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Best Advertising Podcast List

November 10, 2020 By Peter Leave a Comment

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 39 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.

The Best Advertising Podcast List – Handy Dandy.

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.
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.
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.

The Big Advertising Agency Resource List

December 23, 2019 By Peter 22 Comments

Advertising Agency Resource List – Updated Often

#1. An Advertising Agency Survival Guide

Speaking of resources… Here is a comprehensive guide that will help your agency become a winner in today’s market – The Advertising Agency Survival Guide.

#2. Onward.

I want the marketing communications world to be a better place. Therefore, this advertising agency resource list is updated often. Let me know if there is a resource that should be included. – or modified

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.

As a warm-up to my extensive resource list… I offer a direct link to my best selling book on how to win more new accounts for your agency: The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches. I highly recommend that you buy this book. (Of course.)

OK, one more. This Peter Levitan blog has over 650 posts dedicated to helping your marketing communications company grow. I hope that my insights on agency business development, growth and management help you to make more bucks.

I recently added links to:

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.

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.

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

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

Ad Forum. Global agency directory and creative gallery.
Advertising Agency Search Consultants. My list of the top 34. Any missing?
agency compile. A directory of marketing communications agencies plus a searchable database.
Agency Spotter. Super fast search for creative, digital, design, and branding firms.
The Creative Ham. A list of who the Ham views as the most creative agencies. You can pay up too.
LookBook from Ad Age. Use the LookBook Directory to see ad agencies’ robust offerings and content featured in Advertising Age & Creativity to discover new marketing partners.
Pinterest Advertising Agency Directory. An easy to scope out agency directory from yours truly.
Redbooks. Information and research on advertising agencies and advertisers worldwide.
Dmoz. Long term directory of selected advertising agencies in the United States and Canada. Oooops. DMOZ is gone. But here is link to its history for people interested in, sort of, the early days of search.

Top Advertising Blogs

Peter Levitan. Yes, MINE! Over 650 blog posts designed to help you grow your advertising, digital and PR agency. Here’s the list of them all.
Agency Post. Jami Oetting’s in-depth HubSpot blog for the agency professional.
The Ad Contrarian. Bob Hoffman’s personal unfiltered take on the advertising universe.
@adweak. Just laugh. Please.
AdFreak. AdWEEK’s daily blog of the best and worst of creativity.
AdPulp. Serious juice from the ad biz.
Advertising Age Blogs. AdAge’s blogs & columns covering advertising, media, and digital news.
Agency Spy. Agency Spy covers the ad agency industry from the inside.
Digital Project Manager. Simply put…. “The Digital Project Manager provides project management guidance for the digital wild west where crazy clients, tiny budgets & silly deadlines reign supreme.” Check out their interview with moi.
Engagio. Want to grow your advertising agency? Engagio’s Account Based marketing will tell you how to do that.
Fuel Lines. Insights from Mr. Gass.
Seth Godin. Just because.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.
Strands of Genius. Follow Rosie & Faris on their voyage to unearth ideas, events, news and who knows. You’ll be smarter.
TrinityP3. Like it easy? Just sign up for their Twitter account. Yes, they speak Australian.

Favorite Social Media ++ Tools

Amazon Best Sellers. Here is a list just for you if you want to see what the world is buying.
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.
bitly. Bitly shortens URLs and reports on clicks.
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.
Buffer. The fastest way to schedule and share content across social media platforms.
Canva. A free tool that makes it easy to create custom graphics to go with your social media posts.
ContactOut. ContactOut is a handy way for you to find actual, human email addresses for people on LinkedIn. real email is way better than a LinkedIn message. And, yes folks, email, when done correctly, does work.
Google Alerts. Stay ahead of your client, a prospective client (as in category, brand, and people)and industry news by creating a list of Google Alerts. Frankly, this should be a primary business development t tool.
Google Analytics. You want to track your website right?
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.
Google Keyword Planner. Find the best keywords for any subject or marketing goal.
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.
Grammarly. Check your spelling and grammar right from your browser. I have to have this!
Klear. Find influencers on Twitter via Klear’s large database of 60K+ categorized social profiles.
K-Meta. A free, just try it, keyword and competitive tool.
Long Tail Pro. A keyword tool used by the pros.
Snagit. A screen image and video capture plugin that allows you to grab what you see on your computer screen to edit and share.
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.
srproutsocial. A sweet social media tool to manage messages across multiple accounts.
tweepi. A fast way to grow your Twitter Follower list.
TweetDeck . A desktop Twitter management tool with a nice clean UI.
Twitonomy. I love this competitive tool. See what the other guy is up to.
Website Grader. Try HubSpot’s Website grader on your website. How do you do? I get a 94.
Yoast. The best WordPress SEO plugin.

Video Marketing Tools & Information

ADWEEK. ADWEEK on YouTube video viewability plus a handy infographic.
BirdSong Analytics. Pay as you go video and social competitive analytics platform. Se what works for your competition.
Cyfe. Track your YouTube channel progress and stats for individual videos.
Facebook Video. Facebook’s video marketing guide.
Forbes. Why “mobile video advertising will eat the world.”
YouTube Into. YouTube’s very own guide to its video ad platform.
realSEO. the ultimate site for tips and tricks to grow your video audience.
SEO Chat Keyword Suggest Tool. This is a cool tool to easily find a range of keywords for videos.
SproutSocial. Vimeo or YouTube… which is best for agency marketing?
The Video Ink. A quick look at the pros and cons of video ad platforms.
Vimeo. HD videos for all.
Visual Measures. Lots of information, stats, and charts for your next video-oriented client meeting.
Wistia. A lovely and smart video marketing platform for business. Nice tracking.

Creative Inspiration & Idea Generation

Ads Of The World. According to them: Ads of the World is the world’s largest advertising archive.
Adland. Ads and more ads.
Awwwards. A place to view some of the latest and greatest websites.
Brand New. An opinionated look at corporate and brand ID work.
Complex. A fine and, yes, complex look at current culture. Hours of fun.
Creative Bloq. Got design block? Dive in here.
Creative Guerrilla Marketing. The name kinda gives it away.
design milk. A full plate of design substances for your body and mind.
deMilked. An endless array of posts about what everyone else is doing.
Friends Of Type. Even type freaks can be friendly.
FWA. An excellent resource to taste some of the best website design.
Indie Nudes. Do not spank me for this one. Just make (!) sure you scroll down and look at all of the links. This is a very creative space.
Inspiration Room. A global effort designed to influence, affect and involve creative communities. As in, ideas to get you going.
KissMetrics Blog. A blog about analytics, marketing, and testing. The real deal to help you help 2016 clients.
Packaging Of The World. A sweet searchable database of the global package design universe.
Social Media Examiner. Your guide to the social media jungle.

Creative Space & Time

Moving To Mexico. I wrote this just for you. Why and how to move to Mexico. I did. I’m very happy.
30/30: An effective productivity app for the procrastinator.
Ad Block: OK, OK, I know that this is a major NO-NO. But, stop looking at those Zappos ads!
Bose Quiet Comfort Headphones 25. My favorite noise-canceling phones. Airplanes love these.
Coffitivity: Stream the sounds of a coffee shop at work. Good training for when you freelance.
Duolingo. Fast (up to you) and free online & mobile way to learn languages.
Games List: Need a break?
Headspace. Just like it sounds. A meditation app for your mobile, available for both iPhone & Android.
The Newspaper Club. I have been shooting a global photography series. More portraits of more people on more continents than ever. Grandiose and, yup, fun. You can see the work here. One of the things I do after photographing a community is to make them a “photo newspaper.” I use The Newspaper Club to print a bunch to share. My mommy always told me to say thank you. Think about what your agency could do with paper to get the attention of your next client (yes, paper.)
Noisli:Background noise & color generator.
Spotify. My streaming system.
Timer Tab: A tool to help control your thinking time.
toggl. As an agency owner, I needed to keep track of the hours that we all used to meet the needs of our clients. While I think that tracking every minute kinda sucks, we simply have to track our time to help the agency be profitable. toggl is a very simple timer tool.
Trello. Keep track of everything & collaborate.

Online Education

Codecademy. It is time for you to learn to code. At least, start to sound like you care to your CTO.
Coursera. Lots of career advancement courses. Like attending a Wharton course on marketing.
Freakonomics. Listen, learn and out-smart your clients.
Google Online Marketing. Learn from the leader.
The How. Learn from entrepreneurs.
HubSpot Inbound Training. Get on the inbound marketing bandwagon or, frankly… be left behind.
Khan Academy. Free courses from programming to economics to finance to what you should have learned in the 8th grade.
Launch This Year. Get ready to launch your online business — this year.
The Lean LaunchPad. How to Build a Startup
Lyndia. Yikes! Go forth and learn… 4,354 courses · 169,690 video tutorials
Marketing @ TedTalks: Prefer video? Here are the top TedTalks on marketing.
Mixergy. Entrepreneurs training other entrepreneurs. Or, how to start your own advertising agency.
Skillshare. Courses designed for the creative in you.
Startup Notes. Need inspiration? Hear startup founders tell their personal stories.
Smart Passive Income. Let Pat help you leave advertising, and go live on a beach while watching your PayPal account grow.
Startup Talks. More startup videos.
Udemy. You name it, they teach it.

Online Legal Resources

Agency Legal Protection. Sharon Toerek answers important legal questions like this: “What should we do to protect the agency during a new business pitch?”
Best LLC Services: Need an LLC? Need a guide?
Cornell University’s Library. Dig databases? You’ve arrived at a long list of legal databases by subject.
Legalzoom. From wills (get one!!!) through incorporation (for your new agency). LegalZoom is the leader in online legal docs. They are an ex-client of my agency and I have been using them for years. Know what, way back when… they were a great client of mine and they loved to eat well in L.A.
Docracy. Open source legal documents.
Docusign. Legal online signatures. No more inky hands.
Find Law UK. Employee rights for UK workers.
4A’s On Compensation Agreements. Read this before you marry that new client. Consider this prenup advice.
Right Law. Employee rights explained. Yes, you have rights.

Life After Advertising & How To Make $$$

Entrepreneur. How to start a business online. I know you want to.
Ferris / Kagen. Seriously – How to create a million-dollar business… This weekend. Do this from your beloved cube.
Fizzle. How can you pass this up? “Excellent courses from real experts and a community of like-minded business builders.”
Razor Social. Ian is another genius who will tell you how to make money from your blog. He does!
Reddit. Hear your peers hash out what your life after your advertising career looks like.
Small Business Association. The SBA to you. Your federal tax dollars want to help you build a business so you can employ your ex-ad agency friends.
Smart Passive Income. How to build an online passive income business. Read every word. Listen to the podcasts. Take control of your life.
Social Media Monitor. A vast resource for social media advice. use it in your day job too.
The Social M’s. How to use guest blogging to help grow your business. I do. Read about it here.
The How. Learn from entrepreneurs.

Top Seven Twitter Tools

Bit.ly. With a 140 character limit, you have to shorten any URL’s posted to Twitter. Bit.ly does a bit more cool stuff. But shortening alone means you need to have this built into your browser.
Buffer. Buffer is my number one easy to use scheduling system, it is connected to my WordPress blog to automatically send my blog post URL’s and a snippet to Twitter (and LinkedIn and Facebook). Importantly because I need to save time, it also allows me to schedule a set of Tweets into the future.
Canva. According to the Gods of social media, having a graphic will increase your clicks and retweets by something like over 1 million times, or was it a billion. Or, some crazy number like a trillion. Canva is a very easy to use web-based graphics tool that edits images that you’ll use in your Tweets and can even be used by your CEO.
Hootsuite. Hootsuite is a social media dashboard that allows you to work on and monitor Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, WordPress from one place. It goes deeper so head over if you are looking for a ‘total’ solution.
HubSpot. HubSpot is a very big boy. Its inbound software will help your agency attract visitors, convert leads, and close customers. And, you can use it to woo new clients with your supreme inbound marketing expertise. As in, using HubSpot will make your agency a social media expert that actually has tools it can resell.
Klear. Klear (formerly Twtrland) delivers social monitoring, influencer marketing, and competitive intelligence. Try it out for free. The full plate is a bit expensive. But, it works as a smart business development tool. You gotta spend money to make money.
Twitonomy. Use Twitter as a competitive wrench. As Twitonomy says, “Get detailed and visual analytics on anyone’s tweets, retweets, replies, mentions, hashtags… Browse, search, filter and get insights on the people you follow and those who follow you.” Damn, go forth and use your competitor’s data ~~against them~~, um, for you!

Top Advertising And Design Awards

ADDY Awards. This is the largest award program with over 5 million entries – local agencies love this one because it can level the playing field vs. the mega shops. The competition includes three levels of judging: local, regional, and national. Winning an ADDY at each level qualifies the work to progress to the next higher level.
Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. The big boy and, if you like acting as if you are a major playa, it’s a great excuse to use up your expense account. The seven-day festival that includes the coveted Lions award is held yearly in Cannes (that’s France to you). Win this and you’ll get a big bonus.
The Clio Awards. Another big international award that should get you a round of drinks at your local. Time Magazine described the event as the world’s most recognizable international advertising awards. Even your mum will smile.
Communication Arts Annuals. Communication Arts puts out a series of publications that highlight the best in advertising and design. Believe me, you want to have your work highlighted in The Illustration Annual, The Interactive Annual, The Advertising Annual, The Typography Annual or The Design Annual. These are nice mags to send out to your prospects.
The Effie Awards. The Effies honors the most effective marketing programs. That means, your work actually moved the sales dial and not just the right (as in the creative) side of another Creative Director’s brain. Clients dig this one.
The One Club. The One Club produces four annual award competitions: One Show, One Show Design, One Show Interactive, and One Show Entertainment. The One Club pencil award will fit nicely on your shelf.
The D&AD (Design & Art Direction). A British award that, according to the D&AD “…exists to stimulate, enable and award creative excellence in design and advertising.”
OMMA. Media Post’s OMMA Awards honor agencies and advertisers that push the potential of digital advertising.
Rosey Awards. Portland just might be the most creative city in America (on a per capita basis that is). The Rosey Awards competition is run annually by the Portland Advertising Federation – the oldest ad club in America. Good news… Wieden & Kennedy has stiff competition.
The Webby Award. The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences’ Webby Awards is all about honoring excellence in digital and Internet marketing. Categories include brand content, DIY videos, and over 30 categories in Advertising & Media.

Marketing & Advertising Podcasts

Build A Better Agency. Drew Mclellan’s series is dedicated to the art of advertising agency management and new business. Listen up.
Neil Patel. Just go here now.
Tim Ferris. I became a Tim Ferris addict after reading his brilliantly-titled best-seller, “The Four Hour Work Week.” Tim combines a very active and curious mind, an effervescent talent for self-promotion in the best sense and a very long list of talented friends to interview. I find at least 75% of his podcasts (and blog posts) to fall in the zone of high mental stimulation. Of course, one of his recent interviews is with Seth Godin.
Duct Tape Marketing. Another serious and broad look at the tools and techniques marketers are employing today.
Foundr Magazine. Nathan Chan interviews some of the most successful founders in the world to find out what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur. Go for the osmosis.
TED Radio Hour. If you don’t have the time to watch TED Talks, then listen to them via their podcast.
Six Pixels Of Separation. A secret… Leverage the power of social media to grow your agency. One of the most active advertising agency leaders using social media is Canada’s Mitch Joel (CEO of WPP’s Mirum) and his Six Pixels Of Separation podcast which, as of today, get this, has 508 podcasts. Clearly a record and what should be an inspiration to any agency CEO who values the marketing power of looking smart and building fame for his agency. Oh, you’ll see just one of the reasons why I love this podcast by clicking on the link.
Sound Opinions. Now that we’ve killed the record / CD store, it seems like it is more difficult (as in time-consuming) to know what’s going on in music. I get my fix from MBEZ’s Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis. Listen to this and have something other than Steph Curry to talk about at those client dinners.
Freakonomics Radio. The Freakonomics team explores “the hidden side of everything”. From the economy, headline news to pop culture. A great example is the “Economics of Sleep” show.
#ASKGARYVEE. Best-selling books, one of the fastest-growing advertising agencies, and a renowned wine business. Gary is the energizer bunny of agency CEO’s. Listen to this show about how to accelerate business growth. Your clients are probably listening to him.
Smart Passive Income. This podcast series from Pat Flynn will do two things for you. 1. It will make you much smarter about the universe of digital strategies and tactics (even how to do a podcast series). But, more importantly, 2. It will help you figure out how to make money by building your own online business. Pat made over $171,000 last month – not working for the MAN and he will tell you how. A way to get past advertising.
Social Media Marketing. Michael Stelzner’s podcast is designed to deliver the latest news and perspectives on social media. There is a very good chance your clients listen, so you better too. Need an up to date Facebook strategy? Listen to this show.

Marketing Tool Generators

Canva. What more could I say? The easiest to use design program in the world
Says-It.com. Need a sign? Easy to use list of options.
Brand Genie. Your new brand in minutes.
Hipster Logo Generator. OK, you don’t live in Portland yet. But you can have a hip Ripcity logo.
13 Creative Ways To Find Blog Post Ideas. Super smart list from Authority Hacker.
HubSpot Blog Topic Generator. Need some topics…?
Meme Generator. The first.
Icon Fonts Generator. Need fonts, icons, no time? Here you go.
Noisli. Background noise & color generator.
Invoicely. You want to get paid, right? Here is the easy way to craft that invoice.
Ookla SpeedTest. I travel a lot so I am often in strange places with somewhat scattered Internet service. Um, like my house in Mexico. To check speeds, I use Ookla’s Speed test.

Remember, Please Let Me Know If This Advertising Agency Resource List Needs To Be Updated

Need a Human Resource? Let’s talk about growing your advertising agency. You are in a hurry, right?

Contact me now and take me up on my impossible to refuse a 15-minute Vito Corleone offer.

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 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.)

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