Successful digital agencies rely on more than a talented team and a strong portfolio to succeed. Oftentimes, success lies within their structural framework as a whole. Therefore, creating an ideal agency structure could dramatically impact your organization’s efficiency, culture, scalability, and client satisfaction.
This article explores five organizational structures commonly employed by digital agencies and why the Pod Structure may be ideal for your agency.
Table of Contents:
What are Common Organizational Structures for Agencies?
Why Choose the Pod Structure?
Maintaining Expertise Within Pods
What are Common Organizational Structures for Agencies?
Let’s look at all the forms an agency’s structure may take. For instance:
1. The Flat Structure
This popular choice among startups and smaller agencies features few layers between management and employees, encouraging employees to multitask effectively while remaining generalists without specific areas of expertise.
2. The Functional Structure
In a Functional Structure, teams are organized based on an agency’s services. For instance, digital agencies might have separate PPC, SEO, and Social Media services teams. While this model allows for specialization, it can create challenges when clients require multiple services from one agency, making scalability challenging.
3. The Matrix Structure
This approach to management resembles that of Functional Structure but with additional layers. Horizontal communication among different functions forms a matrix; however, its complexity prevents growth beyond a certain team size.
4. The Holacracy Structure
A Holacracy Structure allows employees to perform any task they choose without being assigned a specific role and to move freely between teams. Though this structure might work for certain organizations, digital agencies that rely on specific skills or expertise may find another structure more suitable.
5. The Pod Structure
In a Pod Structure, agencies organize their teams based on client areas or service areas rather than functions. Each pod includes specialists from each service area, such as PPC, SEO, and Social Media for each pod, catering specifically to one client type or area.
Why Choose the Pod Structure?
Today, digital marketing has become standardized within a business’s marketing efforts. Therefore, today clients often look for specialists rather than generalists.
The Pod Structure provides several benefits, making it a strong contender for the ideal agency structure.
1. Deep-Dive Specialization
Pods allow your agency to specialize in specific client areas, gaining a deeper understanding and expertise for each sector. Doing so allows for better catering to specific niches while offering superior client experiences.
2. Streamlined Communication
With no dependence on external teams and an easy communication network, pod structures enable efficient workflows within teams for increased client experiences.
3. Empowering Accountability
Within a Pod Structure, team members are regularly challenged with rewarding projects in their area of specialization, creating increased job satisfaction and ownership among team members.
Maintaining Expertise Within Pods
Ensuring high levels of expertise within each pod is of utmost importance, and one way of accomplishing this goal is through holding regular workshops led by technical leads or specialists focused on strategy, process improvement, and professional development with productive dialogue among participants and learning opportunities for all.
Restructuring an agency may initially cause some disruption. However, once your foundation is established, scaling becomes as straightforward as adding another pod. The Pod Structure offers the ideal agency structure regardless of team size for multi-service agencies that are complex in terms of communication and complexity issues.
Contact Powered by Outreach today for advice on scaling your agency and outsourcing your work to a white-label marketing partner.
