New Customers Only?... "I think not," says Ian Tomlins at Concept

There’s nothing quite like a recession to set us sales people on new offensives, firing on all cylinders as we hunt down new business with powerful promotions and other strategic campaigns. This is all very understandable – panic is setting in and we want to make sure that we fire the first shots and take the most clients as the stakes become higher.

The danger with focusing on attack, however, is that it potentially leaves your defences compromised. While you may be bringing in new captives all the time, what’s to say those clients previously considered to be tightly tethered haven’t gradually loosened their ties, become ambivalent and tired, ready to make their escape when the right opportunity presents itself?

Industry figures show that customer retention rates lurk around 45% and the cost of attracting a new customer is in many multiples of thousands, so as sales people we are not making best use of our time and talents by focusing too heavily on new business alone.

What this basically means is that, as rapidly as you’re snapping up your rivals’ customers, the chances are that your competitors, in turn, are nurturing and luring your own. Which means everyone is paying more to do less business….Nuts, isn’t it?

Recession or no recession, our goal at Concept is to form a defensive strategy, get close to our customers, rein in tired or ambivalent customers, help them to get more from our products and establish a long term loyal base that in itself is the best way to attract new business.

The Great Debate

I don’t know about you but my job, running a business that develops and sells agency management software, is going through some major changes and it’s all down to whether we ‘sell’ software that the client installs on their premises or whether we ‘rent’ software and host it for the client.

The software is the same but the process of selling and buying it has changed dramatically and if we believe the market stats and forecast -, it’s all for the best. I have been working with advertising; marketing and communications agencies for more years that I care to admit and have advised hundreds of these agencies to underpin their business with integrated finance, workflow and job management software.

An important shift however is taking place in how these agencies choose to acquire their agency management systems. Increasing dissatisfaction with the costs, internal resources, IT complexities, and length of time that it takes to recognise value from their investments have pushed agencies away from traditional on-premise deployments and incited many down the hosted or software on demand route.

So is it right for everyone and do the cost savings really stack up? We’d like to hear your opinion on the Great Debate – Hosted Vs On Premise Agency Management Systems – which is right for you?

We are working on a brand new guide that takes a close look at these two agency software deployment options, Hosted and On-Premise and we hope to demystify the technologies and terminologies leaving you better placed to decide – which is right for you. To pre-register for your FREE copy, visit http://www.esg-concept.com/hosted_on-premise.asp or get in touch and tell me what you think.

Ian Tomlins

Ballyhoo Blog Launch

One of these days they’ll come up with an on-demand blog service where those of us not used to blogging can pay someone to blog for us on a pay-per-blog basis…now there’s an interesting concept…

So, welcome to Concept’s first blog, where advertising, marketing and communications agencies across the land will flock to find out everything that’s hot, and probably a lot that’s not, in the wonderful world of creative control – i.e. where flamboyant advertising and marketing executives are tamed into tracking and administering their accounts, when what they should really be doing is impressing clients with obscure new campaign ideas…

But seriously, that’s why Concept exists – to make sure that that’s exactly what doesn’t happen. By giving our customers more visibility of their accounts, and a means of automating processes and prompting actions, our solutions free up the valuable time of those creative types who aren’t quite so good at tying up loose ends, doing figures and producing reports.

That’s why we’re particularly excited that agency management solutions hosted, on-demand has taken off in the agency world. Because it makes all this even easier than ever, taking any remaining pain out of the more tedious (and therefore often neglected) aspects of account management and reporting.

Gaining access to new software functionality through a pay-as-you-go subscription service model is already de rigeur in many industries, whether generically for flexible email or customer relationship/sales management, or for a whole host of specialist applications that companies want to try out without incurring large upfront costs.

In the advertising agency world, this has fantastic appeal, allowing large companies to try new applications without the delay and hassles of involving hefty IT resource, and giving smaller agencies access to facilities they couldn’t otherwise afford – making them even more competitive when pitted against their bigger rivals.

Accessing software functionality on an on-demand basis offers other considerable benefits too. In addition to the regular, predictable monthly payments (which do away with the need for upfront capital expenditure), account managers can gain access to their client tracking and project management software at any time, from any location, making them 100% productive at all times. That means no need to spend wasteful moments at your desk when you could be squeezing in more client lunches (!), and greater client satisfaction - because you’ve always got the latest account management at your fingertips.

Let’s face it, if you got excited by admin, you’d be a PA. This way, you won’t even need one. No wonder we’re inundated with enquiries at the moment. Must be a sign that the busy autumn season is upon us…that reminds me, how many days is it till Christmas? Let me call up my calendar…

Ian Tomlins, Concept