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I Stole From Gary Vaynerchuk And Mahatma Gandhi

June 7, 2020 By Peter 2 Comments

I stole from Gary Vaynerchuk, Chris Burden, Derek Sivers, and Mahatma Gandhi.

Let me explain. I “stole” a few of the design elements of this new Peter Levitan website. Some of the core elements are from the Gary Vaynerchuk home page. Stealing, art that is, is OK. Picasso said I could do it.

And, don’t tell the Judges at award ceremonies that most of the great advertising ideas were “borrowed”. No, I am not being pissy. Ideas regenerate. Keep reading.

What I Stole From Gary Vaynerchuk. Go To My Home Page.

If you look at the Gary Vaynerchuk website next to mine, you will see similarities. Each website leads with a chest-beating video (always a good thing) and then a clear benefit statement (even better). Both websites are very clean and direct. Thank you, Gary.

Why steal from Gary Vaynerchuk? He is a dude that gets personal brand marketing right. Need more?

What I Stole From Chris Burden? Go To My Home Page.

Chris Burden was a genius performance, sculpture, and installation artist. He is very well known in the art world for instillations like the rows of lampposts outside of L.A.’s LACMA museum and got his first taste of major-league art fame when he was shot in the arm in his “Shoot” performance video. Shot by accident by the way.

I stole the idea for my lead video from Chris’s 1970s TV commercial. Just so you know, I am not the only person to have stolen Burden’s idea. To state the obvious, the video is all about name association: Van Gogh and Burden. Droga and Levitan. Look at Chris’s video interview – the idea I stole is at the 4:50 mark. How did I do?

What I Stole From Derek Sivers. See My About Page.

I have been wrestling with how to tell the story of my 30-year advertising; digital; internet startup; and advertising agency business consultation career. It could take a long time. Too long.

I finally figured out how to do it from Derek Siver’s website. Derek is the founder of CD Baby. This is what Esquire said:

“Derek Sivers is changing the way music is bought and sold. A musicians’ savior. One of the last music-business folk heroes.”

Derek covers his extensive and very cool career with his home page help-the-reader bio subheads: Me In Ten Seconds?; Me in Ten Minutes? What I Am Doing Now? Concise, fast, easy to absorb. I needed this degree of simplicity, so I stole his idea.

What I Stole From Mahatma Gandhi. See My Contact Page.

Do I have to say this? Sure, why not.

“Mahatma Gandhi was an Indian lawyer, politician, social activist, and writer who became the leader of the nationalist movement against the British rule of India. As such, he came to be considered the father of his country. Gandhi is internationally esteemed for his doctrine of nonviolent protest to achieve political and social progress.”

I spent the month of January 2020 in India. I visited Gandhi’s home in Mumbai. I picked up on his vibe and wanted to have him do a testimonial. Of course, it has been over 40 years since his assassination. So, I found a modern-day Gandhi to deliver the testimonial.

You can see what I mean when you scroll down my Contact page.

By the way, I also stole from Donald Trump – he is at the bottom of my home page. I admit it, I am a bit less proud of that theft.

Ok, OK… I Also Stole From Austin Kleon.

In this case, Austin’s best-selling book “Steal Like An Artist” – buy it at the great Powell’s Books. He told me to steal. As Austin points out…

Picasso said, “Art Is Theft.”

I hope you enjoy your own art of stealing.

The Basics: An Advertising Agency New Business Plan

April 20, 2020 By Peter 2 Comments

Your 2020 Advertising Agency New Business Plan

I admit it. I am going to repeat myself (you’ll know it if you’ve read some of my 600+ blog posts). The marketing communications service industry must have a solid advertising agency new business plan to survive in today’s disrupted and lower margin marketing world.

Wha? Agencies do not have a solid plan? According to ad world research, most do not. I’ve seen stats that say only 40% of advertising agencies have solid active business development plans.

While repeating some of the core tenets of sales, I’ll add some new thinking based on my working with agencies in the USA and around the globe.

Be Unignorable.

That said, the bottom-line for building a productive advertising agency new business plan is to do the sales plan actions that are tried and true – with the objective of standing way out. That means having the goal of being unignorable. Not easy, but a ripe goal to pursue.

Start Here.

These actions are general sales actions that are modified for selling a highly competitive service like your advertising agency. By the way, congrats if you’ve gone beyond just offering a service to having a tool or system that you can resell. Give me a shout and I’ll show you examples of what I mean.

You have to break out of the competitive pack. I don’t care if you’re a two-person or a multi-national. You need to say something to a prospective client that stands out and makes them want to make direct contact or say yes when you ask to speak with them.

The agencies that win today deliver messaging that is: well-targeted, succinct and competitive.

Because of this starting point, distinctive agency positionings help clients to quickly recognize the agency’s expertise and value.

I’ve put “winner” agencies into three messaging buckets. They tell prospective clients: ‘what we do’, ‘how we do it’ and ‘who we do it for’ to illustrate the strength of their individual positioning strategy.

The Start Here is without question your agency’s positioning. [Read more…] about The Basics: An Advertising Agency New Business Plan

7 New Advertising Agency Resources

December 17, 2019 By Peter Leave a Comment

My holiday gift this year is to send you off with 7 new advertising agency resources. Some of these tools should help you grow your agency by fine-tuning its marketing programs and making you look smart.

Yes, that is David Ogilvy. His Madmen resources included a typewriter, pencil and paper and brilliant ideas. It was a bit less complicated then. Oh, except for coming up with brilliant ideas. Y’all still need those.

If you dig these new resources, head over the master advertising agency resource list for a bazillion more.

Speed Is Good.

Google PageSpeed Insights. Do you know how fast your website download speed is and how its performance ranks against your competitive agencies? Here’s the drill. If your site takes too long to download, it will lose some traffic.

Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. Here’s another very important test. If you are like me, over 20% of your website visitors are looking at you on a mobile device then you better make sure that they are digging how fast your website loads.

BROWSEO. We might be getting a bit geeky here. That said, BROWSEO helps you view any web page like search engines see it. The tool helps you to identify issues with your site and with your current and future clients’ websites.

What Are People Searching For?

AnswerThePublic. This is a free visual tool that shows you what questions and queries your consumers have by getting a free report of what they’re searching for at Google.

Google Trends. Chances are good that you are aware of Google Trends. This a powerful tool to help you know what is hot and what is not on Google’s search universe. A look at the top 2019 Google searches may or may not make you a fan of humanity.

Amazon Best Sellers. Here is a list just for you if you want to see what the world is buying.

Social Mention. Ever wonder what the world is saying about you or your company? Here you go. This is what they say (better than I could): Social Mention is a simple, useful tool for monitoring and tracking social media. It helps you see who’s making references to you or your company — or to any topic, for that matter. It aggregates user-generated content from across different social networks, letting you search and analyze it all in one place.

OK. One More Advertising Agency Resource.

That’s me if you want to grow your bottom line in 2020.

The Ultimate Advertising Agency List

October 11, 2019 By Peter 3 Comments

How Do Clients Find Your Advertising Agency? Think List.

I just reread this 2018 post and I laughed when I realized that I had left out a couple of ways that clients find advertising agencies. Both of these highly-searched websites require that you have a master plan for how to leverage their unique platforms. The platforms?

Google and LinkedIn. Passive marketing does not work for either.

OK, back to the original post. There are multiple ways that a prospective client will find an advertising agency. These range from very aggressive agency outreach to highly intelligent outreach (yup, two different approaches) to your inbound program to your agency reputation to being on the radar of search consultants to simply getting found on the day that new client wakes up and says, “How can I find my new advertising agency” and locates an advertising agency list.

While you should have a very intelligent account-based marketing business development program, you must be available when a client searches via an advertising agency list.

There is an extra benefit of my list. Use the list to find your competitors and their best marketing practices. These lists will help you find the winners.

The List Of Advertising Agency Lists

Here is a quick look at the advertising lists you should be on. Some will be easy, some will require a bit of work. But, you need to be able to be found.

Wikipedia’s List of Advertising Agencies. This list is not just the big boys. An example, Tombras group from Knoxville is on the list.

AdAge’s A-List. Look, there must be some way that AdAge finds these agencies. Maybe you should think about letting the editors know that you are alive.

AdForum. Hey, this is what they say and I’d imagine that clients pay attention… “AdForum’s Global Directory of Advertising Agencies is the advertising industry’s premier resource for learning about agencies in the USA, Europe, Asia, Oceana, and MENA. Our interactive map identifies agencies according to region and core competencies – ranging from digital marketing and social media
strategies to mobile app development, brand engagement, and product design.”

AgencyList. Why not be here? You have to dig this fact… “Agency List has 1st page Google exposure in over 45 major cities.” [Read more…] about The Ultimate Advertising Agency List

Time To Kill Your Advertising Agency Blog?

August 13, 2019 By Peter 8 Comments

Is It Time To Kill Your Advertising Agency Blog?

I’ve updated my 2017 blog post about the power of the advertising agency blog and the question of should y’all continue to go for it or kill it.

I think that this is a big question that should be reviewed every year. Another question. Would anyone miss your blog?

To help answer these, I am going to discuss the pros and cons of advertising agency blogging. The kind of content creation that has been considered an integral element in an agency’s business development program. Blogging has been a key element of an agency’s Attraction Strategy.

Me

I have been consistently blogging since the early 2000’s. I started blogging as the CEO of my Oregon agency Citrus (I covered both advertising issues and the late 2000 recession’s effect on marketing).

The advertising agency business development blog you are currently reading has over 650 blog posts and acts as the core of my inbound marketing program. Good news for me, it fills my new client pipeline. Blogging has been very good to me.

But, but… my opinion about blogging, well at least for low volume advertising agency blogs, is that they are losing their power to attract a targeted audience, as in client leads. I see a few reasons for this.

There are zillions of blogs and blog posts every day. There has been a dramatic increase in the last five years.
There are hundreds (thousands?) of advertising agency blog posts and insights posted every week.
Most agencies write about the same subjects over and over.
Many agencies do not use online SEO tools to determine what blog post subjects will attract the most readership. I great way to do this is to look at what works for your most successful competitors.
Most agency blogs are boring.
Many client prospects are moving to podcasts and videos for their marketing information.

OK, Back To You. Should You Maintain Your Advertising Agency Blog? Or, Get Real And Just Kill It.

I look at a lot of advertising agency websites and their blogs. Many of the blogs are informative and brand building. However, way too many are just me-too blogs that actually deliver very little benefit to the agency.

The benefits should, stress should include the generation of incoming new client interest, showing that the agency Thinks Different (in a world of thousands of agency and advertising services options), help sell the agency as being on top of the advertising market, reinforces current client perceptions, demonstrates that the agency get content marketing, and demonstrates some personality and chutzpah. I call the chutzpah part… being Unignorable.

Start Here: Some Huge Blog Stats

The world really does not need another blog. As Steven Pressfield says in the title of his must-read book: “Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t: Why That Is And What You Can Do About It”.

To help put blogging in perspective, here are some numbers.

How many blogs are there? From Hosting Tribunal: To date, there are over 1.6 billion websites in the world and more than 500 milion are recognized as blogs. Their authors account for over 2 million blog posts daily.

WordPress states that “Over 409 million people view more than 21.5 billion pages each month” and “Users produce about 84.9 million new posts and 45.2 million new comments each month.” And, that’s just on the WordPress platform.

Google delivered 1768,000 results when I searched on “advertising agency blog.”