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The Biggest Advertising Agency New Business Secret

February 28, 2021 By Peter Leave a Comment

The Biggest, Most Important Advertising Agency New Business Secret.

Ogilvy Mather UK

It’s Sales Stupid.

Back in 1992, James Carville, Bill Clinton’s strategist said, “It’s the economy, stupid” to make sure the Clinton campaign remembered what was critically important to the American electorate. So, taking my cue from James, I offer that “It’s sales stupid”  is the biggest, most important advertising agency new business secret.

An advertising, design, PR agency new business program, marketing materials, presentations (even daily conversations with existing clients), and new business pitches are all about sales. Sounds obvious, right? The problem is that ‘sales’ can be a dirty word at some ‘creative’ agencies. If you think that I am overstating this, take a look at a few agency websites, and ask yourself if they are designed to be high-octane sales experiences that drive leads or just well-designed agency brochures. I think that the Contact page is a number one offender. Contact copy like, “Give us a call” is simply not a romantic way to begin a relationship.

An Advertising Agency New Business Secret

A discussion of how to use the science of salesmanship in an agency presentation could fill a book. I’ll be brief and hit what I think are the most effective techniques we can learn from the masters of salesmanship. Allow me a brief detour first.

I left advertising in 1995 to put a group of New Jersey newspapers online for Advance Internet (the digital newspaper arm of the Newhouse Media Group – you know them as the owner of Condé Nast). In addition to inventing New Jersey Online’s digital newspaper editorial persona, we also had to build an early online sales program that included the design of new advertising units and a sales pitch for this new Internet platform. To help me, Advance brought in Jim Hagaman from the Miami Herald. Jim was easily one of the savviest media salespeople I had ever met.

Within a few days, I had gone from thinking that I knew how to sell (i.e. running business development at Saatchi & Saatchi), to jettisoning much that I had learned, to watching a master actually make sales in the nascent Internet marketplace. Much of what you see below came from Jim.

One of his more interesting sales insights came when I said that we needed to go pitch New Jersey Online to New York advertising agencies. He said, whoa boy. In his experience, agencies always mucked up the sale. They wanted to put their own stamp on the sales message, usually got the details wrong, and always slowed down the process. He said that we were going directly to the clients to explain the benefits of digital media. As I eventually witnessed, he was right.

Actually, here is one more super insightful story that will introduce my next point, which I admit might be a “duh” for some of you.

You have to understand your client’s mindset, needs, pain points, rationale, and emotional motivations before you can ever craft an effective sales pitch.

I learned this lesson at my first agency pitch for New Jersey Online. I figured I’d start with my very own ex, the New York office of Saatchi & Saatchi. I knew the agency inside and out and had worked with their Executive Media Director Allen Banks for years. My pitch included a 1996 hockey puck graph of projected Internet usage and a discussion of digital advertising that touted our newfound ability to track how website visitors viewed and interacted with online advertising. Was Allen smiling? No. His reaction?

“Are you f*cking kidding me? We have made a fortune not really knowing how, when and for how long consumers have been looking at our ads. I manage hundreds of millions in advertising media placement. Knowing how much of it doesn’t work will kill our golden goose.”

My point in telling you this story is that I didn’t think through Allen’s motivations before I delivered my early online advertising sales pitch. By the way, he was right. The Internet sure seems like it killed some parts of the golden advertising goose.

More Sales Advice

[Read more…] about The Biggest Advertising Agency New Business Secret

The Big Advertising Agency Resource List

January 30, 2021 By Peter 24 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

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Borat Did A Video Just For For ME

December 3, 2020 By Peter Leave a Comment

A Few Words From My Best Buddy Borat About My “Advertising Stories” Podcast

Borat for LevitanBorat helps me by asking… “What is make beautiful Advertising Stories podcast? People should listen.”

He also asked, “What you mean by telling your agency clients that they need to be unignorable? Yo want unignorable? You got me! A special gift for you, my American puppy.”  Or… “Агенттик кардарларыңызга алар жагымсыз болуш керек деп айткыңыз келгендиктен, сиз жагымсыз болуп калгыңыз келеби? Мени алдыңыз!”

So… I obviously had to go to Almaty, Kazakhstan last week to find Borat to have him make a video for me and Advertising Stories. This was not an easy get. First, I asked my friend Quentin Tarantino to find and then ask Borat’s daughter Tutar Sagdiyev to see if Borat would be in town. Tutar then asked Borat if he would do me the favor of making a video promotion for my advertising podcast for the wonderful, podcast loving, people of Kazakhstan. He was interested in doing almost anything for the great United States – if I promised to arrange a lunch with him and Rudy. Mayor Rudy said, sure what the hell. I’ll do anything these days.

I flew for 42 hours from Mexico City to Frankfurt to Istanbul to Almaty. Borat and I shot the video in my hotel room at the luxurious Ritz-Carlton Almaty. I had a tub in my room – I mean in the bedroom itself –  and he insisted that he bathe and eat blinis and caviar while I played Beatles songs before the shoot. A bit weird all around – but strangely refreshing. Subscribe to my newsletter and I will send you the picture of me and Borat in the tub.

You might ask “why did Borat do this for you?” My Kazak friend is thanking me for introducing him to Rudy Giuliani. And to prove to you, that even an advertising agency business development consultant can walk to unignorable talk.

 

The Idiocy Of Ad Agency Christmas Giving

December 1, 2020 By Peter Leave a Comment

Yes, Ad Agency Christmas Giving Is Stupid – Nice Thought, Huh?

It is that time of year again. It is the time that many an ad agency decides that it is a great time of year to add to the ad agency Christmas giving clutter. Am I being Grinch-like? You bet.

Does your ad agency send out Christmas cards or gifts or online trinkets to clients — even prospects? I call this practice stupid. Strong words? Sure. but, why am I saying this?

Look, I have nothing against season’s greetings. But, after working at a couple of agencies (including my own) and watching dozens/hundreds more send out very “creative” Christmas (Chanukah, Kwanza, etc.) cards and gifts during the late-December season, I have to say this is very ill-timed even highly-inefficient outreach. It is wasteful in three critical ways: [Read more…] about The Idiocy Of Ad Agency Christmas Giving

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

November 10, 2020 By Peter 7 Comments

ss-social-mediaYou 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.

[Read more…] about Which Social Media Strategy Is Best For Advertising Agency New Business?

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