What is your projected year-on-year growth for 2014?

The strong revenue growth predicted in the survey is supported by findings from Econsultancy’s 2014 Marketing Budgets Report, which shows that almost three-quarters (71%) of client-side marketers plan to increase their digital marketing spend in 2014.

Business development

If these growth predictions are to come true then it will obviously require a lot of emphasis on business development.

The report shows that the vast majority of agencies surveyed (86%) consider recommendations and referrals to be among the most effective methods of securing new clients, with is the same result as we saw in 2011 (+1%).

After recommendations/referrals the next best methods for business development are speaking at events (35%) or offline networking (34%), so perhaps it’s time you considered heading along to one of Econsultancy’s events this year, such as Future of Digital Marketing or The Festival of Marketing.

SEO and content marketing are also popular methods of attracting new business (25%), while online display (1%) and print advertising (0%) are seen to be the least effective.

What are the most effective business development methods or ways of getting new clients?