What do you DO there?
Well, mainly two things. Some marketing agencies (and other types of agencies) hire us to build, then run their outreach. We do their prospecting, lead gen, copy writing, email marketing, LinkedIn outreach, positioning and outbound strategy. We also help them get more referrals from their clients. And we help them convert more.
The other thing is when we provide consultancy and guidance. The decision-makers you’re contacting get hit a lot. You can stand out, but it’s not in the ways you might imagine. We help shape your agency so that decision-makers see something that resonates with them.
How do you know how to do that?
Our owner, Steve Fair, has worked with agencies since 2002 and has been running Sponge NB since 2004. He’s a regular public speaker on the subject of agency growth strategy and has consulted for agencies large and small. He’s cynical about ALL of your nonsense.
Our Client Strategy boss is Matt Broughton. Matt has lots of jobs, but his main one is being very very strict with our clients. His background (formerly International Head of Comms at Atari, European Marketing Director at Midway Games, years as a journalist, and even more years as a TV presenter) means he has a brilliant, rarely-found point of view on agency-land. If we can get you into a shape that impresses Matt, you’ll be juuuust fine.
Where can I read more about how you operate?
Steve is pretty active on LinkedIn, plus the “Resources” page on this site is very juicy. Steve also regularly speaks at events, especially for the amazing Agency Hackers. You should join Agency Hackers. Tell them we sent you, so they send us chocolates.
Is there a cost?
Yes. We charge a monthly fee for the ongoing services or a one-off fee for the consultancy and guidance services. There’s one consultancy offering that is different - it’s called “Ruin Your Month”. That one is £900+VAT/month and is a year-long service where it’s like we work for you, just not very often. Like a non-exec that just does new biz. Or a mentor that’s REALLY strict with you.
Who have you worked for?
It’s been over twenty years, so a lot of agencies. Big ones like Isobar, Tangerine, TAP (as well as agencies owned by the huge groups) and small ones that are in a good spot to grow like realityhouse, Cogworks, Bubble Agency, Circle, Enjoy Digital, Curated and a bunch of others.
Do you use AI?
Kind of. We don’t let it write the emails we send. We do use some of the smarter, lesser-known tools to find a few extra hours each week. There are amazing plugins for Google Sheets that use a GPT. ChatGPT’s o3 model is fab for deeper dives into datasets (as is Perplexity). Anything we use AI to augment always has a human hand on the tiller. On its own, unchecked, AI is a moron.
“We’ve recently had some great wins from conversations started by Sponge; their communication is clear, and they appear to genuinely understand our way of working.
A particular strength appears to be in the way initial conversations are handled. Initial meetings with prospects feel much more natural and avoid those awkward ‘first-date’ style questions during initial meetings concerning the basics of our setup and skill set, which many other new business agencies do not appear to cover off. This approach, combined with an ability to chase us (at our request - firmly, but fairly!) where necessary is a great combination.
Overall, a thoroughly impressive outfit that we would have no hesitation in recommending.”
“They did a brilliant job with our first ever marketing campaign, and their results far exceeded our expectations. ”