Make Money in Interactive: Seven Tactics
Pricing yourself out of business in tough times? Interactive needs an economic model not based on traditional agency billing.
Pricing yourself out of business in tough times? Interactive needs an economic model not based on traditional agency billing.
When I run into colleagues, it’s always the same: “How do you make money in interactive?” Clients don’t want to pay for the work it takes to assemble a campaign. Big, new projects hardly come in. If they do, they aren’t profitable. How to survive?
Get paid for thought.
Understand you’re in a service industry (most of you are). You’ve got one asset that matters: your mind. Manage it. Equipment, technology, your portfolio… all of these are useful, but none directly provides what you need to make a living. Take the stuff away and you’re left with your noggin — the one tool that matters.
Your brain keeps you in business. Charge for its use and make money. Give it away and you’re screwed.
How do you get paid for thought? First, change your mindset, especially if you’re from traditional advertising. Agencies pride themselves on “strategic thinking,” “account planning services,” and “brand consulting practices.” The simple fact is they are usually paid as if they’re production houses or media agents (they were, hence “agency”).
Money was (and is) made at agencies through commissions on media, markups on production, and “account service” (often project management). There’s a schism between what’s held up as valuable (thought) and what’s paid for (production). The arrangement works because there are many steps between concept and execution, ergo many ways to get paid along the way.
Guess what, folks. The Web don’t play that way.
The online world has few steps between concept and execution. Because many of us use digital tools to think and conceptualize, there’s hardly a gap between intention and action. If someone asks you to mock up a banner and show how the animation will work on the Web, once you’ve done the mock up the banner’s finished. There’s no difference between concept and the finished piece. The banner animates. It’s a GIF. You can put it online today.
Ditto email: Once written, it’s basically done. It ain’t like traditional direct mail where there’s production time between creation and deployment to mark up.
Although there’s little or no gap between mockup and final in interactive, the work still requires as much thought as always. Maybe more, as regards multimedia and technology. The value is the same as traditional, but opportunities for making money on production bottom out.
Shift the “pay for production” model and mindset to “pay for thought” internally and with clients and prospects.
Here are seven practical ways to get paid for thought: