When a marketing agency creates a unique web app or SaaS, or other digital tools for itself, it’s creating ways to care for the business and feed the business.
It’s like giving itself a gift. Even if the tool never gets productized or re-marketed.
An Example: If key personnel leave a company, all of their intelligence leaves with them. But if that intelligence is in the form of a digital tool instead, that will remain at the company. There is no issue. Proprietary, digital tools that streamline, organize and automate processes… processes that relate to client communications, project management, billing, inventory and so on. Automating a process will consistently help care for and protect the operation, immune to employee turnover.
In addition, that tool could make the agency stronger… maybe boosting lead-gen, boosting revenue. Or make it more efficient, which feeds the business with more margin per sale.
Scenarios: The Gifts That Keep on Giving
Intellectual property can come in many forms. And the benefits can be enduring.
If an agency can’t quite get its head around 1) what kind of tool it could benefit from or 2) how to create it once an idea reveals itself, speaking to an outsource partner can help. The digital specialists and business analysts available through these resources are numerous, and kicking off the process may not cost a thing.
Here are some scenarios of how that might play out…
Scenario 1
If an agency has had longer-term clients to the point where annual contract renewals have become understood versus formalized, a digital tool can help get it back on the “formalized” track. Not a bad idea as economic cycles suggest that it’s important to secure future business, now.
Maybe that even coincides with an increase in agency rates. It’s a good time to lock-in that business.
To make those new higher rates (and that annual contract renewal) more attractive, the agency brainstorms with an outsource partner. They determine that a digital tool in the form of an educational program would be a good bonus offering for clients that renew: education related to branding or best practices or industry trends or workplace safety or product maintenance, or CE credits, for example.
Could be a series of webinar sessions with guest speakers presented on a dedicated online “channel”… plus an easy-to-use portal for sign-up and tracking attendance or content… plus a way for attendees to chat with each other or with the speakers or otherwise share commentary through a digital forum.
That’s a solid idea for a tech platform that helps retain clients. As word spreads, maybe it attracts new clients, too. The agency becomes known for its digital, educational tools.
Scenario 2
If an agency has created a bunch of helpful industry workbooks and educational materials (see example above), then a complementary digital tool could leverage that even further. That tool might consolidate all of those assets in one place. And other materials could be added and made accessible, too. Logos and templates and work-in-progress and photos, for example.
The agency has created a proprietary platform that provides secure, online portal access to digital assets… a forum for inquiries… a library of research and thought leadership.
A place where clients, partners, educators or the media could be invited to join.
A formalized digital asset management tool becomes yet another hallmark of the agency.
Scenario 3
If the positive new vibes the agency is generating in the industry catches on, swag might become a big deal, too. Clients, dealers, influencers or even the public might clamor for its hats and mugs, and t-shirts.
Consider how bottles of Crown Royal Canadian Whisky are packaged in those collectible purple-felt gift bags. The bags (and now several other colors and special issues of them) have become an entirely separate side-product offering for the company, sold online.
In that fashion, the agency can create its very own ecommerce store, too. A way to promote swag, charge for it, and help with inventory and fulfillment.
If the new tool also had a product configurator built-in, “shoppers” could maybe even combine different colored logos with different colored products or modify them with other assets from the digital asset library the agency has previously helped foster in Scenarios 1 and 2.
The opportunities are endless.
Educational curriculum management, asset management, mini ecommerce stores… these are all examples of ways that digital tools and apps and SaaS can bestow an agency with the gift of care and feeding. An outsource partner has the skills and know-how to make it all happen and can even help with brainstorming, too.
Humor writer Dave Barry is known for a heap of funny literary works, including his annual holiday gift-giving guide (newspaper column) that appears in the Miami Herald. Some archived editions can also be found on his website.
He highlights unusual, kitschy products in a humorous salute to holiday gift-giving… products that commonly include gadgets, electronics and digital marvels.
He once featured The Astral Projection Kit… a tool (an instruction manual, really) that enables time travel and the ability to visit other dimensions. You read that correctly… time travel. It was originally priced at less than $30, which is a pretty low ticket-price for travel to an alternate universe. To put that in perspective, roundtrip flights from Little Rock, Arkansas, to Akron, Ohio, run about $400 (at publication date).
Dave Barry is well-reviewed by his peers:
Steve Martin refers to him as the funniest writer in the U.S. and Stephen King suggests that he’s grateful to land on a rug when he falls out of his chair laughing (while reading Barry’s material).