The Agency Marketing & New Biz Summit
The British Library, London
• New biz got you down? You’ve come to the right place.
• This is your chance to suss out how other agencies like yours are sourcing leads, growing their reputation, and keeping their pipelines steady.
It’s not a fun time to work in new business right now.
> “The landscape is scary – a lot of clients are really struggling.”
> “We’ve been chasing our tails for six months.”
> “We’re still not out of the danger zone. Every month we’re having to replace the revenue. There’s
just no commitment to long-term money.”
Last year’s economic turmoil still lingers, and 2024 has brought its own set of nightmares:
tinier budgets, client-side musical chairs, and the rise of ‘in-house AI specialist teams’ (🥱).
The competition is brutal – 20 agencies all vying for one project, and it still takes around
six months to seal the deal.
It seems agencies have been left with only a few options:
- UPSELLING – focus on getting more from existing clients.
- REPOSITIONING – redefine who you serve best and how you add value.
- TEAMING UP – partner with other agencies to form a stronger service offering.
- INNOVATE – find new ways to get clients to come to you without resorting to spam tactics.
Each of those comes with a fair bit of elbow grease. So where should you be focussing your time?
👉 At Pipeline, we’ll be spotlighting agency leaders who are getting innovative with lead generation, growing existing revenue, and becoming masters of their own marketing. If your new biz strategy is in need of a facelift, join us for a full-day of interactive sessions and candid conversations – you might just find the inspiration you’ve been looking for.
Who you’ll hear from… 🎤
Insight-Driven Strategies: Which Sectors to Target to Boost Agency Growth
In a constantly shifting advertising landscape, understanding where to focus your efforts is essential for new business success. But it doesn’t have to feel overwhelming.
With so many agencies competing for the same pitch, it’s more important than ever to opt for insight-driven sales strategies – which is where ALF Insight steps in.
👉 At Pipeline – Amanda Rosevear, General Manager of ALF Insight, will share the latest trends in ad spend to help you target the right sectors and channels, and ensure your pitches are more strategic and effective.
Expect insights into key growth areas for you to target, and learn which media channels continue to dominate in which sectors so you can ensure you’re approaching the right brand with the right message.
How to Optimise Your Agency for Cold Outreach
Agencies are geared up to convert one type of sales lead better than any other: referrals. So when it’s time to go looking for new leads in the “much-maligned” cold-channel, they’re rarely set up to convert.
“Most agencies have creds that convert well for referrals, so everyone convinces themselves that their collateral is in really good shape,” says Steve Fair, co-founder of Sponge New Business. “But it turns out that to convert referrals, you could drop a spider in some ink and let it run around on a page and you’d still win.”
“Cold outreach is much more demanding. And if you can’t communicate what your business can do for a client concisely, you can’t communicate it at all.”
👉 At Pipeline, Steve will take us through the four areas that can make your cold outreach more effective: email strategy, presence on social media, your website, and your agency’s creds. You’ll leave this session with ideas you can put into play straight away.
How to Automate Outbound Sales
In today’s competitive market, proactive lead generation is non-negotiable. But it doesn’t all have to be manual.
In fact, Aleks Certa, founder of The Social Way, automates her agency’s entire sales process – from lead generation to qualification – only stepping in at the final conversion.
“What works really well is automated webinars and audits,” Aleks explains. “You audit an account in your niche, present the findings, and then offer a free call at the end to further demonstrate your expertise.”
👉 At Pipeline, Aleks will walk you through the exact strategies and tools her agency uses to consistently bring in qualified leads – without sacrificing the personal touch.
If searching for new business is taking up too much of your time – come along to this discussion to discover some new tactic that might work for you.
(Perfect for small businesses or those at the beginning of their cold outreach journey.)
How We’re Using Our LinkedIn CRM to Find Our Dream Clients
Charli Hunt and Chris Wright are no strangers to the challenges of lead generation on LinkedIn.
After years of navigating the platform, they realised that most of us are missing something critical: a way to genuinely connect with potential clients, not just add to our contact list.
“The problem with LinkedIn is that you can connect with people all day, but are those connections actually doing anything for you?” Charli explains.
So they decided to do something about it – and The Lime One was born.
“It’s not about spamming people – it’s about being intentional with your outreach and showing up in their conversations.”
👉 At Pipeline, Charli and Chris will walk us through their journey in developing The Lime One, a CRM tool designed specifically to help agencies make LinkedIn more than just a numbers game, and what lessons you can take away from it.
DON’T SELL: Why Long Term Relationship Building Always Pays Off
“Everyone’s attitude towards new business is totally wrong,” says Ryan Hall, founder of Friday Solved. “They’re hunting for briefs that don’t exist, expecting to pick apples from trees they haven’t even planted yet.”
In a world of instant gratification, Ryan is championing a different approach to new clients: Don’t Sell.
“Strangers don’t buy from strangers,” he says. “You need to build trust, and that trust turns into relationships, and relationships turn into business.”
But in today’s economic climate, is there still room for such patience?
👉 At Pipeline, Ryan will dive deep into the ‘Don’t Sell’ strategy, sharing how agencies can evolve to meet the changing needs of clients, build lasting relationships, and ultimately, win more business.
Why You Need to Invest in Video Marketing for Your Agency
We live in a world where user-generated content reigns supreme and short-form video is the king of social media.
Anyone can create and publish videos now, potentially grabbing the attention of millions of people.
But this puts marketers in a rather precarious position: how do they stand out amongst the crowd and cut through the noise?
And is video marketing really that important?
(Short answer: Yes.)
👉 At Pipeline, we’re bringing together four voices from different agencies to discuss how they’ve cracked the code of their video marketing and how you can do the same.
How Productising Helped Us Attract Bigger Client Budgets
Danny Somekh had a problem: his agency, Huddle Creative, wasn’t getting the level of clientele he wanted.
He wanted to move away from being a ‘jack of all trades’ – but a mere repositioning wasn’t enough to get those bigger clients.
Danny realised that to truly stand out and attract the brands they wanted, they had to take a larger step: they needed to transform how they presented their services.
👉 At Pipeline, Danny will share more insights on how productising services can transform your agency’s prospects and help you win bigger clients, as well as why positioning yourself accurately can make all the difference.
How We’ve ‘Gamified’ Our Client Referral Scheme
Agencies are notoriously bad at asking for referrals. But one agency founder seems to have found a way around it.
Gavin Willis, founder of Search Seven, has created a unique charity referral initiative: instead of offering financial rewards for referrals, he donates to a charity of the referrer’s choice each time a new client is brought on board.
“It’s a win-win,” he says. “Clients feel great about making a positive impact, and we get to grow our business in a way that aligns with our company’s ethos.”
👉 At Pipeline, Gavin will share how this scheme came to life, the challenges he encountered, and how it has positively affected his agency’s business pipeline.
Find Your Agency’s Narrative
Joe Daniels, founder of LEFTFIELD, knows that standing out in a crowded market isn’t about offering more – it’s about telling a better story.
“If you can get people to buy into your perspective and your approach and way of thinking about things, then they’ll automatically put you first in line when they need that product or service – because you are the one that’s educated them about it in the first place.”
👉 At Pipeline, Joe will share how agencies can build a narrative that resonates with clients and helps differentiate them from the competition.
Through real-world examples, Joe will show how storytelling can elevate your agency, attract the right clients, and simplify your service offerings.
Agencies Who Are Great at Their Own Marketing
Agencies are often filled to the brim with client work.
So that begs the question: where do they find the time, energy, and resources to make their own marketing so great?
But more than that, what’s the secret to marketing your agency in such a memorable way?
Is it about crafting a unique brand voice that cuts through the noise, or mastering the art of turning your agency’s expertise into compelling content? Or maybe it’s leveraging cutting-edge tools and platforms to amplify your message?
👉 At Pipeline, we’ll be joined by Mai Gonzalez Berg, Dan Knowlton, and Stokely Howard to get to the heart of how they’ve nailed their own marketing whilst juggling client demands and staying ahead of industry trends.
Meet people who are interested in your story
Pipeline is an afternoon that will helps you get inspired, and meet other people you can learn from. We blend interactive talks and group discussion.
- We dot you around the venue so you can interact – and we mix up the groups so you meet different people.
- We poll you before the event to see what you want to talk about.
- We make sure all the talks are original and interesting. We facilitate questions and reflections throughout.
Pipeline – FAQs 💬
Q: What actually happens on the day?
We start the event at 9.30am, so try to arrive by 9.15am.
The day’s format is pretty simple: you will spend some time hearing from guests with interesting stories that you can learn from, and you will also spend some time in small groups discussing your journey with like-minded agency leaders.
The breakouts are hosted by an Agency Hackers facilitator who makes sure that everybody with something interesting to say gets heard. (We poll attendees before the event, so we know who to ‘pick on’ on the day.)
We will serve tea, coffee and sweet things to keep you going, but please eat a sandwich before you arrive.
Q: Who will I hear from? Who are the speakers?
The people you’ll hear from all have interesting stories about marketing and new biz, and tactics you can adopt in your own agency.
We also decide who to spotlight based on the information we capture in the weeks before. (Look out for our emails!)
We will publish the line-up a few weeks before, but mostly we hope that you will trust us to select interesting folk from our audience. We find that the people who choose to attend our events are overwhelmingly on fascinating journeys that will resonate with you.
Also, the ‘talks’ aren’t really linear presentations. They’re more like structured case studies, with lots of questions and reflections from the audience.
You could potentially call them ‘fireside chats’, but these are not rambling cosy conversations. They are planned and structured. We put a lot of work into researching our guests, out of respect for your time.
Q: Who can attend?
This event is for anybody in your agency who cares about their marketing and new biz function.
That might be the person in charge of this area, the founder or owner, or it might be somebody else.
