August Digital Roundtable: international guests, creative insights and a whacking great hole!

We gathered the best of the North West’s creative talent together again on 18 August for another quality evening at the Digital Roundtable. And this time we were glamming it up at The Studio, Manchester too.

Just like the June event, there were plenty of lush ideas coming out of the creative conversations. We even had a special ‘international guest’ in the form of Karen Reyburn from The Profitable Firm digital marketing agency. Get us with our fancy guests!

So, what did we chat about? What was the big creative news? And who ate the most nibbles? Here’s our round-up of the night.

You’re not struggling alone

We’ve been incredibly pleased – not to say gobsmacked – at the success of the Digital Roundtable. And we think one of the big reasons for this success has been having a forum to share those creative agency woes with a group of like-minded peers.

We all agreed that it’s both comforting and helpful to discover that there are other people struggling with the same issues and the same challenges. And, let’s face it, there’s nothing like a bit of mutual sharing of issues to make you feel better about your own situation.

A problem shared, is a problem halved, as everyone’s granny would say.

Get yourself a niche

Fresh off the plane from Scotland, Karen Reyburn is the leading light and head marketing honcho at The Profitable Firm agency (although she’s actually originally from the States and her company is based in the UK – how’s that for international!).

She’s quite the big cheese in the digital marketing world and specialises exclusively on digital marketing for accountants (yes, even accountants need marketers – who knew!). We’re actually one of her many clients, so we know EXACTLY how amazing she is at creating great, strategic marketing campaigns…and knowing when to leave out all the boring bits about numbers.

Karen talked to us about the power of having a niche market and the impact it can have for an agency.

Focusing on a specific sector, industry or audience to promote your services can boost your profitability. Not to mention how it highlights your expertise and improves the trust that your clients have in you as an adviser or service provider.

Highlighting the value you bring to clients

Karen also talked at length about The Profitable Firm’s own pricing model and how it’s slowly evolved over time from billing by the hour to providing creative services by outcome, not hours.

This is a common theme for agencies, and everyone warmed to the topic. Education of clients was a big theme, with everyone agreeing that there’s a need to help clients understand the true value your creative services bring to the table (and charging what you’re worth, rather than what the client thinks they can afford).

For creative agencies, getting clients on a retainer or a monthly package is the utopian dream. Regular work = regular revenue and stable profits, so it’s worth considering a value-driven pricing model now if you’ve not already thought about it.

Sparkly new apps for creative

Like magpies and bits of shiny paper, us creative thinkers are inexplicably drawn to mobile apps and cloud tools. I mean, there’s no point having that iPhone 6 Plus if you don’t fill that giant screen with cool apps, right?

We had a great chinwag about all the latest productivity and creative apps that the assembled Knights of the Roundtable had discovered in the past couple of months. And one, in particular, was the stand-out winner: Slack, a new messaging app that brings all your existing social, comms and messaging into one shared space.

Maybe it was a delayed effect of altitude deafness from the plane flight, but Karen misheard this and was convinced we were talking about an app called Slap – we’re pretty sure that might exist too, but we are NOT going to Google that one. No sir!

Here comes the rain again

We were hoping to get all LA and swanky by enjoying some beer and chat on the roof terrace. Sadly, though, it rained for most of the evening, so we couldn’t spend too much time outside. In fact, we’ve had so much rain lately, that an enormous 40-foot wide sinkhole appeared in Mancunian Way the other week! Fortunately, none of our Knights ended up doing an Alice in Wonderland down the hole.

And the rain did clear eventually, treating us to a gorgeous sunset outside towards the end of event…and yes, we do have the sunshine in Manchester sometimes, despite what Morrissey might want you to believe.

Talking of things not going quite as planned, one great idea that got posed at the end was to have a regular Digital Roundtable section for ‘Hilarious stories of things that have gone wrong’. This was inspired by some brilliant autocorrect horror stories (most of them unprintable here to spare your blushes) and quite a few ‘Oooh, THAT type of client’ stories as well.

 

We liked the idea so much we’re going to include this ‘So wrong it’s hilarious’ section at the next Digital Roundtable in October

Book up early to reserve your place and guarantee your seat at the coveted (not exactly round) Roundtable.