Built for Agency New Business

The CRM for the agency New Business lead who owns the pitch win rate.

The New Business lead at a 50 to 500 person agency owns the full funnel from brand awareness to pitch close, the awards submissions that create pipeline, the win-rate math across the pitch pod, the lost-pitch feedback loop, and the strategic-vs-tactical client qualification that decides which pitches the agency even takes. Strkr collapses that into one surface built for the person who answers for the pitch win rate at the executive committee.

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Why buyers are here

Agencies New Business: the daily pains.

The New Business lead at a 50 to 500 person agency carries a different scope than a BD professional. The role owns the full funnel from brand awareness (PR, awards, thought leadership, event appearances) through pitch close, the awards submissions calendar that drives pipeline through Cannes, Effie, D&AD, and the Clios, the pitch win-rate math across every pitch the agency runs, the lost-pitch feedback loop that most agencies never close, and the strategic-vs-tactical qualification that decides which incoming RFPs the agency even responds to. The common stack is HubSpot or Salesforce for records, a Google Sheet for the awards submissions calendar, Keynote for the pitch deck, a Google Doc for the lost-pitch debrief notes, Mention or Meltwater for the PR surface, and the executive committee asking for the win-rate update every Monday. Six surfaces, no handshake, and a win-rate number nobody trusts. The five pains below show up on every agency new business buyer call.

Awareness-to-pitch funnel

The top of the funnel is PR, nobody attributes it to pitches.

An agency generates awareness through PR hits, awards wins, thought-leadership content, event appearances, and speaking slots. The CMO at a brand sees the awards announcement, reads the trade article, and three months later invites the agency into a pitch. The New Business lead cannot defend which awareness plays drove which pitch invites because the attribution never gets captured. Strkr runs an awareness attribution engine that attaches PR hits, awards wins, speaking slots, and content pieces to the account record on the brand side, so when a pitch invite lands the attribution path is visible.

Awards submissions

Cannes, Effie, D&AD, Clios submissions live in a Sheet.

Awards submissions are a quarterly ritual at every creative agency. The submissions calendar runs across Cannes, Effie, D&AD, Clios, One Show, ADC, regional awards, and vertical awards with deadlines, categories, entry fees, submission requirements, and judging panels. Most agencies run the whole thing on a Google Sheet and never attribute the pipeline that follows the shortlist and win announcements. Strkr runs an Awards Submissions object with calendar, categories, entry fees, submission artifacts, shortlist and win status, and attributed pipeline so the submissions budget pays for itself with evidence.

Pitch win rate

The win-rate number changes every time somebody asks.

The executive committee asks the New Business lead for the pitch win rate every Monday. The number is 32 percent or 41 percent or 28 percent depending on whether final-round pitches count, whether retainer renewals count, whether creative-only pitches count, and whether the number is trailing 12 months or trailing 90 days. Strkr runs a pitch win-rate engine with configurable scope (final-round only, all pitches, by practice area, by pitch size, by trailing window) and a single win-rate column that the executive committee trusts.

Lost-pitch feedback

The lost-pitch debrief dies in a Google Doc.

A pitch loses, the client sends a two paragraph feedback email, the New Business lead screenshots it into a Google Doc, and the doc never gets opened again. Three months later the same client runs another pitch and the agency repeats the same mistakes. Strkr runs a lost-pitch feedback engine that captures the client feedback on the pitch record, tags the feedback themes (fee, chemistry, strategy depth, creative differentiation, team senior-weight), and surfaces the patterns on the next pitch to the same client or in the same practice area.

Strategic vs tactical qualification

The agency takes every RFP, half of them are tactical traps.

An incoming RFP from a procurement team is sometimes a strategic pitch (full-service, 3 to 5 year relationship, named-brand client, cross-practice potential) and sometimes a tactical trap (project-only, lowest-bidder scoring, no cross-practice potential, pure margin squeeze). The agency takes every RFP because the New Business lead cannot defend the no decision. Strkr runs a strategic-vs-tactical qualification score on every incoming RFP (procurement scoring criteria, scope boundary, client fit, cross-practice potential, lifetime value) that supports the no decision with a scoring trail.

Pitch pod capacity

The pitch pod runs over hours every single pitch.

The pitch pod (strategy, creative, data, media, PM) pulls hours from active client work on every pitch. The pod runs over hours every single pitch because capacity assumptions drift between the Slack staffing scrum and the actual deck build. The CFO sees the utilization number drop every quarter. Strkr runs a pitch pod capacity view with named roles per pitch, estimated hours, actual hours, and the capacity draw from active client work so the New Business lead defends the pod investment at the executive committee.

How Strkr fits the agency New Business week

The primitives the agency New Business lead actually runs.

Strkr for agency New Business ships the same CRM every revenue role uses, with awareness-to-pitch funnel attribution, awards submissions tracker, pitch win-rate engine, lost-pitch feedback capture, strategic-vs-tactical qualification, and pitch pod capacity view layered on top. The primitives below map to the New Business week: awareness attribution review, awards submissions planning, pitch win-rate dashboarding, lost-pitch debrief capture, strategic qualification triage, and the monthly executive committee update. When those jobs live inside one workspace, the New Business lead spends the week on client conversations instead of on win-rate archaeology.

Awareness attribution

PR, awards, content, events attached to the account.

The awareness attribution engine attaches PR hits, awards wins, speaking slots, published content, and event appearances to the account record on the brand side. When a pitch invite lands from a brand that attended the agency speaking slot three months ago, the attribution path is visible on the deal. The New Business lead defends the awareness budget at the executive committee with evidence.

Awards submissions tracker

Cannes, Effie, D&AD, Clios on one calendar.

The awards submissions tracker renders every submission across Cannes, Effie, D&AD, Clios, One Show, ADC, regional awards, and vertical awards with deadline, category, entry fee, submission artifact, shortlist and win status, and attributed pipeline from each win. The submissions budget shows ROI at the next finance review instead of a vibe.

Pitch win-rate engine

One number the executive committee trusts.

The pitch win-rate engine renders the win rate with configurable scope (final-round only, all pitches, by practice area, by pitch size, by trailing window). The executive committee sees a single number every Monday with the drill-down for the detail conversation. The New Business lead stops answering the same question five different ways to the same question five Mondays in a row.

Lost-pitch feedback

Client feedback captured and themed on every lost pitch.

Every lost pitch carries a lost-pitch feedback section with the client feedback captured, tagged with themes (fee, chemistry, strategy depth, creative differentiation, team senior-weight), and surfaced on the next pitch to the same client or in the same practice area. The feedback compounds into a loss-pattern dashboard the New Business lead reviews quarterly.

Strategic qualification scoring

Every incoming RFP scored before response.

Every incoming RFP carries a strategic-vs-tactical qualification score (procurement scoring criteria, scope boundary, client fit, cross-practice potential, lifetime value). The New Business lead triages the response decision with the score on screen and defends the no decision at the pitch committee with a scoring trail instead of a verbal preference.

Pitch pod capacity

Named roles, estimated hours, actual hours per pitch.

The pitch pod capacity view renders named roles per pitch (lead strategist, creative director, art director, copywriter, data lead, media planner, PM) with estimated hours, actual hours, blended rate, and the capacity draw from active client work. The CFO sees utilization math per pitch, the pod runs on a budget, and the New Business lead defends the pod investment with evidence.

Pitch calendar

Every pitch scheduled across the quarter.

The pitch calendar renders every pitch (incoming RFP, outbound targeted pitch, awards-driven invite, warm-intro pitch) by month, by practice, and by lead strategist. The pitch commitment per practice shows against the quarterly target and the New Business lead schedules the next wave with the capacity picture already loaded.

Executive committee dashboard

Win rate, pipeline, capacity, awareness attribution on one view.

The executive committee dashboard ships with pitch win rate (configurable scope), pipeline by practice, awards submissions ROI, awareness attribution, pitch pod capacity, lost-pitch loss-pattern dashboard, and the monthly executive committee template. The weekly committee update renders in 15 minutes with CSV export.

Awareness-to-pitch funnel built for New Business

PR, awards, content, events, and pitches on one chain.

The awareness-to-pitch funnel is the New Business job. Strkr holds every artifact of the funnel on the record: the PR hit attached to the account, the awards submission artifact and win status, the speaking slot and the attendees, the published content and the brand-side readers, the event appearance and the follow-up list, and the pitch invite with the attribution path visible. The cards below cover the specific primitives that make an agency awareness-to-pitch funnel defensible at the executive committee instead of a vibe.

PR hit attribution

Every PR hit attached to the brand accounts it reaches.

A PR hit (trade press, podcast, panel appearance) attaches to the agency press log and to every brand account on the hit list that the hit reaches. The New Business lead sees which PR hits reached which target accounts and attributes the pitch invites that follow the hits. The PR agency sees the business impact of each hit instead of a vanity count.

Awards submission artifact

Entry work, judging panel, shortlist status on the record.

Every awards submission carries the entry work (case study, video, deck), category, entry fee, judging panel, submission date, shortlist status, and win status on the record. The submission artifact is the case study the agency will reuse in the next 20 RFP responses, so the artifact lives on the record for reuse.

Thought leadership content

Published content attached to the brand accounts it reaches.

Published thought-leadership content (long-form article, research report, trends report, white paper) attaches to the content library and to every brand account that read, downloaded, or shared the content. The attribution chain surfaces when a pitch invite lands from a brand that read the research report two months ago.

Speaking slot attribution

Panel audiences become attributed accounts.

A speaking slot or panel appearance attaches the audience list to the agency speaking log, and the attendees from brand-side accounts attach to the account record. The New Business lead sees which speaking slots drove which pitch invites and defends the conference-sponsorship budget at the finance review with attribution.

Event appearance

Trade shows and client events as pipeline-generating assets.

Every trade show, client dinner, roundtable, and off-site event attaches the attendee list to the event log, and the brand-side attendees attach to the account record. The follow-up cadence fires on event close with the attendee context, so the event stops being a Monday email the New Business lead sends by hand.

Pitch invite attribution

Every pitch carries the awareness path that led to it.

Every pitch invite carries the awareness path that led to it (PR hit, awards shortlist, content, speaking slot, event, warm intro) with the attribution window per source. The New Business lead defends the awareness budget at the executive committee by showing which pipeline came from which awareness play with a timestamped chain.

Loss-pattern dashboard

Lost-pitch themes rolled up across the quarter.

The loss-pattern dashboard rolls up lost-pitch feedback themes (fee, chemistry, strategy depth, creative differentiation, team senior-weight) across the quarter. The New Business lead sees which theme is the biggest loss driver and runs the specific intervention (fee-structure review, senior-weight increase on pitches, chemistry-meeting rehearsal) with evidence.

Audit trail

Who ran what awareness play, when, and what pipeline followed.

Every awareness play (PR hit, awards submission, content piece, speaking slot, event appearance) carries an audit log with timestamp, author, attributed pipeline, and ROI math where applicable. The New Business lead defends the awareness-to-pitch funnel at the executive committee with a clean trail across every quarter.

Flows for the agency New Business motion

Automations across awareness, pitch, lost-pitch, and executive committee.

The best agency New Business leads automate the administrative drag between awareness plays and pitch outcomes and spend their hours on the three strategic conversations where judgment matters most. Strkr Flows cover the automations every New Business lead should run as native triggers with no webhook plumbing. The pattern below compounds into a defensible awareness-to-pitch funnel, a measurable awards ROI, a trusted pitch win rate, a lost-pitch feedback loop that closes, and a weekly executive committee update that renders in 15 minutes.

PR hit capture

Mention or Meltwater hits land on the agency press log.

A PR hit from Mention or Meltwater fires a flow that attaches the hit to the agency press log, matches brand accounts the hit reaches, attaches the hit to those account records, and surfaces the hit on the New Business Monday view with the brand-side attribution.

Awards shortlist

Shortlist announcement fires the attributed pipeline check.

An awards shortlist announcement fires a flow that updates the submission status, drafts the PR announcement, routes to the agency marketing lead, and schedules the pipeline-attribution check for 30 and 90 days post-announcement. The awards submissions budget shows ROI on evidence.

Strategic qualification score

Incoming RFP fires the qualification score.

An incoming RFP fires a flow that pulls the brand firmographics, scopes the RFP against the strategic qualification criteria (procurement scoring, scope boundary, client fit, cross-practice potential, lifetime value), calculates the score, and routes the response decision to the New Business lead with the score on screen.

Pitch pod staffing

Team manifest fires capacity approval.

A pitch team manifest fires a flow that routes the capacity ask to each practice lead with the specific role, hours, and active-client-work impact. Practice leads approve or counter-propose on the flow, the manifest finalizes on the pitch record, and the pod runs on a staffed budget with the actual-hours capture against estimated-hours.

Lost-pitch feedback capture

Lost pitch fires the client feedback request.

A pitch closing Lost fires a flow that drafts the client feedback request, routes to the client contact with the specific feedback template, captures the response on the pitch record, tags the feedback themes, and surfaces the lost-pitch feedback on the next pitch to the same client or in the same practice area.

Loss-pattern quarterly roll-up

Quarter close fires the loss-pattern dashboard.

Quarter close fires a flow that rolls up lost-pitch feedback themes across the quarter, drafts the loss-pattern dashboard, surfaces the biggest loss drivers, routes the dashboard to the executive committee, and schedules the loss-pattern review with the pitch pod.

Awareness attribution reconciliation

New pitch invite fires the attribution path lookup.

A new pitch invite fires a flow that looks up the awareness path for the brand (PR hits reached, awards shortlists seen, content read, speaking slots attended, events attended, warm intros made), attaches the attribution path to the deal, and surfaces the awareness-to-pitch chain on the New Business dashboard.

Executive committee update

Weekly committee deck renders Monday 7 AM.

A weekly flow assembles the executive committee update (pitch win rate, pipeline by practice, awards submissions ROI, awareness attribution, pitch pod capacity, lost-pitch loss-pattern dashboard), exports the CSV, drafts the committee slide copy, and drops it in the executive committee inbox Monday 7 AM. The weekly update renders in 15 minutes of New Business review time instead of two hours of report pulling.

Head-to-head

Strkr for agency New Business vs the HubSpot + Sheets + Keynote stack.

A typical agency New Business stack runs HubSpot or Salesforce for records, a Google Sheet for the awards submissions calendar, Keynote for the pitch deck, a Google Doc for lost-pitch debrief notes, Mention or Meltwater for the PR surface, email for the executive committee update, and Slack for the pitch pod coordination. The stack is seven surfaces, seven bills, seven logins, and no single place where the awareness-to-pitch funnel attributes cleanly. Strkr collapses that into one workspace with the awareness attribution engine, awards submissions tracker, pitch win-rate engine, lost-pitch feedback capture, strategic qualification scoring, pitch pod capacity, and executive committee dashboard shipped by default on every paid plan.

What matters Strkr HubSpot + Sheets + Keynote + Google Docs + Mention
Number of surfaces New Business opens for a committee update 1 (Strkr) 5 to 7 (HubSpot, Sheets, Keynote, Docs, Mention, email, Slack)
Awareness-to-pitch attribution Native with PR, awards, content, events, speaking slots on the account No attribution, awareness budget defended on vibe
Awards submissions tracker Native with calendar, categories, status, attributed pipeline Google Sheet with quarterly forks
Pitch win-rate engine Configurable scope with single trusted number Different number every Monday depending on question wording
Lost-pitch feedback capture Native with theme tagging and surface on next pitch Google Doc that nobody opens again
Loss-pattern dashboard Quarterly roll-up of feedback themes with biggest loss drivers No systematic analysis, repeat mistakes
Strategic qualification scoring Native scoring on every incoming RFP Agency takes every RFP, loses half on tactical scoring
Pitch pod capacity Named roles, estimated and actual hours per pitch Slack scrum, pod runs over hours every pitch
Executive committee update Flow drafts weekly committee deck Monday 7 AM Two hour manual report pull
PR hit capture Mention and Meltwater flow attaches hits to brand accounts PR agency email, nothing in CRM
Audit trail Every awareness play timestamped with attributed pipeline Slack scrollback, lost on channel rotation
Monthly cost for an agency New Business team of 2 to 5 One per-seat line, see pricing page Five to seven per-seat lines stacked

See the CRM agency New Business leads run the awareness-to-pitch funnel on.

Start a trial with the full New Business stack enabled: awareness attribution engine with PR, awards, content, events, speaking slots, awards submissions tracker across Cannes and Effie and D&AD and Clios, pitch win-rate engine with configurable scope, lost-pitch feedback capture with theme tagging, loss-pattern dashboard, strategic qualification scoring, pitch pod capacity view, executive committee dashboard, and weekly committee update auto-assembly. One bill, one workspace, one trusted win-rate number. Migrate from the HubSpot plus Google Sheets plus Keynote plus Mention stack in an afternoon.

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Common questions

Agencies New Business buyer FAQ.

How does Strkr attribute the awareness-to-pitch funnel for an agency?

The awareness attribution engine attaches PR hits, awards wins, speaking slots, published content, and event appearances to the account record on the brand side. When a pitch invite lands from a brand that attended an agency speaking slot three months ago, the attribution path is visible on the deal. A new pitch invite fires a flow that looks up the awareness path for the brand (PR hits reached, awards shortlists seen, content read, speaking slots attended, events attended, warm intros made), attaches the attribution path to the deal, and surfaces the awareness-to-pitch chain on the New Business dashboard. The New Business lead defends the awareness budget at the executive committee by showing which pipeline came from which awareness play with a timestamped chain instead of a vibe.

How does the awards submissions tracker handle Cannes, Effie, D&AD, Clios, and regional awards?

The awards submissions tracker renders every submission across Cannes, Effie, D&AD, Clios, One Show, ADC, regional awards, and vertical awards with deadline, category, entry fee, submission artifact, judging panel, submission date, shortlist status, and win status. An awards shortlist announcement fires a flow that updates the submission status, drafts the PR announcement, routes to the agency marketing lead, and schedules the pipeline-attribution check for 30 and 90 days post-announcement. The submission artifact (case study, video, deck) lives on the record for reuse in the next 20 RFP responses. The awards submissions budget shows ROI on evidence instead of a vibe at the next finance review.

How does the pitch win-rate engine give the executive committee a single trusted number?

The pitch win-rate engine renders the win rate with configurable scope (final-round only, all pitches, by practice area, by pitch size, by trailing window). The executive committee sees a single number every Monday with the drill-down for the detail conversation. A weekly flow drops the committee update in the executive inbox Monday 7 AM with pitch win rate, pipeline by practice, awards submissions ROI, awareness attribution, pitch pod capacity, and loss-pattern dashboard. The New Business lead stops answering the same question five different ways to the same committee five Mondays in a row because the scope definition is on screen and the drill-down handles the follow-up.

How does the lost-pitch feedback loop capture lessons that compound across pitches?

Every lost pitch carries a lost-pitch feedback section with the client feedback captured, tagged with themes (fee, chemistry, strategy depth, creative differentiation, team senior-weight), and surfaced on the next pitch to the same client or in the same practice area. A pitch closing Lost fires a flow that drafts the client feedback request, routes to the client contact with the specific feedback template, captures the response on the pitch record, tags the feedback themes, and surfaces the lost-pitch feedback on the next pitch. Quarter close fires a flow that rolls up lost-pitch feedback themes, drafts the loss-pattern dashboard, surfaces the biggest loss drivers, and routes the dashboard to the executive committee. The feedback compounds into a loss-pattern engine the New Business lead reviews quarterly.

How does strategic-vs-tactical qualification work for incoming RFPs?

Every incoming RFP carries a strategic-vs-tactical qualification score with scoring on procurement scoring criteria (lowest-bidder trap signals), scope boundary (project-only versus full-service), client fit, cross-practice potential, and lifetime value. An incoming RFP fires a flow that pulls the brand firmographics, scopes the RFP against the strategic qualification criteria, calculates the score, and routes the response decision to the New Business lead with the score on screen. The agency responds to the strategic pitches and declines the tactical traps with a scoring trail defending the no decision. The pitch pod stops running over hours on tactical pitches that would not have paid back the capacity draw.

How does the pitch pod capacity view defend the pod investment at the executive committee?

The pitch pod capacity view renders named roles per pitch (lead strategist, creative director, art director, copywriter, data lead, media planner, PM) with estimated hours, actual hours, blended rate, and the capacity draw from active client work. A pitch team manifest fires a flow that routes the capacity ask to each practice lead with the specific role, hours, and active-client-work impact. The CFO sees utilization math per pitch, the pod runs on a budget with actual-hours capture against estimated-hours, and the New Business lead defends the pod investment at the executive committee with the ROI math per pitch (cost per pitch, revenue per won pitch, pitch-pod utilization rate, win-rate improvement from senior-weight increases). The capacity assumption stops drifting between the Slack scrum and the actual deck build.

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