A common adage states that ad agencies are “cobbler’s kids with no shoes.” Because like for the upstart shoemaker who needs to turn a profit, at most modern shops the client work takes priority. The agency’s own content marketing falls by the wayside.

You know that your company does truly great work. The level of expertise and quality of service you could provide to clients is far higher than what they’re getting right now, and you could prove it… if only you could get in front of them.

Here at BlueWing, we’ve long trumpeted the merits of Facebook as a B2B advertising platform. Although LinkedIn is fantastic, we’ve found Facebook to be the most cost-efficient way to reach senior executives using paid social ads. (Consider that 79% of senior execs check Facebook for thought leadership compared to only 68% who check LinkedIn.)

The duopoly of Facebook and Google has a stranglehold on the digital advertising market. In 2016, the two giants accounted for 77% of the growth in digital spending. Google is running things on the inbound side, allowing digital marketers to serve up contextual ads based on what a user is searching for. On the outbound marketing side, those same advertisers are using Facebook to push content into the News Feeds of highly targeted groups—and this includes plenty of B2B players. Facebook’s partnership with Dun & Bradstreet and outstanding custom audience tools give B2B campaign managers a wealth of creative options for getting in front of ideal clients.

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.

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.

Scalability is defined as “the capability of a system, network, or process to handle a growing amount of work, or its potential to be enlarged in order to accommodate that growth.” (Thanks, Wikipedia!) Conversations about scalability are commonplace in the venture-backed startup scene, and for good reason. Scalability is a prerequisite for rapid growth. With digital products and social networks, the marginal cost of selling another product or adding another user is practically zero (ignoring, for this moment, the downstream need for salespeople, marketers, customer service reps and other personnel). Code-driven business models create the possibility to build a billion-dollar company with only thirteen people.

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.

Congratulations. If you've made it to the proposal stage with a potential client, that means you've been out there taking calls, booking meetings and learning about how you can help another company accomplish their goals.

Now that you've done the groundwork, its time to seal the deal with a killer proposal. At this point, you've should have already had thorough discussion with your potential client about their needs, bugdet and timeline and how you plan to help. The purpose of a proposal is simple: to formally outline all of your learnings form the sales process and get them to sign (or click) on the dotted line.

Whether you are a freelancer, an agency or a business, nailing your proposals is a critical skill. Here’s how to do it.