{"id":128248,"date":"2020-02-17T10:23:58","date_gmt":"2020-02-17T09:23:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/?p=128248"},"modified":"2020-02-17T13:30:41","modified_gmt":"2020-02-17T12:30:41","slug":"6-stats-to-help-agencies-work-with-comms-directors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/6-stats-to-help-agencies-work-with-comms-directors\/","title":{"rendered":"6 stats to help agencies work with comms directors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over 200 senior communications directors, consultancies and agencies gather at The Richmond Communication Director\u2019s Forum each year and their views and opinions of the industry form the conference\u2019s annual research report. <\/strong><\/p>\n

From the numbers on how comms professionals are allocating their budgets to sourcing new agencies to work with, here are six useful statistics to help you improve your agency\u2019s work.<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. Change management is the biggest business challenge (even more than the prospect of Brexit)<\/span><\/strong>
\nWhen asked about the biggest challenges they were facing back in November, respondents\u2019 answers fell into the five categories of Change, Resources, Technology, Political and Talent and Value. Change came out as the most challenging, with over half replying with concern. Surprisingly, worries concerning Brexit (rather a big change) had gone down since the year before \u2013 from 36% to 19%.<\/p>\n

2. Budget reduction is down \u2013 only 13% were planning to decrease their budget spend for 2020<\/span><\/strong>
\nWhether careful and canny spending or a sign of belt-tightening, a reduction in budget spend wasn\u2019t a big concern for the delegates at the forum \u2013 of 2019\u2019s delegates, 20% had planned to reduce their communications budget, for 2020, it\u2019s down to 13%. Hopefully a sign of healthy budgets to work with. Over half (58%) reported they\u2019d be spending the same, and 29% reporting an increase.<\/p>\n

3. Comms directors use an average of seven agencies, but new projects mean new appointments<\/span><\/strong>
\nExploring how respondents interact with and choose new suppliers to work with, the Forum discovered that comms directors use an average of seven agencies. A further seven are likely to be spoken with as prospects, and 3.2 new agencies a year are appointed. What causes delegates to look for new agencies to work with? New projects (for over 80%) and the need for new technology (for just over 50%). Less than half were looking for cheaper or better alternatives.<\/p>\n

4. 70% of those making the decisions on agency appointments are looking for new products and technologies to try out<\/span><\/strong>
\nWhat most of the directors who decide on budget spend \u2013 and which new agencies they\u2019ll be spending it on \u2013 are looking to hear about are new-launch products and technology. Less important for them \u2013 discussing the outlook for the economy (10%), agency employees (under 20%) and the competition people are pitching against (20%). So, shiny new things that will make their work easier, and not so much with the bad-mouthing of competitors or staid economy talk when pitching.<\/p>\n

5. Cold calling is bad: over 90% of sellers of services and over 50% of buyers still prefer face-to-face contact over email or telephone for building professional relationships<\/span><\/strong>
\nBoth word-of-mouth recommendations and face-to-face meetings are what those surveyed said were most important with forming new business connections and choosing suppliers to work with. Telephone calls were not popular with buyers of services and products \u2013 0% of those surveyed mentioned it as they way they find new suppliers to work with.<\/p>\n

6. What most (60%) comms directors are looking for when picking a supplier or agency? Personal chemistry<\/span><\/strong>
\nReinforcing that face-to-face is the way to attract companies and brands to work with you, rather than email or phone, is the 60% of comms directors looking for personal chemistry with the suppliers they sign with. Price (over 50%) and innovation (almost 50%) were the next most important considerations. What may turn people off from working with you and dim the chemistry, though, is desperation \u2013 \u2018Hunger for my business\u2019 was a positive for only 30% of the people at the latest Richmond Communication Directors Forum.<\/p>\n

Find out more about The Richmond Communication Directors\u2019 Forum Industry Research Report 2020 on the Richmond Events website<\/a>. <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Communications directors, consultancies and agencies gather at The Richmond Communication Director\u2019s Forum each year – here are 6 useful stats from the event<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":423,"featured_media":128257,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7365,7272,3526,3672,7238],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128248"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128248"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128275,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128248\/revisions\/128275"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}