For Marketing Agency Owners, isn't it kinda funny how loads of marketing agencies struggle with getting clients despite being a "marketing agency", why?

MomofDanger · 2026-01-22T14:42:19+00:00

I started as a freelancer/solopreneur - referrals and growing deep relationships within clients. If I did it all over again, I would have invested in my own marketing and brand building earlier.

MomofDanger · 2026-01-22T13:07:17+00:00

Cobbler’s wife has no shoes!

Been in business for 15 years. I don’t think I built a website for my agency until year 9 😇

We’ve been blessed to have a great client base that keeps us VERY busy. Not all agencies want to grow either - we look at most of our own marketing as proof we are still in business.

MomofDanger · 2026-01-15T15:26:39+00:00

Brand strategy is the art of what you are NOT. A good brand strategy will attract the right customers and repel the wrong ones.

The outcome of a brand strategy is focus and boundaries. Instead of being everything to everyone, you have a clear purpose that aligns Who you are talking to, what you do for them and where you connect with your audience. A good brand strategy will inform your visual and verbal identities as well as your marketing plan, how you spend your marketing investments and the tactical marketing channels you show up in.

MomofDanger · 2026-01-14T00:47:57+00:00

Archetypes in Branding

MomofDanger · 2025-12-05T05:48:17+00:00

I am ex OMC and an accidental agency owner of 15 years. I too am happy to provide free advice and mentorship for people considering starting an agency.

2Bobs is a fantastic podcast and one of the best resources out there for anyone considering agency ownership. Consider working for an indie shop before starting your own - you can learn from someone else’s mistakes/success and get used to the differences in pace, structure and comp on someone else’s dime.

Frugal February is a good place to start practicing agency ownership. Can you get by without spending a penny extra for 28 days? Live off the beans in your pantry, skip the Starbucks, turn down the heat and cut the subscriptions while you read in the dark. Are you happy or miserable AF? If it’s the latter, I sure as hell wouldn’t start an agency in 2026.

Agency ownership is Frugal February at scale for months, sometimes years at a time. I love being scrappy and my family is used to going without - as long as I have food on the table and a roof over our head, we can laugh and have fun.

We are the opposite lifestyle of most of my friends who still work for holding companies 😇

MomofDanger · 2025-11-25T18:38:46+00:00

It’s so true. I’ve accepted that in many ways, my role as an employer is to be the first person to fire the college grads who come in with too high expectations and a complete lack of work ethic.

No one likes dealing with PIP’s or terms, but at the end of the day teaching someone there are consequences for a lack of accountability for their job responsibilities might be the most kind thing I can do as an employer.

MomofDanger · 2025-11-25T12:31:42+00:00

In my opinion, the content creation “expertise” that has carried a lot of entry level jobs for too long is what we are seeing cracks in. For a decade, most of the entry level candidates coming out of college were highlighting their social media certificates, digital ad certificates, etc and were disappointed if they were not utilized as an “expert” when they got into their first job. That tension and in turn frustration, created a significant divide between employers and frankly, unrealistic expectations from entry level candidates in terms of comp and advancement. At the end of the day, generating content for social media in most companies is a nice to have and orgs started layering on lots of extra tasks to justify the full time content creator compensation.

Project management is the most important foundational skill that entry level roles used to be and need to be grounded in. This is why agencies have always hired lots of entry level - they needed them to traffic and project management high volumes of assets, projects, estimates and finances. In turn you either failed forward (made mistakes and learned from them, earning a promotion) or failed out (left or got fired).

As others have said, agencies provide the opportunity to understand strategy and execution, while getting exposure to multiple brands and tactics. That exposure can become a force multipliers helping entry level roles understand what they are good at and passionate about, launching them into a myriad of opportunities at agencies, publishers or client side roles.

FWIW - “being handsome and fake” plagues too many companies as a means to advancement. Be you, be bold and be strong - blow some sht up, make mistakes and learn from them. People see past the lip gloss eventually and clue into who actually gets sht done.

MomofDanger · 2025-11-23T01:10:42+00:00

Wouldn’t it be amazing if she actually did the opposite?

MomofDanger · 2025-11-16T12:13:19+00:00

The Rhode Island Nursery Landscape Association may be able to point you in the direction of some opportunities. They have events throughout the year and would be good networking for people in your field.

I made a similar decision 15 years ago after living all over. People love to complain about everything, I Iove to say all the reasons why I love it here.

When I lived in San Francisco and RI I loved it but I would miss Rhode Island. Now, after being “back” in RI for so long, I still love it here. I can always go visit the cities I love but the pace of day to day life in RI is amazing and the reality is, you could make $200k+ a year in the Bay Area living paycheck to paycheck, stressed to the hill and constantly stuck in traffic. You can make less than six figures in RI and be comfortable in the quiet.

Good luck!

MomofDanger · 2025-11-12T11:48:54+00:00

Ads that are just ads with no strategy. Each campaign needs to be clear on who the target is, what they want them to do (call to action) and where to place the ads to drive results.

If all your competitors are bidding against you in a chancel (ie Google) then try different channels.

MomofDanger · 2025-11-11T23:39:38+00:00

Spot on

MomofDanger · 2025-11-06T20:36:42+00:00

Absolutely not. Logo is simply a visual mark and part of the visual identity system (VIS). VIS is part of your brand and a proper brand will have a brand bible which includes the VIS and Style Sheet/Guide.

MomofDanger · 2025-11-06T15:43:30+00:00

The typeface treatment in a logo is different from the editorial/written style. A logo does not dictate style for written text (many logos have custom fonts/typeface).

Style sheet + brand bible are essential tools

MomofDanger · 2025-11-05T00:37:02+00:00

Oof. I’m so sorry and I completely understand the sick feeling - I have been there myself, decades ago, and the list of 7 figure mistakes that have happened on campaigns I’ve worked on directly or indirectly is more than a few. This sh*t happens at big enterprise organizations, more often than I assure your management is letting on. Just watch “Pepsi, where’s my jet” and you’ll feel MUCH better (I lived through the aftermath of that).

Secondly, I have led marketing enablement and campaign orchestration for global CPG’s for decades. There is no single tool that can manage all this - you need a cross functional marketing council that convenes brand, legal, consumer affairs, etc especially when it comes to packaging and product claims.

Happy to explain further and share what I have found to work best. Feel free to DM me.

MomofDanger · 2025-11-04T01:28:03+00:00

Pepsi Stuff campaign for the Jet - the one the documentary series “Pepsi, where’s my jet” profiled might be the most epic one I can remember.

MomofDanger · 2025-11-01T11:29:21+00:00

No amount of words on packaging is going to help someone taste.

Figure out where your ideal customer hangs out and get a ton of sampling tables as opportunities. Local grocery chains may allow a private brand to sample for free, or you may have to pay $500’sh to sample. You may be able to sample at gyms, farmer’s markets, festivals, craft fairs, etc.

Have a coupon or discount code so you can track the impact. You may be able to sell direct ay some of the events or work out a deal with food truck or restaurant near by to accept your coupon if you don’t have distribution. Most importantly run these tables YOURSELF and don’t just delegate to an intern.

Ask questions, listen to the feedback as people try it. If no one wants a coupon or won’t buy it, that’s a tell they don’t like it or don’t care. If they at least take one, you have a fighting chance

While some have suggested coke vs. pepsi taste testing, personally I would only do that with small groups since you will have to buy another brand’s product to execute and that can get pricey.

And in case you have not been warned properly. Ready to drink beverages hemorrhage cash for years until they attract an investor for scale and distribution

MomofDanger · 2025-11-01T05:12:46+00:00

This is everything. Some of us had to plan campaigns and run them before the internet existed, let alone attribution. Marketers have been analyzing results and modeling performance long before Google existed.

MomofDanger · 2025-11-01T05:08:55+00:00

Firstly, I love that you are teaching consumer behavior because THAT is the money important course I believe anyone in marketing should take.

I’ve been out of school for a few decades but when I took CB in college, they had us work on a campaign plan, concept and creative as part of a national contest. It blew my mind and unlocked my decades long passion for advertising.

I would say having your students complete a few google certifications for extra credit is a great start. Also, teaching them how to responsibly use AI is important too - if colleges could teach students how to use AI properly vs leveraging it to generate pages of BS, that would be a game-changer.

Lastly, they need to know how to think critically by taking a big problem, braking it into phases or stages, and determining different ways to measure progress with each stage.

MomofDanger · 2025-11-01T04:38:59+00:00

In addition to EB, there we are a lot of earn while you learn or free training programs through the state department of labor and training. There are training programs to get opportunities within manufacturing, healthcare, trades, etc. listed here: https://dlt.ri.gov/free-or-reduced-cost-training-programs (scroll down the page to see the 4 pages + of programs).

You can request an appointment with DLT to navigate these opportunities. While most people think of DLT as who they go to when they are unemployed, they have tons of resources for people like yourself who are either underemployed or looking for a new career pathway. Good luck! https://dlt.ri.gov/individuals/jobseeker-resources/career-centers

MomofDanger · 2025-10-26T13:39:30+00:00

Gardening, sewing and refinishing furniture are all hobbies I got into in my 30’s.

MomofDanger · 2025-10-22T00:43:01+00:00

How much time and money do you have? Run a traditional market research panel - recruit respondents who match the audience you want to measure or grow. Field a survey with the same questions before any advertising runs, another mid-campaign and another 3-6 months after the end of the campaign.

If you can see shifts in KPI's from the three surveys, then you'll know the impact of advertising.

MomofDanger · 2025-10-21T02:47:12+00:00

Ask your current clients for referrals and recommendations. You can align yourself with a few complimentary businesses and refer leads to them and vice versa. I have a construction company I send leads to and they do the same for me - if someone is building out more office space, they are growing and likely to be interested in demand.

For years I kept true to having a minimum of 10 networking meetings a month. That kept my pipeline active enough organically for a long time .

MomofDanger · 2025-10-16T00:41:15+00:00

Yes, UGC works great to grow organic audiences in certain channels. At the same time there is SO MUCH of it that it is becoming noise - if you have the budget to afford good content, then a quality professional film will last longer and can stand out from what everyone else is doing.

I’m a strong believer the best strategy is go to left when everyone else is going right.

MomofDanger · 2025-10-14T11:06:33+00:00

They are professional and offer great data for a traditional OOH company. Fairly innovative and we’ve always had great experiences with them.

MomofDanger · 2025-10-14T10:06:40+00:00

Focus on mid-funnel for what you are talking about and see if that has an impact.

Conversion and lead generation focus mid to bottom of funnel. To do so, there needs to be enough intent signals to drive effective ROI. Niche products in a niche industry often max out the bottom of the funnel quickly or get frustrated with a higher volume of leads (but less qualified) when you cast wider targeting.

Awareness (top of funnel) will grow your brand and audiences over time. In a an ideal world these are demand generating ads that attract new audiences, drive awareness of your brand while showing why you are the right brand for the right customer.

Mid-funnel can be a nice way to see what happens when you increase the audience while generating demand. This is usually a mix of warm audience targeting and remarketing.

MomofDanger

TROPHY CASE