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The Big Advertising Agency Resource List

January 30, 2021 By Peter 27 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

Best Advertising Podcast List

December 2, 2020 By Peter 2 Comments

The Advertising Stories podcast program publishes smart, funny, and useful interviews with advertising and marketing leaders. There are a LOT of podcasts out there. So, to make life a bit easier, here is my very own best advertising podcast list.

I have produced 40 episodes since June. And, As you know WOM rocks, so tell your friends all about Advertising Stories. Thank you.

Oh, and please subscribe via Apple Podcasts or use the subscribe links on this page.

Here Is The Best Advertising Podcast List – Handy Dandy.

A Neuroscientist On How Zoom Brains Work. If you want to sell anything using a Zoom call, listen to this. Part 4 in my virtual meeting series.
Yes, You Can Run A Powerful Zoom Meeting. Can you run a group meeting? An off-site? Yes, here you go. Part 3 in my virtual meeting series.
The Perfect Zoom New Client Pitch. Hear how a Miami agency won a new dating app client by wowing the client in a sexy (um, loving) Zoom room. Part 2 in my virtual meeting series.
How To Win A Virtual Advertising Agency Presentation. AAR Partners’ expert advertising agency search consultant Lisa Colontuano on how to win that virtual, Zoom-like, advertising agency presentation, and pitch. Lots of stories. Part 1 in my virtual meeting series.
The Smartest Person In Advertising. Michael Mosynski is the CEO of London Advertising – the most awarded agency in the UK. Multiple teachable moments in this interview y’all.
Hi. This Is Your Bank. Give Me Your Account Number and Password. clean.io CEO Matt Gillis on how and why really smart people do malvertising. You know, how they get even really smart people – like, um, you – to give up very personal information.
How To Build A Profitable Advertising Agency. An interview with the advertising agency profitability expert Michael Farmer, author of, “Madison Avenue Manslaughter: An inside view of fee-cutting clients, profit-hungry owners and declining ad agencies.”
How To Sell Your Business. An expert interview with the advertising and media services M&A uber-guide and advisor Mark Holdreith.
How To Build An In House Agency. Is running an in house agency, an in house ad + media + social + PR agency a good idea? Some answers.
A Bit Of Executive Creative Director History. – September 13, 2020 – An Executive Creative Director Spills.
An Expert On How To Do M&A. – August 31, 2020 – A M&A specialist on how to sell or buy an advertising agency.
The Smartest Advertising Executive and Business Development Consultant. – August 26, 2020 – How to win new accounts.
The Smartest African American Advertising Agency. – August 20, 2020 – Wil Shelton runs a very unique advertising agency in L.A. He discovered the huge potential of salons and barbershops as marketing tools.
Kamala Harris and Advertising. Not. – August 13, 2020 – Even Kamala could not get a job in advertising or marketing. Black might not be beautiful in the marketing universe.
How To Grow Your Advertising Agency. – August 10, 2020 – A few expert biz dev ideas to help you grow your new advertising agency’s new business pipeline.
Podcast Statistics From Podnews. – August 9, 2020 – Just the facts. Podcast activity is growing like pods.
Conversion Rate Optimization Advice. – August 5, 2020 – Yikes, 98% of your website visitors will not buy today. Here is some smart CTR advice to sell more stuff — sooner.
Life After Advertising Podcast Series. – August 3, 2020 – What will you do after advertising? Here are some ideas. I moved to Mexico
How Michaela Alexis Rocks Linkedin Learning. – July 31, 2020 – Michaela has over 170,000 Linkedin Followers. Find out why.
How To Grow A Podcast. – July 27, 2020 – A podcast marketing expert, expert, expert wants to help you grow your podcast – now.
Advertising And Marketing School Website Speed. – July 26, 2020 – Your website could be failing because it is too slow. Do the test and make it load faster.
Chevrolet Tahoe Consumer Generated Media Fail. – July 24, 2020 – ADWEEK editor on a huge social media failure.
ADWEEK editor on Google Advertising. – July 21, 2020 – A serious blast from the past. You bought 10,000 shares of Google in 2016, right?
A Scientific Approach To How To Name Your Advertising Agency. – July 17, 2020 – Everything you need to know about how to name YOU.
Purpose Driven Advertising Agency Podcast. – July 14, 2020 – How doing good became a new business driver. Like how a Boise ad agency went from Idaho to global.
How Not To Make Multicultural Marketing Mistakes. – July 9, 2020 – The master of Hispanic marketing delivers advice and points ou how companies like Kmart completely fail.
Japanese Advertising, Marketing And Sushi. – July 6, 2020 – Robert Peterson / Bob-san grew Toyota, Saatchi & Saatchi, and now his own Japanese skincare brand
A Lost $80 Million Advertising Agency Account. – July 1, 2020 – See how a huge advertising agency lost an $80 million account and get on the front page of the New York Times.
Ad Contrarian On Advertising Agency Presentations and Pitching. – June 28, 2020 – Bob Hoffman tells you what to do to win.
India’s leading Advertising and Brand Strategist. – June 25, 2020 – A great story about how Satish Krishnamurthy kicks strategic butt in India.
How to Win More Webby Awards. – June 22, 2020 – Matt Faulk, CEO of San Diego’s Basic on how to be very cool. And, have Webbys and Google love you.
How A Small Digital Agency Beats The Big Agencies. – June 17, 2020 – Portland’s Anvil Media has a secret sauce.
A Deep Dive Into The Birth Of Podcasting With Rob Walch of Libsyn. – June 15, 2020 – A podcasting history lesson.
Does Your Agency Fear Fear? – June 14, 2020 – The feeling of “fear” can be a part of everyday life at many advertising agencies.
The Birth, Life, And Death Of L’eggs Pantyhose. – June 12, 2020. – The ANA’s Mike Donahue on a brand’s lie expectancy.
From Advertising Agency Copywriter To Fiction Book Author. – June 10, 2020 – From ad copy to becoming a fiction book star.
Podcasting Growth Predictions From Rob Walch Of Libsyn. – June 8, 2020 – 2016 right on podcasting predictions.
The Disrupted History Of fashion And Luxury Marketing. – June 4, 2020 – A fashion marketing master asks … Has any category been as disrupted as much as fashion and luxury marketing? Nope.
Adidas And Saatchi – The Worst New Business Presentation Ever Podcast. – June 4, 2020 – It does not get worse than this. Plus, some baby seals.
Introduction To Advertising Stories. June 4, 2020. – Go for it.

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

November 10, 2020 By Peter 7 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 Build A Winning Advertising Agency New Business Program

July 17, 2019 By Peter 23 Comments

An Advertising Agency New Business Survival Guide

Speaking of advertising agency new business… Here is a comprehensive guide that will help your agency become a winner in today’s market – The Advertising Agency Survival Guide.https://peterlevitan.com/an-advertising-agency-survival-guide-11030/

Onward

This is a 2019 UPDATE of 2016’s initial “How to Build A Winning Advertising Agency New Business Program” blog post. Advertising agency business development is now a 24/7 operation. Here is some advice on how to deliver.

By the way, this post currently has over 34,000 views. The post’s popularity is due to three key factors:

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

2. The post is well optimized for search engines 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 202 to buy a very successful advertising agency (and raise a family in the outdoors).

Citrus grew to add a Portland office and national accounts. 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 my agency Citrus (with new clients like Harrah’s, LegalZoom, Nike and the Montana Lottery). 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