When Procter & Gamble made deep cuts in their advertising budget in 2015, it sent a shockwave through the marketing world. They cut 40% of the agencies they had been working with. The ripple effect went far and wide. Perhaps you were affected.
Mixed Messages
Do you ever feel as though you’re standing at the bottom of the mountain watching a big rock rolling right toward you? The economy has picked up. Companies are hiring instead of closing their doors. However, many clients are still making cuts to their marketing budgets. While you understand that marketing is a top priority, it’s often regarded as an optional expense. Whatever the reason for the cuts, your bottom line is impacted.
How To Improve Your Profit Margin
The first way to improve your profit margin is the most obvious. You’re probably already working on it. Increase sales! The downside to higher volume is the need to hire more talent to work on the projects. This expense can easily wipe out any additional profit margin, especially if your business cycle takes you closer to “bust” than “boom”.
It’s helpful to thoroughly analyze your gross profit margin (GPM), or the money left after you pay all expenses related to the sale, typically marketing/sales expenses and your fixed overhead. What’s left over is your GPM: your profit for your hard work and the risks you take by being an entrepreneur.
Factors that can increase your gross profit margin include:
- Reducing your turnaround time without reducing quality. This can be difficult, especially if you need to pull all-nighters to get the work done. How can you improve and speed up your process? Are there any steps that can be eliminated? Time saved is more money in your pocket.
- Upsell your client. If the client has cut their marketing budget, they’ll be a hard sell until you’ve shown them high quality work. Sometimes clients cut marketing budgets because they’re not convinced they’re getting enough value for their dollar.
- Eliminate clients who don’t generate a profit for the time invested. We’ve all had them, clients that need far more than their share of hand-holding or excessive revisions. Or maybe the working relationship is fine, but you haven’t increased your fees in years despite rising expectations. The flip side to this is reducing the time spent on the client’s projects, which can increase your GPM for work done.
- Analyze your attrition rate. Why do clients leave? Intense competition isn’t going away any time soon, but it’s still far easier and cheaper to keep an existing client than to find a new one. In addition to providing a great service at a fair price, don’t forget the little things that make someone feel appreciated. Something as simple as a hand-written note (and perhaps a small gift) stands out when life is all texts and emails. Don’t ever let a client feel you’re taking their business for granted.
BXP Creative Specializes in Improving Agency Profit Margins
We know marketing and have lived the problems you’re facing. We’ve designed our business model to provide the creative solutions we’d use ourselves.
We provide all the services of a creative department without the overhead. You pay for what you need, when you need it. Our process is simple, all projects go through a tough quality control check and deadlines matter – a lot.
Our motto is “Less Stress. More Control.” Dealing with clients is stressful. Managing multiple projects is stressful. Doing creative work when you should be selling new clients is really stressful.
Here’s What BXP Creative Can Do For You
You have control. You’ll have a Project Manager and can check the status of your projects at any time. When the project’s complete, you own the files. We know that the fastest way to lose a client’s confidence is to not know what’s going on with their job. With BXP, you’ll never be left hanging, unable to answer your client’s question.
We Provide the Services You Need, When You Need Them
When you can’t do it all in-house, we’ll fill in the gaps with agency-quality creative. We’re marketing pros, not a cookie-cutter contest platform. Your Project Manager stays on top of your deadlines for your projects and submits several options for you to review, not 50 of the same terrible logos. We offer the following services:
- Web Development
- Logo Design
- SEO
- Print Design
- Digital Design
- Branding
- Ecommerce
- Digital and Print Production
- Social Media Management
- Creative Concepting
- Email Marketing
- Content Creation
We Won’t Waste Your Time
We only ask for the information we need to get the job done. Our process is simple and quick, but doesn’t box you in.
We’ll Help You Grow Your Profit Margin
While you’re busy bringing in more business, we’ll be busy on the creative – for far less than it would cost you to staff up or rely on freelance talent. We’re committed to helping you grow your agency’s profit margin.
Contact us today to request a consultation or call (267) 908-7841 to talk to us about a project you need done. Let’s get to work.
