It\u2019s easy for your marketing department to accumulate costs quickly. Various tools and services you believe are necessary to overall function can quickly add up. Ever forget what you even signed up for in the first place? We know the feeling!<\/p>\n
As you purchase this tool and that service, you may notice your budget starts shrinking. Now the seemingly unlimited funds you once had are forcing you to cut costs. But with every tool and service now essential to your agency, where do you even start?<\/p>\n
Depending on how you look at it, cutting costs in your\u00a0digital agency<\/a>\u00a0may or may not be an enjoyable process. It may prove easy to cut some services but not so easy to cut others.<\/p>\n However, knowing where to save money for your agency will serve you in positive ways if you do it correctly. Let\u2019s get into some of the ways you can start cutting costs and saving more in 2022.<\/p>\n At first, this will feel like a lot of heavy lifting, but a deep company audit could serve your agency well if it means cutting unnecessary costs.<\/p>\n You can almost always find 15% to 20% of spending that hasn\u2019t been managed closely.<\/p>\n To start, spend a week, or several, examining the past three years of your agency\u2019s expenses to evaluate just how much you\u2019re spending. Invest genuine time in order to make a proper assessment, then answer these three questions:<\/p>\n This simple audit helps rid your agency of unnecessary monthly services you\u2019ve accumulated reactively.<\/p>\n Pro Tip:<\/strong>\u00a0While conducting your audit, look at\u00a0only<\/strong>\u00a0the cost of the services and tools your company is using before looking at the costs of \u201cfun\u201d company-wide inclusions (e.g., benefits, holiday parties, company events, employee perks, and incentives). Consider keeping these agency expenses that improve employee wellness and engagement to show that you value your employees and their hard work.<\/p>\n Ask your employees what tools or services are currently most beneficial to them.<\/p>\n See if they have discovered an alternative that is less expensive, more productivity-inducing, or shows promise in consolidating multiple tools into one.<\/p>\n Surveying your employees about their current product use can serve two purposes: They feel heard and valued for their opinions, and you discover which tools positively or negatively impact their productivity.<\/p>\n Through this survey, you may find that some of the products you believed were working well for your employees weren\u2019t working well at all.<\/p>\n In the past, your marketing team may have come up with solutions to department strains that weren\u2019t feasible at the time. They were likely too expensive or would have taken far too long to implement. Consider implementing these suggestions now if you currently have the time, funds, and capacity to do so.<\/p>\n Some of these ideas could include:<\/strong><\/p>\n See if you can revisit these ideas and make them work if now is the right time.<\/p>\n Employees who are spread too thin won\u2019t produce quality work or have a strong work ethic. And if you are looking to cut costs, you can likely do so just by changing how your team works each day.<\/p>\n Here are some suggestions for making these changes:<\/p>\n Auditing your employees\u2019 productivity may cause them stress, but it may also help provide them with better ways to manage their time. It can also help build a good rapport and help understand the team\u2019s strengths and weaknesses. And worst case, you may discover your employees aren\u2019t as productive as you expected them to be.<\/p>\n Acquiring services and\u00a0tools<\/a>\u00a0to help your agency work more efficiently may not always be\u00a0proactive<\/strong>. In many cases, this action can be seen as\u00a0reactive<\/strong>\u00a0\ud804\udc4b usually in an attempt to solve a temporary or urgent problem quickly.<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to panic when something pressing comes down the pipeline, and you\u2019re not equipped with a solution. An agency has many working parts, so it\u2019s easy to forget the bandaid you put on that wound. It doesn\u2019t take long before you\u2019ve paid hundreds or thousands on a service you don\u2019t need anymore without realizing it.<\/p>\n What\u2019s the remedy for avoiding reactive decision-making? Be more proactive with how you solve your agency\u2019s productivity problems.<\/p>\n How do you do this?<\/p>\n First, ask yourself: Is there something you are currently putting off because it\u2019s either expensive (even though it\u2019s necessary) or will solve major issues within your agency but takes time to incorporate into your routine?<\/p>\n If you answered yes, work toward making those necessary changes knowing the cost might be hefty upfront but will yield positive benefits in the future.<\/p>\n Not only will this help you make the most of your space, selling anything you are not currently using can add some extra funds to your budget. You can make use of those funds in other corners of your departments.<\/p>\n Some items you can cancel or sell include:<\/p>\n Ways you might be able to use the extra funds:<\/p>\n Purging items and services you don\u2019t need can give you a fresh start in both your physical workspace and financially.<\/p>\n Typically, when working with clients, you have an honors system that doesn\u2019t require them to pay for your products or services right away. Try not to delay this process too long.<\/p>\n If you have any outstanding payments your clients or other departments owe you for the valuable work you\u2019ve done, now would be the best time to collect on them. Be sure to collect what they owe as soon as possible.<\/p>\n Frankly, we know asking clients to pay their dues is not everyone\u2019s favorite task. However, collecting on\u00a0accounts receivable<\/a>\u00a0can help you get back to or maintain a healthy budget.<\/p>\n Some customers may also default on their payments. If you haven\u2019t received payment for long periods, know when to cease work with them. This will also allow you and your team to focus your time and efforts on other loyal and paying clients.<\/p>\n If collecting payments from clients is a difficult feat, consider invoice factoring, which allows you to sell your invoices at a discount to a third party. Through this process, the factoring company pays you the invoiced amount owed by the client and proceeds to collect the payment from the client so you don\u2019t have to.<\/p>\n Moving your department from the office to remote work is a huge change that can seem intimidating to companies. Even though virtual technology costs will rise, the amount saved by switching to remote work increases significantly.<\/p>\n According to\u00a0Forbes<\/a>, \u201cYes, you may be spending more on cloud, but you\u2019re saving money elsewhere. Before the pandemic, employers\u00a0saved an average<\/a>\u00a0of $11,000 per half-time remote employee. Extrapolate that to a full year, and every remote worker is reducing company costs by $22,000.\u201d<\/p>\n Not only will companies be saving money, but employees will also be saving too. In this same article, Forbes says that employees can save an estimated $4,000 a year by working from home. Doing so means they spend less on gas, coffee, lunches, and work-appropriate attire.<\/p>\n Not everyone will enjoy working remotely. If that is the case, consider a hybrid model in which employees who need a physical workspace to feel productive can work partially remotely. Companies adopting this model can still save money.<\/p>\n Working remotely also benefits companies in various other ways they might not consider, including:<\/p>\n Before you risk working remotely, conduct an employee survey to see who is fond of the idea and who isn\u2019t. From there, you can better calculate what you have to gain in the process.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re looking to improve on how your team works, here are some valuable tools to increase productivity and improve overall project management.<\/p>\n We all know that managing projects can be one of the most time-consuming aspects for any agency. If your projects feel all over the place, chances are you are wasting precious time trying to track them down or assess their current progress.<\/p>\n This is why project management software like Monday, Asana, or ClickUp can improve your team\u2019s productivity. Project management software also gives a grand view of who is working on what, how long projects take to complete, and the status of the project.<\/p>\n Feel like you\u2019re spending too much time in meetings or wasting time on impromptu visits to your colleagues\u2019 desks to ask a simple question?<\/p>\n Whether you\u2019re in an office setting or working remotely, having chat communications software like Slack or Discord can save time for the whole team. They also organize conversations more effectively, allowing you to refer to information discussed in the past and manage tasks and requests from your coworkers.<\/p>\n Asset management software like Google Drive or Basecamp can help keep all projects, designs, and other digital assets more organized. Having this software can cut down the time it takes locating assets to repurpose and reuse, and it aids in organizing all files used for marketing campaigns.<\/p>\n An all-in-one marketing and data management software like\u00a0Semrush<\/a>\u00a0is a powerful web-based toolkit with dozens of marketing and agency management tools that ensure a client\u2019s success. Some of the tools you\u2019ll use most include a CRM, client portal, agency reporting, keyword research, data collection, and analytics.<\/p>\n Utilizing just one or a few of these together has the potential to empower your team to work better, thus saving you time and costs in the end.<\/p>\n As our last bit of advice for agencies looking to cut costs in 2022, the\u00a0Harvard Business Review<\/a><\/em>\u00a0says it best:<\/p>\n You should strive to eliminate any work for which the cost exceeds the value (keeping in mind that it surely has some value and that cutting it will cause a certain amount of discomfort).<\/p>\n Whether it\u2019s selling old furniture, tracking down clients who haven\u2019t paid dues, doing a simple audit, or finding a new tool that improves team function, these methods of saving money are sure to help you in 2022.<\/p>\n1. Conduct a Company-Wide Expenses Audit<\/h2>\n
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2. Survey Your Employees<\/h2>\n
3. Revisit Past Considerations for Improvements<\/h2>\n
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4. Audit Your Team\u2019s Productivity<\/h2>\n
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5. Proactive Problem Solving<\/h2>\n
6. Cancel or Sell Anything You\u2019re Not Currently Using<\/h2>\n
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7. Collect on Accounts Receivable<\/h2>\n
8. Consider Remote Work<\/h2>\n
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9. The Best Tools for Productivity<\/h2>\n
Project Management<\/h3>\n
Communications<\/h3>\n
Asset Management<\/h3>\n
Marketing and Data Management<\/h3>\n
Conclusion: Value Should Exceed Cost<\/h2>\n
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