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Advertising Agency Business Development Is Hard Work

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If there is anything I’ve figured out in my ad career is that business development is hard work. But, working hard at business development works. Here is what I did yesterday and what it netted.

agency-graphic-300x160I woke up to see that a new guest post of mine was published on the website Business2Community. I wrote the post during the weekend. I chose to post on Business2Community because at a score of 82 it has high domain authority and this authority gets passed on to my own website when I include links in the guest post (read about domain authority and why you want it at MOZ.)

My post, “6 Critical Sales Mistakes Advertising Agencies Make” was targeted to  the advertising and small business communities. Because of a B2C business relationship, my post was also published on Yahoo! Small Business (just imagine the power of Yahoo!’s domain authority.)

In addition to Business2Community, I’ve guest posted on AdPulp, The Advertising Week Social Club and Agency Post (see some links below.) A new post on Talent Zoo is next. Now that I’ve developed some street cred, I’ll soon approach the ad biz website holy grails of ADWEEK and AdAge to see if I can write on ad agency business development for them. They both have very high domain authority and obviously high readership in the ad community.

After my post was published, I followed up with Tweets to my Followers, RT requests to some of my more Followed friends and direct requests to friends asking for article comments. I wanted to generate some Internet juice.

The Net?

I received a bunch of retweets, comments on the article that are slowly streaming in because Business2Community reviews the comments, a very good day for unique visitors (any day I get over 250 uniques to my narrowly focussed website is a good day) and these visitors hit the pages that were linked to within the guest post. According to Google Analytics most of these are new visitors. So far, today is tracking to be another good day for me to make new friends care of B2C.

The Real Net?

The reason for working hard at business development is that it delivers work.

I got 2 new leads from potential advertising agency clients. 2 is good. I close most active leads.

I’ll be writing more about guest posting since I am a believer. Oh, here are the links to some guest posts that show just how hard this stuff is.

AdPulp.

Advertising Week.

Agency Post.

Need help with your business development strategy and program? Need a kick in the butt? Give me a shout.

Don’t miss any of my brilliant (LOL, but I mean it) thoughts on new business.

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Advertising Agencies: “Do Not Pitch”

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Cruise around the world of advertising agency new business consultants and you will often hear that ad agencies shouldn’t ever have to pitch for new business. The “pitch” for not pitching is that if you do a well-targeted, brilliant in-bound marketing program you will get direct “I love you, I want you” incoming from all the qualified new clients you desire. Cool. You’ll get all the new business you want without the cost and hardship of pitching.

This “win without pitching” dream does come true for some agencies. And, I do discuss how to build and run targeted in-bound programs with my clients. These programs include the hyper-targeting of specific clients and selected categories and the employment of SEO best practices (understanding your target market; smart keyword strategies; use of longer posts; syncing your blog, Twitter, LinkedIn and Slideshare, channels; leveraging YouTube.)

However, for the vast majority of agencies, in-bound marketing simply isn’t enough.

Telling Advertising Agencies “Do Not Pitch” For New Business Is Simply BS

I’ve been involved in advertising agency new business since my first pitch (we won) for Western Union’s EasyLink email service in 1984 (yes, this was the first commercial email service — just a touch early.) I’ve run business development at Saatchi and my own agency. Guess what, unless you are the darling of ADWEEK; just won the Gold Lion and some Clios; do Apple or Samsung or Coke advertising; have some form of secret sauce (you are the first ad agency to actually get mobile advertising with ROI proof); have an outrageous database of marketing friends for continuous referrals or are well-know as a category expert…

Fuhgeddaboudit. Chances are rather high that you will have to pitch the accounts that you want. Sitting back and waiting for those love-child clients to call you ain’t going to keep your agency afloat. Wishing that you will never have to pitch is lunacy.

So, please, win without ever pitching? Maybe for the 1%. But, not the other 3,999 agencies.

My bottom line? Learn how to win more of the pitches you should be invited to. I’m going to start to write about how to pitch. It will be a good “pitch” for my business.

And…. Here is how to position your agency so you might win those pitches you are invited to.

Yo!… Don’t miss any of my brilliant (LOL, but I mean it) thoughts on new business.

Sign up for my weekly newsletter.

 

Ad Agencies: Who Owns Your Pitch ideas?

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crestlogo1There is nothing I loved more during my advertising career than pitching. I loved the chase, the idea that we could come up with really brilliant thinking and work in a compressed timeframe and the camaraderie of the pitch process.

What I didn’t love was the feeling that I was often giving away our big ideas. It sucked.

To dig into the legal aspects of the issue of who owns your pitch ideas, I interviewed Sharon Toerek for Advertising Week’s blog. Sharon is an intellectual property and marketing law attorney who specializes in the advertising industry at Cleveland’s Licata & Toerek.

Read the post on Advertising Week Social Club.

By the way. I’ll see you at Advertising Week, as in next week, right?

Finally, A Fcking Ad Agency Blog Worth Reading

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I’m talking about The Escape Pod’s blog.

The Escape Pod

Ok, its not the only ad agency blog worth reading, but, hey, lets face it, how many of these word-rich-self-loving missives ever enrich anything? Ooops, I’m being harsh.

 

In my line of work I read (well, actually scan) a bunch of ad agency blogs. Note to my clients: I actually do read your blogs, I swear it!

Ok, for all of you other ad agencies. Here are some thoughts on what to do and some reasons I like The Escape Pod’s blog.

  1. Please be fun to read. Fun does not have to mean witty (although Escape Pod is witty) — it just means fun (which can also, for me, mean intellectually stimulating.)
  2. Have a (fresh) point of view.
  3. Have a personality. Its OK if your blog sounds like a human wrote it.
  4. Don’t parrot everyone else. We’all don’t need more words on how to blog; the joy of  responsive design; Twitter for marketers; or the post (this is real) -> “The New Landscape of Content Marketing” from one of Chicago’s leading agencies. Note to self: I might err on this “don’t parrot” thing, since this post is about an agency’s blog.
  5. Enlighten me: Like “Behold the Power of  Video Demonstration” does, even if it isn’t what you’d expect a creative agency to love.
  6. Get the idea of Portland.
  7. Oh, and have a really smart kid.

One more point. Have an agency About page that moves the reader.

Bottom line? The Escape Pod is interesting and makes interesting advertising. Interesting is good. Interesting sells.

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Email me – look up and left for an email link – and lets discuss how your agency will never do irrelevant (as in not strategic) blog postings.

Design Week Portland: Dye, Nike, Ziba, Tanner, SkyLabs, Sandstrom & Me

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dwpDesign Week Portland is a powerful, super groovy, smart, fun, inspiring, happy week-long event celebrating the best of Portland’s super groovy (oh, I said that) design scene. I’ll be moderating “Dissecting Design” for the Portland Advertising Federation. The panel includes some of Portland’s design super stars. Here’s the event copy…

 

Design happens. Not.

While great design comes from a place somewhere between our intellect and soul, it doesn’t just happen. Dissecting Design seeks to understand how great design is achieved using processes and design systems that take us from an understanding of client or consumer need to initial designs to iteration to the production of the final product.

We are very pleased to be able to discuss how big ideas get turned into brilliant design with some of Portland’s leading product and graphic designers.

 


DATE: Wednesday, October 9, 2013
TIME: Networking/Arrivals 4:00p/Program 4:30-5:30p/Networking 5:30-6:00p
VENUE: EcoTrust Building
COST: $25 PAF Members/$35 Non-Members

Get tickets  here. Seating is limited.