’s “elevating my perceived expertise”, consider things like speaking engagements, writing and emailing to prospects thought leadership pieces, or hosting a webinar on a relevant topic.

If diversifying your portfolio is a priority, take a close look at your client list and determine where you can best leverage your expertise. You need to be objective and assess what is realistic in terms of prospecting (size of prospect, geography, etc.).

While it might be challenging to think long-term during these difficult times, it is essential now more than ever to adopt a broader perspective for your business.

Drop me a line (mark@rswus.com) or give me a call if you’d like some free advice.

I had a conversation with an agency considering our services, and the principal asked if I would take a look at their current service offering and answer the question,

What Are We Missing?

After a bit of clarification, I understood he meant in terms of future-proofing: are there services they should be considering to show prospects they’re keeping their firm prepared and looking forward.

It’s an important question, and one you should be asking yourself and your team.

There’s a certain level of shiny object infiltration here (which would be a great, if not lengthy, band name – use it with my blessing).

There are of course, “would be cool to haves” and “need to haves”, which is what want to talk about here.

Two articles will help me do this, and some context from the first, Top Predictions For Marketing Agencies In 2025. (Yes, it’s time for the glut of new year predictions!)

The last 24 months have been challenging for the agency marketplace, with depressed tech spending in the US and global dragging of agency performance. In particular, the start-stop nature of existing or newly awarded brand assignments was a source of financial frustration. Yet 2025 shows signs of optimism, including a strong US economy, agency M&A activity, a resurgence of brand spending, and a growing independent agency market.

Good stuff, right?  The whole piece is worth a read, but there are 2 points you should think on.

1) One-third of digital media specialists will evolve into full-funnel agencies

According to the Forbes piece, “In 2025, CMOs and agency executives will reconcile full-funnel, full-service capabilities with deep expertise in various disciplines and channels.”

So what does that mean?

• Division Between Brand and Performance Media is Blurring
  • CMOs (chief marketing officers) increasingly expect their agencies to bridge the gap between branding and performance rather than working in silos.
  • Barely half of CMOs plan to integrate brand and performance media, meaning there’s still significant opportunity for agencies to educate and position themselves as seamless full-funnel solutions.
• Integration of Creative and Media Assignments
  • More than one-third of CMOs plan to integrate creative and media assignments within the next year. This suggests that clients want agencies capable of aligning creative ideas directly with media strategies to drive results.
• Reconciling Full-Service and Expertise
  • While clients want the convenience of full-service capabilities (e.g., creative, media, strategy, and performance in one place), they’re also looking for deep expertise in specific channels or disciplines.

So, when you ask, what are we missing, your firm may already be well-positioned here, and you should capitalize on that:

1. Highlight your ability to deliver both brand awareness and performance results.
2. In business development outreach, focus on how you can simplify and unify what is often fragmented across multiple agencies or vendors.
3. Be clear about where your agency excels while still offering a broader range of services. For example, if your strength is in programmatic performance media, highlight how it connects with your creative and brand-building efforts.

And if you aren’t well-positioned in terms of services, collaborate with partners or explore building a cross-functional team to ensure you meet client expectations for both depth and breadth of expertise.

2) AI-powered content production will decelerate marketing in-housing

The piece points out 61% of external agencies already use genAI in their marketing efforts, compared to only 17% of in-house teams.

This gap highlights a significant opportunity for agencies to position themselves as leaders in AI-driven content production.

And of course, where AI ends up and how it’s used is very much still unknown, but the bottom line is, you can’t be left behind in it’s usage.

So, as above, when you ask, what are we missing, your firm may already be well-positioned here in its AI usage, and you should capitalize on that:

• Use messaging that emphasizes cost-efficiency, speed, and customization to appeal to marketers who are reevaluating their reliance on in-house teams.
• Many marketers may (or even definitely) still lack a clear understanding of how generative AI can transform their content production. Use thought leadership—through webinars, blogs, and social media content—to educate potential clients on the benefits of outsourcing to an AI-driven agency.
• Showcase how your agency can go beyond what in-house teams offer, such as: Advanced AI model customization tailored to a brand’s voice and access to cutting-edge tools and expertise.

And if you aren’t well-positioned in terms of AI, (and this won’t surprise you), agencies with generative AI expertise will gain a significant advantage.

As budgets allow, invest in genAI tools and talent to position yourself as knowledgeable and on top of  AI-driven content production.

3) Your Prospects’ Attention Has Never Been More Divided

And lastly, a piece from MediaPost, Attention: It’s In Short Supply:

While our attention spans aren’t really as short as Ted Lasso’s 10-second goldfish (btw, that figure has been refuted by scientists studying goldfish), UC Irvine’s Dr. Gloria Marks found through tracking research that we switch screens after 47 seconds on average, down from an average 2.5 minutes back in 2004.

This is so critically important for your business development process, and I’ve been preaching it for years: keep your initial biz dev outreach succinct, to the point, and value-driven.

If your first outreach to a prospect is a 5 paragraph email screed, that’s an automatic delete.

But there’s another, valuable piece of info here:

TikTok may dominate time spent for younger cohorts, but an Involved Media study found the greatest monthly reach from YouTube Shorts (44%) and Instagram Reels (41%). But older cohorts can learn to love a faster pace. The Involved study found that parents followed their children to short-form platforms. Got kids? Chances are you watch Reels, Shorts and TikTok more than other 40-year-olds.

We’ve been experimenting with YouTube shorts for a little while now to drive new business for RSW (you can see a few here for reference) and met with some initial success.

So, as above, when you ask, what are we missing, if you haven’t explored short-form video to help drive your thought leadership/content strategy for business development, this is the time.

Yes, you’ll need to do some planning , but these are meant to be short and impactful, and best of all, are typically done on your phone.

Authenticity is key here.

Keep asking yourself, and your team, “What are we missing?”.

It will pay off.

In the first post in our RSW 2024 Agency New Business report series, we talked average length of time to close business, in Part 2, we tackled decreasing new business director tenure at ad agencies. And now in our 3rd in the series, we explore how ad agencies are actually using AI.

54% of marketing services firms are using AI tools for new business development. Last year that number was 38%.

This stat comes from our survey question of agencies, “Are you incorporating ChatGPT and other AI tools into your business development efforts?”

And we added a follow up question this year:

How are you using ChatGPT or other AI tools for new business?

Per the breakdown below, “researching companies” and “writing content” were by far the most chosen, with “analyzing competitive activity” coming in at a distant third.

“Building lists” did come in at 16%, but we can say from experience that while there are already some viable tools to help with this process, they are (seemingly) some time away from providing any real help there, in terms of accuracy.

There was an “other” option with the ability to write in how agencies are using AI tools for new business, and we present a sample of those from your peers:

• Email copy support
• Organizing data/content into presentable info
• Social media
• Discovery on targeted accounts
• Creating budget estimates
• Assisting with concepts and mood boards

With over half of the surveyed firms now incorporating AI into their processes, up from 38% the previous year, it’s clear that artificial intelligence is becoming a more integral part of the industry’s toolkit.

And while our primary focus at RSW is business development for ad agencies, a recent Ad Age article provides further useful feedback on AI tools beyond business development usage, 9 AI tools agencies are embracing right now.

We’ve broken each down for you with links.

9 AI tools agencies are embracing right now

💼 Adobe Photoshop’s Generative Fill
This well-known AI tool helps designers edit images with impressive ease and speed. It’s already a must-have for agencies like Lafayette American. Learn more.

💼 Cassidy
Used by Quad, Cassidy helps streamline RFP responses by automating repetitive tasks, making proposal processes faster. Learn more.

💼 ComfyUI
Agencies like Anomaly and Goodby Silverstein & Partners are using this web interface for the AI model Stable Diffusion to create and edit images. Learn more.

💼 Creatopy
This platform automates ad creation, ideal for customized animations in web banners. Lafayette American finds it invaluable for scaling creative work. Learn more.

💼 Flim
Known as the “search engine for creative people,” Flim helps agencies like Colossus quickly sift through vast video libraries to enhance storytelling. Learn more.

💼 Focaldata
Used by McKinney for consumer interviews, this “AI coworker” supports agencies with research and creative testing. Learn more.

💼 Kive
This visual library tool is popular with Wieden+Kennedy and Droga5 for organizing and sharing creative assets like mood boards. Learn more.

💼 Krea’s Realtime
Anomaly uses Krea’s Realtime tool for video generation with enhanced control, thanks to the Flux 1 AI model. Learn more.

💼 Pika Labs
A competitor in text-to-video generation, Pika Labs recently added realistic motion in its latest update, Pika 1.5, used by Bonfire Labs. Learn more.

How Ad Agencies Are Actually Using AI – Still A Ways To Go

The primary uses of AI, particularly tools like ChatGPT, for researching companies and writing content, demonstrate how these tools are enhancing efficiency and improving the quality of business development efforts.

While AI shows promise in various aspects of business development, it’s important to note that its applications are still evolving.

The limited use of AI for tasks like building lists highlights the current limitations of the technology, particularly in terms of accuracy for certain functions.

However, the diverse range of additional applications mentioned by agencies, from email copy support to creating budget estimates, suggests that AI’s role in business development is likely to expand and become more sophisticated over time.

Do you know the answer?

It’s typically 6 to 10 times.

What I’d like to see now is your reaction. Not going to happen obviously (although feel free to leave a comment in its place.)

Does this surprise you? Are you doubtful of this stat?

Or have you been doing this for a while and you know it’s correct.

Google It If You Doubt

Because Google is always right. In all seriousness, give it a shot and you’ll find plenty of back-up for it.

The “magic number” is about 7 touches. And it bears out in our professional service firm new business efforts as well.

I made “touches” the topic of this post, specifically because we talk a lot on this blog about not giving your prospects the hard sell.

Still 100% behind this selling tenet, but I wanted to focus on the importance of also being aggressive.

As In Life, All About Balance

As an example, we contact all of you a minimum of once a week with this outreach.

Key to this is we’re not selling to you once a week but we are trying to provide weekly value through posts like this.

And of course, we’re doing our best to make sure we’re remembered, that we’re front and center when you think about outsourcing lead generation support.

But being able to balance your precious time is, as you’re probably nodding your head, the key to the process.

First 4-6 weeks=Once a Week

A newsletter is of course a great way to keep you top of mind.

But what about the more individual approach?

Rule of thumb is first four to six weeks of a new prospect, touch them once a week.

This can be tough, but the key, again, is balance.

Channels=Use ‘Em All

In this case, balancing your use of channels.

Ideally you’re using them all-phone, newsletter, social media, email, etc.

That way you’re not just picking up the phone every week and asking, heaven forbid, “if they’re ready yet.”

And after that first 4-6 weeks, stick with them once a month, on average.

Per my earlier comment, you need to find the right balance when it comes to time.

It’s a given that clients take up most of it.

But you have to have a plan that works on a consistent basis.

And don’t be afraid to reach out more than once a week in that first 4 to 6 weeks, so long as you’re providing value in some form and not blatantly selling with every touch point.

Thankfully not every prospect takes those seven touches, timing is everything.

But remember seven as a rule of thumb when you’re getting discouraged, it will happen.