Marketing & creative agencies

Marketing and creative agencies run on briefs, projects, and clients. In the UK, you're balancing client services, creatives, and often freelancers. When briefs land in email, work is allocated in meetings, and handover is informal, projects stall and everyone burns hours on status checks.

The operational reality in this sector

Agencies take briefs by email, form, or kick-off call. Work gets allocated by account lead or traffic—often who's free or who knows the client. Projects live in Asana, Monday, Trello, or spreadsheets; handover between client services and delivery can be loose. Revisions, sign-off, and billing add more loops. A lot of "where are we with that?" and "can you send the brief again?" The operational reality is reactive allocation, unclear ownership, and spreadsheets that never quite match the PM tool.

Common friction we see

• Briefs land in shared inboxes and Slack; no single intake or pipeline view.
• Work allocation is meeting-driven or ad hoc; ownership and capacity are unclear.
• Handover between client services and creatives is verbal or buried in threads; scope creep follows.
• Project status lives across PM tools, spreadsheets, and email; reconciliation is manual.
• Too much time on triage, chase-up, and "what did we agree?" instead of doing the work.
• Freelancers and remote teams lack clear briefs and handover; rework and delay follow.

What this looks like in practice

A mid-sized agency receives briefs by email and sometimes a form. The account lead assigns work in Monday or in a weekly traffic meeting. Creatives get context by Slack or email; revisions and sign-off happen in Figma or by email. Billing is tracked in a separate sheet. When it gets busy, briefs sit, handover blurs, and the team works late to hit deadlines. Nobody has a single view of what's in flight or who owns what.

How we typically approach this

We start with discovery: we map how briefs come in, how work is allocated, and how it moves from client services to delivery. We design workflows—intake, allocation, handover—that fit your rhythm and integrate with your PM and creative tools. We build or configure so briefs land in one place, ownership is clear, and handover is documented. We phase delivery so you're not disrupted. Training and handover ensure your team can run it.

What changes after implementation

• One place for briefs and pipeline; clear allocation and response.
• Clear ownership and handover between client services and delivery; less scope creep.
• Single view of what's in progress and what's at risk.
• Less time on triage and status, more on the work.
• Freelancers and remote teams get clear briefs and handover.

Tools we commonly work with

We work with what you use: project management (Asana, Monday, Trello, etc.), Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Slack, Figma, Adobe, Xero, QuickBooks, and CRM or intake tools. We connect brief intake, workflows, and handover so you're not duplicating or chasing across systems.

A short example from the field

Illustrative example. A creative agency had briefs landing in a shared inbox and Slack. Allocation happened in weekly traffic meetings; handover to designers was often a quick message. We built a single brief intake, clear allocation rules, and simple handover checklists that fed into their PM tool. Account leads could see pipeline and capacity; creatives had a clear brief and handover for each job. Triage time dropped and fewer projects slipped.

FAQs

We use project management tools. How is this different?
Those tools manage tasks and timelines. We fix intake, allocation, and handover—so briefs land in one place, ownership is clear, and work flows into your PM tool instead of living in email.

We're creative-led. Won't systems feel rigid?
We design workflows around how you actually work. The aim is less chaos, not less creativity. Clear handover and visibility usually free people up.

What about our existing stack—Adobe, Figma, etc.?
We integrate with what you use. We're not replacing your creative tools. We're connecting brief intake, allocation, and handover so the right work reaches the right people.

Next step

If briefs and handover are eating your time, we can help you capture every brief, route work clearly, and hand over without the chaos. View our services or see how we work.