6 Ways Creative Agencies Use Wrike to Work Confidently

Real World Use Cases from Wrike Power Users. Slow revenue growth and increasing competition from major consultancies are two big challenges facing today’s creative agencies, but that’s no reason to panic. Agencies around the world are finding ways to be efficient, collaborate with clients, and effectively manage their workload to adapt to the changing competitive landscape. More than 16,000 creative agencies and companies choose Wrike to find smart solutions like automated workflows, increased visibility, and expedited approval processes. We’ve compiled 6 ways creative agencies like Ogilvy-Australia and Sköna use Wrike to work confidently now.

What’s in the article:

• Empower creative teams from the get go
• Simplify getting sign offs
• Keep clients informed and invested
• Increase project visibility

Content Summary

Introduction: Do Your Best Work
Chapter 1: Empower Creative Teams from the Get-Go
Chapter 2: Simplify Getting Sign-Offs
Chapter 3: Keep Clients Informed and Invested
Chapter 4: Enhance Manager Visibility
Chapter 5: Give Your Team Options
Chapter 6: Work Where You’re Most Comfortable
Conclusion: Create with Confidence

Introduction: Do Your Best Work

Creative agencies do their best work when they have the time, space, and freedom to channel inspiration. But this doesn’t always happen. It’s easy to get bogged down by ineffective meetings, administrative tasks, or unnecessary back-and-forth, leading to distractions and inefficiencies agencies simply can’t afford.

Although U.S. agency revenue rose 4.4% to $48.3 billion in 2016 , the industry saw its slowest growth since 2013, according to Ad Age’s Agency Report 2017. Major consultancies like PwC, IBM, Accenture, and Deloitte are entering the space and eating up major contracts to the tune of $13.2 billion.

However, this is no reason to panic. Agencies around the world are finding more ways to be efficient, collaborate with clients, and effectively manage their workload to adapt to the changing competitive landscape. Automating workflows, increasing visibility, and expediting approval processes are all smart solutions.

More than 16,000 agencies and companies around the world choose Wrike to work more confidently. We’ve compiled six ways creative agencies like Ogilvy-Australia, Skona, and Position2 use Wrike to simplify sign-offs, enhance manager visibility, keep clients invested, and much more.

Chapter 1: Empower Creative Teams from the Get-Go

Because project stakeholders are external clients, creating streamlined and consistent workflows that extend beyond office walls is essential to agencies’ success. Email inquiries find their way to the bottom of inboxes, unformatted requests take time to decipher, and waiting to clarify client wishes bottlenecks production, limiting the time your creative team has to pull together finished products.

Agencies use Wrike’s project intake tools to streamline collaboration and ensure creatives have the information they need to kickstart projects. Dynamic Request Forms ask different questions based on the information the requester provides as they fill out the brief, allowing creatives to capture all necessary details up front without bogging down requesters.

All request information stays in one place and projects are automatically assigned to the correct person so your team can hit the ground running.

Ogilvy-Australia Eliminates Back-and-Forth with Wrike

Before Wrike, Ogilvy-Australia’s account managers received client requests via meetings or email. When items were missing or directions were unclear, the team had to reach out with followup questions or schedule another meeting. Only when the scope of work was completely clear would the production team finally receive a creative brief.

Steve Dunn, Senior Integrated Project Manager at Ogilvy-Australia, piloted a new creative brief process with a BMW dealer network of over 700 offices to expedite that process.

“Previously all dealers used to email an account manager with their requests. All requests used to come through in different formats,” says Dunn. Now, all dealers submit creative briefs in a consistent way through Wrike. “The forms essentially go from the dealers directly into production, and that’s where we’re saving a lot of time and effort.”

Wrike’s Dynamic Request Forms can also be embedded on external websites, allowing clients to submit structured requests at any time. “Customers are able to complete the form at their convenience, with less back-and-forth, and production is able to start the project faster,” Dunn says. “It’s fantastic.”

Chapter 2: Simplify Getting Sign-Offs

Creative agencies are expected to collaborate across teams and time zones. Disparate edits, conflicting opinions, and lagging communication create unintended roadblocks to receiving approvals, forcing creatives to chase down and consolidate feedback.

Wrike’s Proofing and Approvals tool expedites the revision and sign-off process. Documents are attached to their respective projects so the latest files can be found at all times. Wrike also gives teams the ability to visually mark up documents within the platform, so workers don’t have to take time to open another tool and potentially get distracted.

Providing teams and clients with a single, up-to-date source of information helps agencies stay on the same page and work more efficiently. Participants see each other’s changes and can work through conflicting edits in real-time, while @mentions alert collaborators the ball is in their court.

Skona Uses Wrike to Handle Rapid Turnaround Times with Ease

Skona, a full-service creative agency, has offices in both the U. S. and Sweden. Collaborating overseas on various projects left the CEO nervous about consistently delivering top quality work.

“Both offices are working on the same projects a lot of the time, ” says Jenny Sagstrom, CEO and Co-Founder of Skona. “We were looking for something to help bridge that gap both physically and time-wise, so we can all be going in the same direction at the same time.”

Rapid turnaround times and last-minute requests are the norm at Skona. Wrike’s Proofing and Approvals feature moves all feedback into one place so Skona can work seamlessly even across the Atlantic.

“Proofing and Approvals are incredibly helpful because they support the rapid pace of our workflow,” says Kate Doyle, Strategic Account Director. “Being able to keep the conversation all in one place ensures that all necessary elements are there, and we’ve noticed that the speed at which we can get things back to the client has vastly improved with Wrike.”

Chapter 3: Keep Clients Informed and Invested

Your clients pay you well for the work you do, so they’re eager to know what’s happening and where things stand. Keeping clients up to date on projects not only makes them feel more involved, but also eliminates questions and status update requests, which distract workers and derail projects.

This level of transparency also gives clients a window into the creative process, highlighting the value you bring to the project at every stage.

Wrike’s custom, shareable dashboards allow both internal and external teams to check on projects in real-time to see who is working on what and which stage of the workflow they’re in. Stakeholders can click into any task on the dashboard for more details, eliminating the need for frequent check-ins.

Position2 Keeps Clients in the Loop with Dashboards

Position2 is a leading digital and social media marketing agency based in Silicon Valley and Bangalore, India. Their clients include companies from around the world, but that doesn’t stop them from communicating like they’re in the workstation next to them.

Position2 uses Wrike’s Dashboards to offer strategic clients real-time visibility into task statuses and keep them up to date on relevant projects. This transparency reduces client questions and allows the team to focus on speed and quality of service.

“Before Dashboards, we shared spreadsheets in Basecamp. The confidence level I feel working with clients now is tremendously better,” says Sanjiv Parikh, Director of Client Growth.

Clients appreciate visibility into projects and having a direct line of communication with the creative team. Because they see the team’s detailed workflow, they understand the implications of change requests, take more care to clarify asks, and are more willing to accommodate deadline shifts related to changes.

Collaborating with clients in Wrike helped Position2 achieve its highest level of revenue growth.

“On one project, a client observed my request to a developer to rewrite his code on a task,” says Harish PS, Director of Web & Apps Group at Position2. “In the next project meeting, the client was appreciative that we were taking care of their needs at such a detailed level.”

We grew over 30% this quarter, and haven’t added any staff. ― Rajiv Parikh, CEO

Chapter 4: Enhance Manager Visibility

Managers need visibility to work confidently. It gives them the ability to track work status, push projects through workflows, and address bottlenecks before they become an issue. It also helps them effectively balance workloads to ensure team members have enough time and space to be creative.

Wrike provides several features that give managers the power to view projects at a glance and make informed decisions:

• Custom workflows and statuses allow you to create processes relevant to the specific projects your team is tasked with, and enable you to see what stage the project is in at a glance.
• Customisable reports enable you to quickly crunch data from tasks and projects to see which ones are active, wrapped up, or incomplete.
• Workload views help you visualise how much work each team member has to do, allowing you to make informed decisions when assigning new projects.

Skona Creates Top-Down Transparency with Wrike’s Dashboards

Wrike’s ability to provide a high-level view of all projects gives Jenny Sagstrom, CEO of Skona, confidence her team is delivering work at the highest possible standards.

“As we’re a growing company, I don’t have the bandwidth to work on every client and every project. With Wrike, I have oversight into what’s going on, and I can jump in and check to make sure that we’re always adhering to the strong standards that we’ve set for ourselves,” Sagstrom says.

“It gives me confidence in my team. I know they’re not dropping the ball and I can do spot-checks on creative whenever needed, because at the end of the day, whatever goes out these doors has my name attached to it.”

Prior to Wrike, Skona’s Sweden-based team held a weekly call to review upcoming projects and build out a weekly production sheet. After adopting Wrike, they canceled this meeting and trusted the Dashboard feature, which gives everyone visibility into status of all aspects of a project and reduces staff time spent in meetings.

Chapter 5: Give Your Team Options

Not everyone has the same work style—and that’s OK. But tools that force creatives to work a certain way lead to low adoption rates and poor ROI. Finding a tool that is not only powerful but also flexible enough to accommodate different work styles and responsibilities is key to success.

Wrike provides several options to view, assess, and take action on tasks, including kanban, Gantt charts, table views, and workload charts. More options minimise tool proliferation and keep all team members in the same system.

Wrike’s mobile app means check-ins can happen even on the go.

“I love how Wrike is rigid enough to help people prioritise their work, but also has a huge allowance for setting it up the way that best fits your individual work style.” ― Jenny Sagstrom, CEO and Co-Founder of Skona

Ogilvy-Australia Finds the Right Fit with Flexible Views

Steven Dunn, Ogilvy-Australia’s Senior Integrated Project Manager, knows he doesn’t need to be involved in every action item all the time, but he does need to clearly visualise which departments are working on what and whether they’re on schedule. He uses Wrike’s table view to check the status of current jobs.

“From a management perspective, having a clear view of each department by clicking through departments on Wrike is fantastic. I’ve been able to implement a process for people to just log on to Wrike in the table view, for instance, and see the status of their jobs,” says Dunn.

“All managers are able to see when each regional team is at full workload capacity, to effectively plan and set the right expectations with clients. If they are in a pinch and out of the office, they just log onto Wrike from their phone and see what’s going on.”

Increases Work-Life Balance with Wrike’s Out-of-the-Box Features

Position2 evaluated several project management systems and ultimately chose Wrike because of its flexibility, ease of u se, and price.

After observing a team using Wrike at another company, Harish PS, Position2’s Director of Web and Application Services noticed Wrike offers more features out of the box, while other systems require costly product extensions and/or services to customize features.

“Hours for developers have been reduced, and have been converted to work-life balance. So, they are really happy,” he says. “And , at the end of the day, if employees are happy, clients will be happy.”

Chapter 6: Work Where You’re Most Comfortable

Working across too many systems is the number one reason teams are unable to execute flawlessly, according to Wrike’s 2018 Operational Excellence Survey Report, which surveyed more than 1,000 professionals. Forcing creatives to use too many tools leads to miscommunication, duplicate work, lost drafts, and significant switching costs.

However, certain tools are essential to working cross-functionally and creating projects clients love. Wrike’s integrations allow creative teams to work the way they’re most comfortable, whether in Gmail, Slack, or the Adobe Creative Suite.

They also centralise information across key company systems so collaborators can be confident they’re working with a full picture and the most up-to-date details.

For example, the Adobe Creative Cloud Extension allows creatives to work in Wrike from within Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Premier Pro, and links Adobe file attachments directly to Wrike tasks.

Position2 Harnesses Wrike Integrations to Work Seamlessly Across Systems

Wrike’s out-of-the-box features and flexibility were a major selling point for Position2. Thanks to Wrike’s extensions and integrations, the social media marketing agency has reduced hours for developers and increased work-life balance.

Position2 integrates key project statuses within Wrike to keep internal teams up to date. Zapier and the Gmail widget are used to automate task creation in Wrike, including updating the comment log, tracking CSAT, and logging QC statuses.

The Salesforce integration improves collaboration between the company’s business development team and implementation team to bring efficiency to the sales cycle.

Conclusion: Create with Confidence

It’s time to spend less time wrangling errant emails and more time creating work clients love. Empower your teams, build better client communication channels, and keep projects on track.

Agencies like Ogilvy, Position2, and Skona are benefiting from Wrike’s ability to:

• Streamline projects with Dynamic Request Forms
• Simplify getting sign-offs through Proofing and Approvals
• Alert collaborators with @mentions
• Keep clients in the loop with Dashboards
• Drive adoption through flexible workspaces
• Work with the programs they love