In the age of digital disruption, few jobs have been transformed as much as sales. Whereas sales pros were once hired based on the size of their Rolodex, today there are tons of ways to build a database of contacts without actually networking. Interpersonal and problem-solving skills are important as ever, but the democratization of data has made it much easier for new industry entrants to be effective without spending years building up a cache of contacts.

So, what's replaced the Rolodex? The landscape of sales intelligence tools in 2017 is extremely rich. Here, we'll provide a snapshot of 13 tools that agency owners and their sales teams can use to build prospect lists and collect contact data.

Agencies today cite that 90% of new business leads come from referrals. In such a fragmented landscape, more channels must be adopted if agencies wish to grow in 2017 and beyond.

Growth marketing is a buzzword that has been floating around the startup space for quite some time now. According to Drift, growth marketing is about "attracting more engaged customers...while traditional marketing focuses on the top of the funnel, the growth marketing job description requires focusing on the entire funnel." Brand awareness is not enough; growth marketing is about repeatable and scalable customer acquisition.

Two of the core tenets of growth marketing are rapid experimentation and constant optimization. Most startups can quickly cite their cost-per-user across various channels, including Facebook ads, Google AdWords, organic SEO and cold emailing. Knowing the lifetime value of a customer, they tweak various campaigns to consistently increase ROI. Can your agency say the same?

The agency world is a referral-centric network that is ripe for disruption. It's time to take advantage of what growth marketing has to offer.

Here’s an unsurprising fact: Facebook is a digital behemoth, and it’s growing consistently among all age groups, per Pew data and also the lived experience of everyone reading this blog post. But here’s something that might surprise you: the most popular social media platform is also increasingly the go-to source for B2B senior executives and decision makers seeking business content, besting its closest competitor LinkedIn in a pair of recent surveys.

Account-based marketing has become the standard best-practice for B2B demand generation programs. Since mid-2015, interest in ABM has increased steadily. Take a look at the Google Trends data:

There are no two ways about it: setting business goals is crucial, especially within marketing and sales teams. Goals propel businesses forward, by encouraging teams to strive for the best. And as Stephen Covey said, goals allow us to “begin with the end in mind," enabling us to measure long-term progress and successes on the path to that specific end.

While most of us can readily grasp the importance of goals, accomplishing them in practice is another matter. One particularly critical yet challenging element of goal-setting is selecting the metrics by which our performances will be gauged. This is where lead and lag metrics – two ways of organizing internal KPIs – offer a helpful framework for identifying what's working and what's not on the path towards success.

There's a wave of change sweeping through the ad industry right now. Creative talent is leaving corporate powerhouses to start their own shops. Established agencies are dealing with the structural challenge of creating content for both traditional media and emerging platforms. Programmatic, native, and social advertising each claim to be the next big thing. Agencies are lining up and placing their bets.

Seasoned creative pros Eve Asbury and Tina Cervera, the co-founders of Wit & Measure, are building an agency from scratch in the middle of it all. We caught up with them to talk about creating a scalable infrastructure, how to compete with bigger agencies, and the biggest piece of advice they have for creatives looking to branch out on their own.

“There is no such thing as a free lunch.” These cautionary words of wisdom have been repeated around offices since before the 1930s. Fast forward to the digital marketing landscape of 2017, and the saying might be as relevant as ever.

It's been almost five months exactly since we launched BlueWing with an email to family and friends. A ton has happened since then. Here's an update on where we stand right now.