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The Big Advertising Agency Resource List

January 30, 2021 By Peter 30 Comments

Advertising Agency Resource List – Updated Often

My advertising agency resource list is curated 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 and check out all of these links. I guarantee that at least one of these websites will help you or your team grow your agency. Therefore my friends, share this page with your friends, family, and staff.

I wish I had this advertising resource when I was in the ad biz. All I had was my brain. – David Ogilvy

OK, one more. This here Peter Levitan blog has over 800 posts dedicated to helping your marketing communications company grow. I hope that my insights on the art and science of agency business development, growth and management help you to make more bucks. Speaking of resources, take me up on my Corleone offer.

A Couple Of Quickies:

Need A Headline That Grabs?

The Portent Content Idea Generator. Yes, it is a bit crazy. But, it does stimulate the mind looking for a click-bait headline for your blog, Instagram thing, or whatever. Put in “advertising“. Then laugh.

Website 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.

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.

The Advertising Agency Resource List…

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 Ten 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 VC’s.

Ad Agency Directories

Which Social Media Strategy Is Best For Advertising Agency New Business?

November 10, 2020 By Peter 9 Comments

You Have A Social Media Strategy For Your Advertising Agency. Right?

Let’s start with what B2B social media strategy works – in general, that is. I was looking for a universal social media image for this blog on a search for advertising agency social media. I found this blog post’s lead image by searching Google. They took me to Anchor Media’s long-ago “Starting Out On Social” blog post. A decent post. Anchor’s blog post and tagged image delivered awareness of them. So… social + SEO = works – some of the time. But, you already know that.

NOTE: I am about to build on the blog post I originally wrote in 2014. Much of what I wrote then still works. The key difference is that we are now all much more bombarded with incoming info and thought leadership material. Barraged, baby. So, before I go back to 2014…

It Is 2020 – Does Social Media Even Work Anymore (As In Drive Incoming) For Advertising Agency Business Development?

Back to my main question: “Which Social Media Strategy Is Best For Advertising Agency New Business?” I am not going to bullshit you. There is no perfect social media platform for advertising agency new business. Why? Cause ya know… the devil is in the details (and, your very own objectives and desire to keep at it.)

2020.

As mentioned above, I originally wrote this very viewed blog post back in 2014. So, I am not going to change much. But, I will update it.

When I wrote this back in the good old days, blog posts by ad agencies had not yet exploded; Twitter posts had not exploded; Instagram was not yet a smash… and on. Here are some of those “we are now bombarded” stats.

How many blog posts are there today? Here is just one-directional figure: there are “like” over 2 million blog posts daily – out of 1.7 billion websites. You think your ad agency can stand out?
There are over 500 million tweets per day.
There are over 5 million businesses on Instagram every day.
There seem to a billion LinkedIn posts a day. I have close to 4,000 “advertising people” connections. Yet when i post on LinkedIn I get maybe 80 individual post views. Pay per play baby. Not so organic these days.
I made this number up. But, hey, it makes a point regardless — There are 4,200 new advertising and digital agency blog posts every day.

Do you get the idea here? You are kinda fucked if you think that your blogs, tweets, etc are gonna get noticed. You are competing with other, probably good at SEO agencies.

The best I can do is to tell you what my personal experience has been. First, here are my social media objectives.

How To Position An Advertising Agency – Part I

April 1, 2020 By Peter 7 Comments

But First: An Advertising Agency Survival Guide

Here is a comprehensive guide that will help your agency become a winner in today’s crazy advertising marketplace – The Advertising Agency Survival Guide.

Part I: The Advertising Agency Position – The Heart Of Your Agency And Reason For Being

An updated look at how to build a smart advertising agency position (for 2020)… Agencies are wondering how to position themselves in the current environment. Some thoughts before I get to the detail on how to position your agency.

If you have really worked on and delivered on a smart advertising agency position in the past couple of years, do not toss it away because it might not be a perfect business development strategy for early 2020. For Example, if you ‘own’ the positioning / expertise in travel and hospitality do not totally back burner that hard fought for brand equity. Sure, this is a currently weak category! But, when it comes back, and it will, you want to be the leader.
In the meantime, if you are an expert in a weak client category, you might / will need to find a, hopefully short-term, advertising agency position for the current coronavirus world. An example would be to become a very strategic thinker, insight-driven agency. Be the idea guys. Have ideas that relate to your current and future clients – meet the current needs. Do and deliver market research. Drive respect for your brains. use this to stay in touch. Valuable insights will not be viewed as ass being too ‘salesy’.

Need one simple but, believe me ahead of your compeitive agency curve… do some reasech and thinking abut the new Tik Tok advertising world. Here is a link.

One more, why don’t you get one of your folks to start a Tok Tok channel. but, please do not make it about your agency. i have a few ideas. need them?

Part 1

You’ve arrived at Part I of my three-part review of the art of advertising agency positioning. My perspective on this series is that you have to read all three parts to get the maximum benefit for your agency.

Read it all. As Enzo Ferrari would say: “Devi differenziare la tua agenzia. Per fare ciò, leggi tutte e tre le parti.”

Why start with Ferrari?

I think that Ferrari is a well-positioned brand (LOL, how’s that for an understatement!) Ferrari is known for its racing heritage, engineering, design and luxury. Everything they do supports their positioning and, importantly, sales.

At this point, you might be asking two questions.

“What does Ferrari have to do with my advertising, digital or design agency?”

Well, your agency’s brand positioning needs to be as well designed and supported as Ferrari’s.

2. “Do I really need to hear yet another advertising agency business development consultant tell me that advertising agencies need to do a better job of positioning their agencies?”

Yes. Why? Because the great majority of marketing communications agencies look and sound too alike. Not sounding like the guy down the street will result in your driving a much more powerful agency

Before I get into the meat of the positioning issue, I’d like to help answer one of the most perplexing questions of our time:

Is the term “Advertising Agency” still relevant?

How to Build A Winning Advertising Agency New Business Program

July 17, 2019 By Peter 24 Comments

An Advertising Agency New Business Survival Guide

I admit it, the blog post “How to Build A Winning Advertising Agency New Business Program” has been read by your competitors over 40,000 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

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.

The Worst Advertising Agency Presentation – Ever

February 18, 2014 By Peter 12 Comments

A Very Sad Story… The Worst Advertising Agency Presentation – Ever

This is a story about the worst advertising agency presentation – ever (I know, I was in it.)

This special experience, along with more stories, strong opinions and brilliant advice are in my book on presentations and pitching: The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches.

If you buy the book and read it, I guarantee that you will win more new business. OK, you’ll have read it and act on my advice.

Oh, The Advertising Stories Podcast.

If your brain prefers to listen to and subscribe to my podcast because you want to listen to this story as a podcast, go hear, LOL, here: “Adidas And Saatchi – The Worst New Business Presentation Ever Podcast.”

Back to the beginning: I won my first pitch in 1984. For the first email service.

I was an account executive at Dancer, Fitzgerald Sample, New York’s largest “Mad Men” era advertising agency (Saatchi & Saatchi bought Dancer in 1987.) The pitch was for Western Union’s $15 million EasyLink Service. EasyLink was the first commercial email service and launched the same year as the IBM PC – the times were changing fast. We won the pitch and I learned how a well-oiled presentation worked from a new business team that won nine out of ten pitches that year. After I began working on the business, I asked the senior client why we won. She stated three reasons: [Read more…] about The Worst Advertising Agency Presentation – Ever