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The Big Advertising Agency Resource List

Peter · August 2, 2023 · 49 Comments

Advertising Agency Resource List – Updated Often

My Advertising Agency Resource List is curated often to help advertising, digital, design, and PR agencies easily find the inspiration and industry resources that will help y’all build killer agencies and careers.

If I were you, I’d grab a glass of Larkmead Cabernet Sauvignon 2016 (LOL only $150 or a nice craft beer – a bit less expensive) and check out all of these links. I guarantee that at least one of these websites and/or tools will help you or your team grow your agency.

A kudo from David Ogilvy: “I wish I had this advertising resource list when I was in the ad biz. All I had was my brain.”

OK, one more. Go here: Corleone offer.

A Short But Sweet List of The Best AI Directories For Marketers

We are all a bit (understatement) overwhelmed with the barrage of new AI tools. To help sort this overload, here is a list of what I think are today’s easiest-to-use AI directories for marketers. Note, this is a short list.

Futurepedia – From Google Bard: “This directory is one of the largest and most comprehensive, with over 3,000 AI tools and resources listed. It’s a great place to find AI tools for a variety of tasks, including machine learning, natural language processing, and computer vision.” Just today… 18 new tools. Yikes.

Zain Kahn’s Superhuman – The world’s biggest AI newsletter with 350k+ readers.

iLib – AI websites listed by popularity.

Product Hunt – As they say: “Product Hunt surfaces the best new products, every day. It’s a place for product-loving enthusiasts to share and geek out about the latest mobile apps, websites, hardware projects, and tech creations.”

Crunchbase – A comprehensive list of AI startups. Wowzer, this is a hot venture universe. Go find your new marketing agency client here.

GPTE – Just in case you need MORE!

AI Tools (April 2023)

Yikes. There are new AI tools designed for marketers every day. OK, OK. But, here are a few of my current favorites (I stress current):

ChatGPT. Obviously, you know about this. Here is a nice prompts mini-list for marketers:

Jasper and Copy.ai are AI content generators that utilize AI to generate high-quality content for various purposes. Jasper has been in the market for longer and is more feature-filled, while Copy.ai offers templates, a chatbot, and team features.

MarketMuse is a content optimization tool that utilizes NLP and machine learning algorithms to improve the quality and relevance of your content for better SEO and audience engagement.

Pictory and Synthesia are AI video generators that create high-quality videos without prior experience in video editing or design. Synthesia offers over 60 languages and various templates, a screen recorder, a media library, and more.

A Couple More Quickies:

Website Speed Is Good. A slow website drives down SEO. Check out your website.

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.

And, To help Your Thought Leadership Program: 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.

Exploding Topics. Yes, just like it sounds.

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.

Social Mention. Ever wonder what the world is saying about you or your company? Here you go.

OK – The Advertising Agency Resource List…

Here are the topics covered:

Advertising Agency News Sites
Ad Agency Directories
Top Advertising Blogs
Favorite Social Media Tools
Video Marketing Tools & Information
Creative Inspiration & Idea Generation
Creative Space & Time
Online Advertising Education
Online Legal Resources
Life After Advertising & How To Make $$$
Top Twitter Tools
Top Advertising And Design Awards
Marketing & Advertising Podcast
Marketing Tool Generators

Advertising Agency News Resources

The Ratti Report. Your agency needs fresh business development leads, right? So check out this website for a daily list of business development opportunities. News you can use to buy that new Tesla Roadster.
Advertising Age. Ad Age delivers the latest news from the world of advertising and marketing agencies.
Ad Asia Online. AdAsia Online focuses on automation, advertising technology, and creative technology,
AdNews. Australia’s advertising, marketing, and media industries news resource.
Adweek. Adweek covers media news, including print, technology, plus.
branding in asia. Need to know what’s up in the Asian marketing and advertising world? Sure you do. Check out this comprehensive resource for creative work, news, interviews, and insights. Read it and you just might take the next non-stop to Singapore.
Business Insider. Business Insider’s daily take on the ad industry.
Campaign Asia. Campaign Asia reports on advertising and emerging media in the Asia Pacific region.
Campaign Magazine. Ad industry news from the UK’s advertising industry “bible”.
Communication Arts. Print publication offering competitions, forums, feature articles, job bank, graphic design resources and online shopping.
Creative. The magazine of promotion and marketing.
Digiday. Digiday creates content, services, and community that foster change in media and marketing.
Direct Marketing News. Provides news, feature articles, columns, and special reports on direct marketing.
The Drum. The alternative to Campaign. Delivers lots of news and views.
MediaPost. Comprehensive advertising and media industry coverage.
TechCrunch. Keep up (or try to keep up) with the fast-paced world of startups and VCs.

Ad Agency Directories

How to Build A Winning Advertising Agency New Business Program

Peter · May 16, 2023 · 27 Comments

An Advertising Agency New Business Survival Guide

A minor (OK, big) update… If you want to run a kick-ass advertising agency new business program that stands out, makes more money, and is happy, then buy my new book. Its 27 chapters cover every aspect of agency management and business development. Even your very own personal branding. Go here: “How To Build A Kick-Ass Advertising Agency.”

I admit it, this blog post… “How to Build A Winning Advertising Agency New Business Program” has been read by your competitors over 50,000 times. Glad you stopped by.

Advertising agency business development is a 24/7 operation that requires the right agency positioning, strategies, action, and high efficiency. I help my agency clients get there faster.

The post’s popularity is due to three key factors:

1. It directly addresses a major marketing pain point: how to build a winning and efficient advertising agency new business plan.

2. The post is well optimized for search engines, delivers high value, and, therefore…

3. Google loves it. FYI, my number two trafficked post is, “How To Name Your Advertising Agency – Part One” at 30,000 + views. While always rethinking their website, advertising agencies also obsess about their name. By the way, this post is also a very good cheat sheet on naming that you can steal if a client ever needs a new brand name.

“How To Build…” is all about the most important thing an advertising agency can do (while it is nurturing its current clients)… run a new business program that ensures that the agency will keep growing. Agencies are like sharks. They must keep moving forward to eat or else.

Your potential clients have over 4,000 marketing communications ‘agency’ options (other agencies, new consultancies, freelancers, even your ex-creative director…).

Therefore, any form of business development passivity on your part – sucks. If you think you are doing everything right, you probably are not. How can I say this? I never thought that all was well whilst running business development at Saatchi & Saatchi and when I owned my own agency.

Here’s my “ad”: I suggest that you give me a shout and take me up on my Corleone offer – It’s hard to refuse.

OK, Let’s Go… The 24/7 Business Development Plan = Advertising Agency New Business

I moved from New York to Bend Oregon in 2002 to buy a very successful advertising agency (and raise a family 20 minutes from a ski lift).

Citrus grew to add a Portland office and national accounts including Dr. Martens, Harrah’s, Leagalzoom, Nike, Providence Health, Montana Lottery, and the UN.

I woke up every day as if a client like Nike was going to walk out the back door along with its revenues. I bet as an ad agency owner or manager you have rough nights too. One of the things I knew I could and should do was to manage this back-door issue was to have an active, I stress active, new business plan in place.

Here are some (I stress some) of the elements of my marketing plan. They helped me grow Saatchi & Saatchi and my agency Citrus. I hope my insights help you grow your agency.

Execution Rules.

When I set out to write this advertising agency new business post I didn’t think that it would be this long – a warning to the ADHD types. But, advertising agency new business planning is complex and is getting more complex every day due to the rapid changes in our industry and technology. That said, the devil in business development, you know what’s coming, is in the detail. Success is all about execution.

For example, running a successful inbound biz dev program that attracts market attention must be based on a sound strategy and smart agency process if you want to run a 24/7 sales program. Staying the course is critical.

The Advertising Agency Business Plan. First Things First.

Advertising Agency Thought Leadership Distributition

Peter · January 3, 2023 · Leave a Comment

How To Distribute Powerful Advertising Agency Thought Leadership

I am writing a new book about how to build and run a highly profitable advertising agency. Chapters of the book cover the art and science of developing impossible-to-resist, as in unignorable, thought leadership as an account-based marketing and inbound tool. Here is a quick list of advertising agency thought leadership distribution platforms. You can see more advertising agency resources right here.

Note that anything you produce can be efficiently sliced and diced and put on other platforms. Think content amplification.

13 Advertising Agency Thought Leadership Distribution Platforms

Your website. In a blog post or via a downloadable white paper, webinar offer, or podcast page. The advantage of a PDF offer is that you can ask the interested party for their contact information. Gently, please.
Your company newsletter. Build the list via website offers and gentle outreach. I’ve employed contractors in the Philippines to help build mailing lists.
LinkedIn. Three basic opportunities: 1) Post on LinkedIn (note that LinkedIn loves video). 2) Put your thinking in LinkedIn groups (for example I am a member of Digital Marketing – 2 million members). 3) Use LinkedIn Navigator to make direct connections.
Publish a LinkedIn newsletter. Your connections and followers will be invited to subscribe, and LinkedIn will alert your network whenever you publish new editions.
TikTok. TikTok has become a new gen search engine. It is currently an underutilized ad agency universe.
Video platforms. Australia’s Tiny Hunter agency has over 210 videos. They tell me that the videos help them close deals with the right new clients (right is the operative word), client types that spend time watching Tiny Hunter’s advice. The agency’s founders are more about closing the deal than racking up huge indiscriminate view numbers.
Audio platforms. Build and distribute your own podcast then transcribe it into bite-sized content and roll it out.
Leverage OPA = Other People’s Audience. Guest blog. Guest podcast. Why work to build an audience when you can borrow it?
Paper: Zines and, yes, old-fashioned letters. Hmm, or a targeted very cool (has to be cool) postcard series. So, 1986. However, so 2023 clutter busting. Paper breaks through
Write a book. Both paper and digital. The ultimate proof of expertise. Go self-published. There is no need for a time-consuming traditional publisher to write that B2B book.
Advertising. You use advertising to generate awareness for your clients, right? See What LONDON Advertising did.
Conferences. Go where your next client hangs out. Give that insight talk and make friends. Hand out that book.
Doughnuts? My agency once delivered insights directly to prospects in Portland and San Francisco using a customized and personalized Krispy Kreme box. Free doughnuts to grab attention. The box delivered awareness, actionable insights, and the offer to get some recently launched Krispy Kreme stock. It made us friends.
Write and produce your advertising agency thought leadership and get it out in the world to the right clients. They will love the good stuff.

More to come… in the new book.

Advertising People Die Earlier. Why? Job Burnout.

Peter · August 30, 2022 · Leave a Comment

Job Burnout Kills.

Job burnout is a hot topic (no pun intended.) I’d like to start with a question before I share some data on burnout. We talk about employee burnout. Do we ever discuss owner/leader/HR job burnout? Imagine trying to figure out how to manage a remote workforce. Hybrid working? Juggling salaries for in-house and out-of-office staff? Trying to figure out if you still need that office coffee system? How to manage a growing freelance workforce?

Have you read about leadership burnout? Can you point me to any data? It is going in my next book in the burnout chapter. Yes, with solutions.

Advertising Agency Job Burnout – Since the 1950s

Job burnout is endemic in the advertising industry (see some history below). I’d even say endemic in most service industries. From the Mayo Clinic:

“Job burnout is a special type of work-related stress — a state of physical or emotional exhaustion that also involves a sense of reduced accomplishment and loss of personal identity.”

For the entire history of the advertising profession, workplace stress (today’s burnout) has been a health concern and worse largely unaddressed.

Here is a passage from Stephen Fox’s history of advertising, “The Mirror Makers”. He riffs on the 50’s burnout. 1950s!

“A survey of advertisers in 1957 found that nine out of ten ad people routinely took work home at night. “What other business has so many young men anxious to break in,” asked one adman, “and so many older men anxious to break out?”

Wait. This Is Crazy. Even More. Now 1956.

A study in 1956 by Life Extension Examiners of New York compared the health of executives in manufacturing, banking, and advertising. The ad people showed up worst in ten of eighteen categories, including high blood pressure, organic heart and prostate problems, and abnormal blood counts.

From 1949 to 1959, at a time when life expectancy for white males was 67.1 years, the average age at death in Advertising Age’s obituaries was 59.9. “It’s a killing business,” concluded Lou Wasey, seventy-one years old in 1956.

“Most of the men who have been along with me in business – they’re all dead, and they were younger than I.”

Wait for a second… I need to repeat this alarming fact…

“From 1949 to 1959, at a time when life expectancy for white males was 67.1 years, the average age at death in Advertising Age’s obituaries was 59.9.”

Good thing I sold my agency. No more Job Burnout for me.

Advertising is simply a very demanding service business that has gotten much more complex from a time perspective with the proliferation of needy 24/7 digital programs.

I’ll be frank. Other than being ready to move on to my other loves, a key reason I sold was to not have to manage a large crew of creative workers. not easy then and I think way harder today.

It is OK if you want to pass this blog post on to some buddies – for their health. I like being passed around.

How To Get On Page One On Google

Peter · February 11, 2022 · Leave a Comment

Four Ways That Got Me On Page One On Google

There are thousands of blog posts about how to get on page one on Google. I did the right stuff and am on #1 for many of the search terms that my advertising agency clients search on – see the image over there. Go ahead and click on it.

Why is being on Google’s page one important (yes, an LOL duh coming):

From Search Engine Journal:

Over 25% of People Click the First Google Search Result

A study of billions of search results finds over a quarter of Google searchers click on the first organic result.

Here is just one more blog post about getting that number one position because I have the number one position for people searching for my expertise: “advertising agency business development.” And, other related terms. And… yes, you should aim for this as well.

Here is how I did it.

I’ve cranked. I have written 810 blog posts since 2012 about, you guessed it, advertising agency business development that is targeted directly to agency decision-makers. I have been very focused. I give lots of useful information out for free – read it here. People like that.
I am a good writer and even have my well-read, best-selling book The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches. to help me look like an expert/leader and get me even more street cred.
I use the right keywords. I study my market, their needs/wants/pain points, and (importantly) what works for my competitors. I use tools like Ubersuggest to help me make my keyword and subject decisions.
I point to my blog posts on LinkedIn and Twitter. And, if you do a podcast like my Advertising Stories, the podcast world will find you too. I am also a guest on lots of marketing podcasts that point back to me.

That’s it. Yes, it helps that I started this blog in 2012 before like trillions of blog posts hit the metaverse. But, you can do it. Yup, get on page one on Google. Be patient.

Be savvy, focus on your audience, be keyword smart, write well, and be consistent. Oh, add value to the universe.

All of this activity begets incoming agency leader inquiries.

But you??? OK, do some account based marketing too – if you do not have 810 blog posts. Like a lot of direct marketing.