What are the best blogs for creative agencies out there?
If you hold a leading position at a creative agency—CEO, marketing director, project manager, you name it—you know how important it is to stay on top of trends.
As an industry leader, it is your responsibility to inform your clients, team, and potential prospects about the latest, cutting-edge developments that will help them achieve their creative goals and ambitions.
To remain inspired, you need to turn your attention to the best in business. But a busy schedule means your reading and research time is limited, and sometimes, sorting the good from the bad is not that easy.
Thankfully—we’re here to help with a few suggestions of our own! Without further ado, let’s have a look at the must-read blogs for creative agencies in 2021.
Top Blogs for Marketing and Advertising Agencies
1. 360i
As a fully integrated creative and media agency, 360i helps brands tap into shifts in culture, behavior, technology, data, and business to gain a competitive advantage.
In other words: if you work in marketing, you want 360i at the top of your reading list.
The blog comes with various insightful, in-depth reports and trend analyses to help you stay in the loop on topics like advertising, SEO, and social media.
2. Copyblogger
Copyblogger is the go-to content creation blog for digital agencies.
They cover a fairly large range of topics, including design, copywriting, entrepreneurship, productivity, SEO—as well as day-to-day operations in a creative agency, with a focus on content.
If you’ve been looking to improve your own blog, then these are the authors you want to follow.
3. Adland.tv
Adland is a bit different from what this blog post has explored so far.
Rather than full, lengthy and insightful articles or reports, Adland focuses on the visual: video commercials, TV ads, and other publicity on a variety of media like print or even radio.
The blog is designed to inspire rather than inform—with that said, every ad comes with a short story about who designed it, how it came to life and which brand it was made for.
4. Moz
This marketing blog list wouldn’t be complete without the Moz blog.
When it comes to SEO, Moz is the absolute expert. If organic traffic is one of your main concerns for your creative business, worry not—with over 5,000 articles on their site, the Moz Blog is guaranteed to have the answers you’re looking for.
Moz also makes it a point to have their content as easily accessible and digestible as possible, be it a video, blog post, or infographic. So even if you’re not well-versed in search optimization, you should have no issue following and understanding their content.
5. Ketchum
Ketchum is a large American PR firm, whose clients are the likes of MasterCard, Chase, or IBM.
On their blog, they share their experience on all subjects touching advertising and marketing—and their wealth of knowledge is difficult to match.
For a bigger picture on advertising, Ketchum is the place to go.
6. Unbounce
Unbounce focuses on one specific niche in marketing: conversion.
After your ads have been set up, or you’re satisfied with the traffic you get from search engines, the next logical step is to make those visitors your customers.
Unbounce gives tips on designing landing pages, converting leads, and generally optimizing conversions—with a plentiful of templates, how-to’s, and guides.
Top Blogs for Branding and Creative Design Agencies
7. BrandNew
In the creative world, your client’s brand is everything.
Whether you design logos or websites, remaining aware of the client’s brand tone and messaging is primordial to delivering a good service.
BrandNew offers reviews on other’s branding work. Their opinion pieces are locked behind a paywall—but if you don’t want to pay, you can get inspired by their redesigns for free.
8. Logo Design Love
This minimalistic blog is all about the story behind logos, and how they came to evolve into the designs we know today.
The stories are short, but complete. If you’re looking for new ideas for your next logo design project—give this a go.
9. The Dieline
The Dieline’s concept is the same as Logo Design Love: short, 2-to-3 minute reads on how a design came to life. Except this time, it’s all about packaging: water bottles, ice cream boxes, or even labels—everything is under intense scrutiny.
Their authors are experienced product design experts with a lot to share, so if packaging design is your thing, this blog will definitely prompt you with new concepts.
Top Blogs for Web Design Agencies
10. Httpster
Httpster is less of a blog, and more of an influential, visual showcase for web designers.
With dozens of tags and filters to sort websites by type and/or style (minimal, fullscreen, typographic, retro… you name it!), it’s easy for a web agency to find renewed inspiration.
11. Webdesigner Depot
Webdesigner Depot is not only meant to inspire, it also offers plenty of resources to help current web designers keep in touch with the latest in UX.
Color guides, typography, illustrations and trends are all at your fingertips with this blog specifically designed for web designers.
12. The UX Mag
This online magazine has been exploring, discussing, and promoting the realm of experience design for over 20 years.
UX Magazine is committed to bringing you perspective—with a community of over 500,000 leaders, thinkers, and doers. If you’re looking for the latest in UX strategy, then UX magazine is what you need.
Top Blogs for Agency Management
13. ManyRequests
As a management software company, ManyRequests knows a thing or two about the routine of creative agencies.
On our blog, you’ll find a variety of categories. From client acquisition to marketing guides and project management methods, the ManyRequests blog helps you deal efficiently with your business’ day-to-day operations.
14. The Agency Post
Created by the HubSpot team, The Agency Post covers best practices for agency professionals: how to grow your business, how to manage relationships with your team and your clients, and much, much more on the daily life in a creative agency.
Keep in touch with the latest tips and trends from this well-established software company.
15. WorkflowMax
WorkflowMax is a relatively new site, but it is packed with information.
Although they specialize in project management, they also cover a wide range of closely related topics, such as best practices for invoicing, client relationships, and team productivity.
16. FunctionPoint
The authors at FunctionPoint want to help you get rid of the headaches that come with running your own agency.
With blog posts covering business intelligence, cost/profit reporting, and project management methods all in one place, FunctionPoint is an excellent resource if you want to learn more about surviving in your own agency.
Wrapping Up…
That about does it for our list of the best blogs for creative agencies! We hope you find this list useful and add some of these to your favorites.