About Indie Agency News

Indie Agency News (IAN) supports the independent agency world with a platform built on five key pillars:

Media/Editorial
Community (including a platform built on the site)
Celebration (awards, events and experiences)
Consulting (member sprints)
Biz Dev (Indie Agency Connect)

Our brief is simple: Build the global home for independent agencies.

The mission? Serve independent agencies and the brilliant people behind them.

The goal? More visibility for indies, more choice for marketers.

It’s probably best to explain this via FAQs, so here it goes.

Cool. I dig it. And the brief and mission make sense. But is there anything else?

Yep. We have maxims that help us stay focused (with a little extra explanation when you click the links on each):

Why did you start this?

Indie agencies (especially small or newer) can struggle with visibility, and there’s never been a clearly defined home for indies.

We saw an opportunity to serve this niche, yet massive, part of the industry.

The big thing is that we want to raise up indies and have some fun along the way. That’s why this is a platform to bring everyone together to thrive.

What’s the content? And how do we pitch you?

Indie Agency News members can simply log in and go to the Members Area page to get started. If you’re not yet a member, please start here.

You were an editor at Adweek and The Drum—and you’re pals with many of these trade pub folks. Won’t this put a burr in their saddles?

Ah, you asked about the elephant in the room: being a competitor. Glad you did.

On one level, yes. On another, not really. We will support the indie (jargon word coming up!) ecosystem, including other publications. This is about super-serving an essential part of the industry—and one that we love.

Here’s a very specific example:

Let’s say that you pitch us something that we think is juicy. We may say, “you really should pitch this to bigger pubs.” When you’re a corporate member, it’s something that we can help advise you on. Specifically, we can use a 15-minute member consult to get your pitch tighter.

Whether it lands on our pages first or not, we want you to succeed.

There are additional consulting services available, but this is another way we serve members.

So, you’re working with the trades?

“Collaborating” is a better term. We’re allies of the trades and plan on highlighting indie agency stories that land in other publications. And we plan to give the hard-working journalists the full credit they deserve (and we hope you’re supporting them with subscriptions).

I see a lot of the word “livestreaming” here

Yep. Think of us as more of a “broadcast” model. We’ll do plenty of writing, but the majority is via live media, video and audio. We do written stuff, but our bread and butter is live.

Awards?

Yep. We have three honors (maybe four) called Top 40. And we’re making it one of the easiest entry processes in the business. You can see more about that here.

Live events?

Oh yes. We love getting into our member markets. Get in touch with us about putting something together.

What’s the membership model?

Our goal is to be overwhelmingly majority member-led, allowing us to create and serve the audience.

The full agency package gives you the full breadth and depth of services, while individual memberships give you access to the site and platform.

Everyone at the agency gets a login, which is a pretty decent deal once you break the numbers down.

Take a peek at what that looks like here.

Sponsorships?

Yep. But we’re not going to do typical stuff. Any advertising on the platform must serve the business and growth goals of members and the indie agency community.

How do we get in touch?

Hit us up