Playbook for Digital Agencies

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Playbook for Digital Agencies

A playbook for agencies

How the best digital agencies think about running the business ー and the tools they use to get their work done and keep their clients happy.

I put this playbook together because after years working with digital agencies, I've noticed two things:

There's a lack of thought leadership in the digital agency space. Specifically about how to run the business, price services, work better with clients, become profitable. It's a quickly growing industry with changing client needs and shifting technology that underpins the products and services digital agencies offer. Maybe that's why. Networks like the

Bureau of Digital⁠

have done a great job to bring us closer, but there still remains confusion and a lack of focus on how to run a great digital agency.

The tools agencies use aren't working like they used to. OG digital agencies like

37Signals brought us Basecamp⁠

for project hubs,

Fog Creek Software - Trello⁠

for task tracking,

Iridesco - Harvest⁠

for time tracking,

Artefact - 10,000ft⁠

for resource management, but we're leaving Basecamp for Asana, Trello bought by Atlassian and 10,000ft by Smartsheet. Where's the tech innovation out of and for digital agencies?

Check out the different areas of a digital agency business. Within each page, you'll find tools for how to apply some of these best practices.

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Business model Designing unique and profitable products and services.⁠

⁠

Workflows The steps of running an agency operation⁠

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Agency Team Bringing together people with the right skills and roles that yield digital superpowers⁠

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Clients Finding and keeping the core piece of the business happy⁠

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Pricing Price correctly for your work⁠

⁠

Projects Steps to delivering on the work and tools to keep things on track⁠

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Retainers Smooth recurring work and tools to deliver ongoing value, again and again and again.⁠

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Tasks Building uniqueness into your day-to-day work.⁠

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Resourcing Finding the sweet spot with balancing the team's client workload⁠

⁠

Tools Using Coda as a tool for creating client deliverables⁠

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Solutions

⁠

Design Research Huge's client research bible⁠

⁠

Until Coda came along, we were limited by the available technologies to create a research process that is easily digestible across disciples - seamless, timely, comprehensive, and most importantly collaborative! - Theo Shure, Design Research at Huge,

Research⁠

⁠

Design Estimate How Four Kitchens quotes the right amount for client work⁠

⁠

Coda simplifies estimation so I could focus more on design. Fast, flexible, and finally something we would enjoy using: you can have fun making estimates! - Dean, Four Kitchens |

Design Estimate⁠

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