If you are offering agency services to your clients and prospects, there’s some good news coming your way: More marketers are putting out contracts for project-​based work this year. The change means a marketer is likely to have an agency of record for several different specialty services — ranging from digital marketing to CRM to branding, especially if they are trying to promote their newly launched products. Regardless of what your specialty is, you have an opportunity to bid for and win more work this year.

Projects vs. Retainer Fees: Opportunity with Newly Launched Products

This year’s Marketing Trends Report from Agency Spotter is based on the company's tracking of search behavior by more than 14,300 agencies. Analysts report that the size of creative contracts are falling, with the average coming in at about $2.11 million dollars. In addition, about half of agency revenues are likely to come from projects instead of retainer fees. The more newly launched products a company has, the more ad projects they will need to spend their budgets on. As you think about pitching your digital marketing services, keep these details in mind.

Media Mix

Regardless of how marketers break out the contracts they are putting out for bid, they still face a shared challenge. This challenge is the fact that they must reach their target audiences. But who is included in those audiences could vary from newly launched product to their old reliables. Marketers continue to use a rich media and format mix. The following list shows the percentage of average marketing budgets allocated to these categories:

• Traditional media 26%
• Search 11%
• Programmatic 8%
• Social media 10%
• Website/​e‑commerce 1%
• Brand publishing/​content 10%
• Digital video 9%
• Influencer marketing/​sponsorships 9%
• Other 5%

In the past year, researchers have reported that marketers have been looking for more experts to help them with direct mail, branding, search, and email advertising services. For the first six months of 2017, marketers were seeking experts who understood social media and email marketing's ins and outs. Analysts believe businesses want to start building new businesses relationships to advance both of these marketing formats in the middle of the calendar year. During the last half of 2017, marketers were seeking services that provided media planning and strategy expertise. These marketers may expect to start the new year with a fresh media strategy, especially if they are focusing on newly launched products. The same trends may hold true for 2018 as well.

To understand what marketers have been obsessing over for the past five years, researchers analyzed a number of trends. The following services have been tracking upward for the past several years:

• Direct Marketing
• Email Marketing
• Search SEO/​PPC
• Inbound Marketing
• Health Care Marketing

If you're selling any of these digital marketing services, it's time to promote your company's expertise to potential prospects who may be increasing the breadth of their media strategies this year and possibly the next. Check out the entire Agency Spotter report to discover other opportunities for the coming year, as well.