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How To Position An Advertising Agency – Part I

Peter · March 24, 2024 · 26 Comments

How To Position An Advertising Agency

Ok, but first: Here is a comprehensive guide the ANA dug 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 today… Agencies are wondering how to position themselves in the current environment. I have some thoughts before I get to the details on how to position your agency.

If you have 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 2024. For Example, if you ‘own’ the positioning/expertise in travel and hospitality, do not totally back burner that hard-fought-for brand equity—you might have done that during Covid days. But it is back.
Be a very strategic thinker and an insight-driven agency. Be the idea guys. Have ideas that relate to your current and future clients – meet their current needs. Do and deliver market research. Drive respect for your brains. Use this to stay in touch. Truly 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. And, OK AI.be the idea guys in whatever thing is on a client’s mind. Make them smarter.

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

The Starting Line

.My perspective on this series is that you have to read all three parts to maximize your agency’s benefits. Yup, all three.

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 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 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?

Advertising Agency Thought Leadership Distributition

Peter · January 3, 2023 · 12 Comments

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 · 19 Comments

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 · 14 Comments

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.

The Worst Advertising Agency Presentation – Ever

Peter · February 18, 2014 · 10 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.) It was bad.

This special experience, along with more stories, strong opinions, and brilliant advice (I’ve learned a lot over the years) is in my new book… How To Run A Kick-Ass Advertising Agency.

If you buy the 27-chapter book and read it, I guarantee that you will win more new business, run a tighter ship, and will make more money.

My First Advertising Agency Presentation

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