9-month outlook: Where do you see Badsender heading in the next 9 months?

For several years nowfor the team-building events we organize at Badsender, we maintain a document called "Cap à 9 mois" (9-month forecast). This is updated and presented to the team in order toexplain the major directions we want Badsender to take. These are strategic, financial and operational guidelines...

Until now, we've kept this document in-house. But for the sake of transparency, we thought it would be a good idea to publish it. It's the logical follow-up to the publication of our agency manifesto mid-2024 and the publication of our annual report.

Compared with the in-house version, only a few company names have been "hidden" 😉

Please bear in mind that this document is primarily intended for Badsender employees.

Introduction to our 9-month course

This document is an attempt to set a 9-month course for Badsender. Our business is constantly evolving, and it's important that we constantly readjust our course.

That's why :

• we encourage you as often as possible to looking to the horizon when you have a decision to make, rather than short-term thinking.
• this document will not evolve on a quarterly or monthly basis. whenever necessary. Don't hesitate to challenge us so that we can edit it.
• we're counting on you to take autonomous decisions and initiatives whenever you feel it's right for our cape.
• we encourage you to initiate debate We're always happy to discuss any aspect of the cape with you on a regular basis, in pairs, small groups or all together, and to suggest adjustments.

To make your decisions

We invite you to think back Badsender's raison d'être and make your decisions based on it. As a reminder:

"Badsender supports organizations that want to take responsibility for the ecological emergency and ethical issues, so that they can benefit from the power of influence they deserve. We help them align their communications and marketing with their values, in terms of content, organization and production methods."

Also bear in mind the 3 missions of Badsender to make your decisions:

• Bringing cutting-edge expertise to the email channel
• Shaking up the emailing and marketing ecosystem
• Share our knowledge

Keep in mind our values : Free, Offbeat, Multi-expertise, Committed

General course

For 2 years now, we have been a trajectory for transforming our business so that it fits in with our raison d'être. We want to live and earn our living without stress and be able to look at ourselves in the mirror every night without blinking.

This transformation will take time. It's likely to take another 2-3 years.

Cap financier

To achieve this, our financial objectives are to :

• Stabilize our sales
• Increase our cash flow to make your last trimester less and less painful
• Gradually catching up with inflation so that employee remuneration can keep pace with it.

Cap interne

To achieve these two financial objectives, you need to :

• capitalize on the existing team so as not to increase our expenses: the aim being to generate more sales with a constant number of employees.
• industrializing our practices on all aspects of operations (production, sales, methodologies, project management, etc.)

Cap business

To get there :

• Continue to increase average basket (and the average amount per invoice): selling larger projects : design systems email, full-service email campaign productionfull audit, large pack coaching emailing...(remember "bien" timetracker). The evolution of our average billing in recent years :
  • 2019: 1,857 euros
  • 2020: 1,533 euros
  • 2021: 1,900 euros
  • 2022: 2,802 euros
  • 2023: 3222 euros
  • 2024 (to mid-September): 4193 euros
• Riding on recurring projects with our customers: having an additional "[Name of our biggest customer]" would be ideal.
• Selling projects with "guaranteed margin (time sales + assessment of potential slippage risk)
• More key accounts and more H3 customers One of our main objectives is to use our communications to attract key accounts and the H3 middle market. In the H3 middle market, our main target sectors are: healthcare, services, social action, training, local authorities, public administration, and all organizations contributing to the functioning of tomorrow's society.
• We refuse to advertise directly harmful activitiesThese include airlines, airports, cruise operators and long-haul travel agencies.
  • In the case of a "border" prospect, we vote between Coop members. 3 possibilities:
    • We're all agreed that the prospect should be rejected.
    • We agreed to meet with the prospect, explaining our approach, asking him about his commitments and asking him to send us some documents (a business report, for example). Following this :
      • Agreement
      • Refusal.
      • If there is disagreement between Coop members, we vote in Costrat.

Cap communication

Badsender is a pillar of email marketing in France, a benchmark. We are present and at the cutting edge. Our word is heard and rarely questioned. Badsender doesn't cold call customers. They come to us naturally thanks to our marketing and communication actions. What brings us sales is the content and quality of what we produce (word of mouth). The importance of listening to live shows in sales. Let's never forget that!

To maintain this position, we must :

• Continued focus on communications and marketing at the same priority level than customer deliveries.
• Recycle as many experiences as possible in the form of content: share our day-to-day thoughts (****transform them into a post on social networks, an article or an editorial in the Badsender newsletter). As soon as we answer a customer question, make a recommendation that's a bit specific, or have a request that's out of the ordinary, we need to systematize the recycling of content in the form of an article, a post on LinkedIn or even a Live. And if you're not comfortable with writing, put the subject in bullet point form.
• The live reflex ! As soon as a subject can be dealt with live, we suggest it! Many of our sales meetings are triggered because they've listened to the live shows beforehand.
• Continuing our SEO and tone-of-voice efforts (without losing our touch of madness). We've doubled traffic in the last 18 months. We need to keep going! Update existing articles or write new ones. SEO allows us to bring in new customers.
• Write to a sample email monthly. Our sample emails enable us to tag the relevant people in companies. This enables us to get sales appointments and subscribers to our newsletters. We therefore need to choose examples of companies with whom we want to work (H2, H3) and who are also in a position to pay us (rather large SMEs / key accounts).
• Make us visible all the time. This means hanging out regularly on LinkedIn (liking?, sharing? and especially commenting?).
• Don't be afraid to show your face call for participation in virtual or physical events
• Customer satisfaction and case studies : As soon as a project is finished and invoiced, especially if it's a new one, it's essential to hand it over to the sales team or to Hélène to follow up on satisfaction. We also need to draw up emailing case studies to feed our communication and sales documents. And that's everyone's job!
• Networking with other agencies and consultants who share our spirit and commitment, but operate in slightly different markets. This is already the case withDéjà demain" agency on copywriting issues. We'd have to find other agencies specializing in other marketing and communications subjects.

Cap process interne

• When there's a doubt, a grey area with a customer, it's best to pick up the phone even if it takes 2 minutes, rather than plunging ahead (at the risk of going in the wrong direction), or worse, doing nothing and waiting.
• Don't be afraid of communicate even a little too much with customers (warn of a risk of cost overruns and act accordingly, warn of a delayed update, etc.)
• Saying no To say no to customers who are not at all in our frame of mind. Say no to customers who are no longer profitable enough. Say no to H1 prospects. Say no to customers who do not respect our obligation to advise (and who persist).
• Giving internal feedback They can be positive or less so. It helps to limit frustration, to kill a worry/feeling/stress that's bothering us (and often shouldn't). It's a great way to strengthen the bonds between us. We're 100% telecommuters, so we don't have any informal time to talk, laugh or joke.
• Don't cancel our internal meetings just because you've got a lot of work to do or nothing urgent to say. Taking the time to talk about anything and everything allows you to pay attention to the other person and to take the pulse of the state of mind, to let go of something that's on your mind... and in the end, it always comes up with ideas to move the company forward.
• Industrialize our internal processes Whether in production, sales, project management or administration, we need to continue automating and industrializing our processes. This enables us to do more with less, freeing up time for what's really valuable.
• Become independent in product development LePatron No longer be dependent on [Name of service provider] for knowledge of the different technical stacks, the data model, the functional scope of the application and the development processes right through to production. The aim is to be able to brief another service provider as well as make small corrections ourselves.
• Going beyond what we know We all need to be aware of our limits, but above all we need to learn to go beyond them. That's why we invite you to take the time to explore new horizons, experiment, and keep learning.