So, It's 2025...WTF Happens Next?

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Welcome to The Agency Inner Circle

• A Little Housekeeping

• It’s 2025 - What’s New?

  • AI

  • Politics

  • Finances & Markets

  • Buckle Up

• Q1 Theme: Go To Market 2.0

• Notes From All Over

• Thanks To Our Sponsor

A Little Housekeeping

For many of you, this is the 1st time you are seeing The Agency Inner Circle in your inbox. You’ve probably been been used to getting my Focus Friday or Winning Wednesday emails from TimKilroy.com - well, its a new year, and I wanted to consolidate - so I’ve brought all of my newsletter communications here in the inner circle. Agency Inner Circle isn’t just a newsletter - it’s a FREE Slack Community full of agency folks & agency experts like Account Management Expert Taylor McMaster from Dot & Co and Agency Profitability Guide Marcel Petitpas from Parakeeto and Agency Ops Whirlwind Jhana Li from Spyglass Ops.

And stay tuned - next week we will have the 1st episode of The Agency Inner Circle Podcast - featuring a roundtable discussion from three amazing agency finance experts.

If you’ve found yourself on this list, and in the past you’ve unsubscribed and I added you back - I’m sorry - that is a goof up on my part. Please head to the footer and unsubscribe ASAP.

It’s 2025 - What’s New?

There is SO MUCH new happening in the world of marketing that it is hard to keep up.

AI

I’ve become a regular listener of The Artificial Intelligence Show - it’s a weekly podcast that keeps me up to date on what’s being released OpenAI, Claude, Perplexity, Meta, Google, etc. I am finding it to be super informative. I’ve also found Ask Cat GPT & Nate B Jones (both in TikTok - for however long that sticks around…Tik Tok indeed…) IRL, I like to get my info from Rachel Woods of DiviUp & Dale Betrand of Fire & Spark. But AI is making incredible changes in the marketing industry - not in the “we don’t need agencies anymore” sort of way, but rather AI is absolutely changing the definition of value for agencies. From accelerating market research to generating and improving copy drafts to finding patterns that we’ve missed, AI is taking some of the value away from lots of fingers on the keyboards.

Politics

There is the impending shutdown of TikTok - without a sales to a US company, TT is scheduled to shut down on Jan 19, 2025. TBH, I don’t know what shut down means - I still think there will be a solution…but who knows at this point.

Also, every MarTech & ad platform seems to be throwing themselves at the incoming administration - the Amazon, Meta and untold others are piling money into Trump’s transition and inauguration funds, and bazillionaire CEOs like Apple’s Tim Cook have made the pilgrimage to Mar-a-lago to bend the knee/kiss the ring, whatever. Just recently, Meta’s Policy Chief (the guy who interacts with the governments, among other things) Mark Clegg - who is unabashedly centrist, has stepped down and Joel Kaplan, a well-connected republican, is stepping into that role. I’ve never seen an industry disrobe itself quicker than adland stepping out of it’s “capitalists dressed as progressives” costumery.

Finances & Markets

Interest rates are lower, but credit remains tight.

The economy seems strong, but if you’ve talked to anyone under 50 in the last 5 months, you know its tough out there - especially for the early career folks who need the entry level job to learn how the whole industry works.

The stock market is at crazy heights, but business investment, other than throwing money at AI companies and funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, little in the way of meaningful investment seems to be happening. Even revenue-based financing, long the 40% APR savior of the small business and fast growing DTC brands has slowed down DRAMATICALLY.

I don’t see much to indicate a rally in advertising spending - with the possible exception of OpenAI, Perplexity & Google opening up AI algo for ad insertions. I do think that there will be significant consolidation in the agency world - IPG & Omnicom getting hitched aside - I think there will be a wave of consolidation in the under $20mm agency world, with those at the top of that tier gathering up smaller agencies at compressed premiums. I have no inside info, but I would expect that folk like Barrel Holdings, Onfolio, & Hawke to increase their acquisition pace.

Buckle Up

With some political upheaval sure to follow the inauguration, and AI mutating on a daily basis with slow ad spend growth…I am predicting that on a macro-level, 2025 will be a rough ride. (Here is a cool thing, tho - you and your business are micro - so you can run counter to the macro-trends)

Q1 Theme: Go To Market 2.0

My theme for Q1 is simple - Go To Market 2.0. Since everything in the marketing world is changing, from content development to growth funding to AI to hiring, the way that you position your agency, the way that you build value in the marketplace, the way that you engage with potential clients, the way that you structure and close new deals to the way you retain and upsell clients is being radically redefined.

Over the next several weeks, I am going to walk you through:

1. Creating A Go To Market Strategy

2. Defining What Your Buyer REALLY Needs

3. Positioning To Match The Market

4. Building A Strategic Client Acquisition Function In Your Agency

5. Democratizing Sales & Marketing Across Your Agency

6. Selling In A World Where AI Can Probably Do A LOT Of What Your Team Does Now

7. Retaining Clients Through Alignment > Results

Notes From All Over

Consolidation Ahoy! Via The WSJ, influencer marketing agency Later.com snapped up influencer discovery and management platform Mavely for a cool $250mm. This is notable because Later is services first, then tech. Mavely is just tech. So, I think that this is part of a trend where SaaS companies start to flip their S’s - instead of Software as a Service, it is Service and a Software.

AI Gobbles Up 20% of the Pie by 2029: Via Reuters, AI-generated & powered advertising will grab 20% of the TOTAL ad spend by 2029. That is roughly equal to all television, print & OOH advertising happening today. To grab 20% of a TRILLION dollars worth of ad spend in 6 years (ChatGPT just turned 2 in December) will represent the largest shift in advertising since, well, FOREVER.

Want to Jumpstart Your Agency Marketing for 2025? Go To Market 2.0 is a huge focus of mine in 2025. Most agencies think about Go To Market activities as “lead gen” like cold outreach & ads. Those are tactics you use after you learn what your market wants and needs. If you want an easy way for your entire team to be part of your go to market efforts in 2025 - check out my 12 week program GEN+ that help your agency rapidly create effective social, outreach and sales materials in a distributed way. You have a team full of marketers - learn how to use them to grow your agency in 2025.

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