Peter Levitan & Co.

The New Business of Advertising

Marketing

Are Ad Agencies Doomed?

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Are Ad Agencies Doomed? — No. But.

images doomClearly a large segment of the ad agency business has moved to automated advertising and design.

I’ll start with Google, Facebook and Twitter. They all have automated the placement of advertising. Others too. That means that billions of ad placement dollars have moved to the web. But you know that. 99 Designs delivers logos for $99. You know that too.

If you watched the Super Bowl, you saw that web tools like SquareSpace are automating the design of websites thanks to the Jeff Bridges commercials.

Now, There’s The Grid.

The Grid is the first artificial intelligence platform that creates websites. Sounds cool to me. Tweet this

Does The Grid Spell Doom?

The Grid hasn’t launched yet but is getting attention. Here is what TechCrunch says: [Read more…] about Are Ad Agencies Doomed?

How To Predict An Advertising Agency Search

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Can You Predict When A Client Will Search For A New Advertising Agency?

Can You Predict When a Client Will Start the Search for a New Agency InterviewA friend who ran an advertising agency in L.A. once told me that he made at least five ‘warm calls’ every week to prospective clients. This agency CEO was gregarious, had a great rap about advertising trends that clients liked to hear and he was very smart. He knew that on any given day, a few clients woke up thinking that they needed a new agency to replace their AOR or to hand out a project. He just wanted to be on the client’s radar when that day happened.

Clearly, not all agency CEO’s can or will make these calls. Though, sales pressure applied with TLC does work for some.

Another way to get ahead of the search process is to use a business development database and news tool like Access Confidential. To get a better understanding of Access Confidential and their pitch that they can help agencies know about a new business pitch before the other agencies, I interviewed Lisa Colantuono, a partner at the highly successful agency search consultancy AAR and a contributor to my book on pitching. I posted this interview on HubSpot’s Agency Post. Here is my lead-in.

Another Holy Grail (can there be more than one?) is being able to predict when a client is unhappy with their current agency and is getting ready to begin the search process. This is a tough one, so I searched to see if there was any existing advice on being able to predict when a client is about to search for a new agency. My quest led me to Access Confidential.

Access Confidential is an online new business tool from AAR Partners, a leading agency search consultancy with a history of conducting more than 1,500 searches. Access Confidential includes an up-to-date client database, business news, and a research hotline, and it is used to forecast when clients will look for a new agency.

I also asked Lisa about the current new business landscape. Here is the Q&A.

What do you think is the biggest or fastest-growing client need as we move into 2015?

Innovation with an eye toward creating purposed-based brands.

Successful agencies will help identify emotional values in their client’s brands and use them for real-time engagement and meaningful positioning. Consumers are going to continue to have influence over brands. Agencies that help marketers to embrace it will succeed. You can boil this down to the need to turn big data (and the overwhelming amount of data) into core brand insights for marketers, which will remain as an asset. Analytics and programmatic and real-time buying, as well as social command centers to keep an ear to the ground on what’s trending, are all important tools to offer a client. But the greatest tool will be the interpretation of the data.

Ah, innovation.

Ad Agency Social Media Check List

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An Ad Agency Social Media Check List – But, Determine If You Can Do It All

How to Start an Advertising Agency Expert Business AdviceI put a new infographic on social media planning and a  checklist below. It is a good one. Big thanks to Post Planner and its article “FINALLY! A Checklist for Social Media Marketing that Actually Helps or the advice and graphic. “

Good stuff.

But.

Most advertising agencies cannot and will not do all that is recommended. I firmly believe that the 2 biggest issues confronting ad agency business development  programs are the lack of a clear plan (or any plan for that matter) and biting off more social media marketing than they can chew. This leads to inaction and inertia…. and not running the program 24/7. Therefore, my caution. This is a great chart on what to do and how to do it. But don’t bite it all off. You probably won’t be able to run it all.

That said, you must do the first two recommendations:

Define your target audience. I am continuously amazed at how few (50%?) of ad agency social media programs look like they do not have clear objectives and understand what will be of value to their target audience. Is it current or future clients? Culture support for your agency? The press? Prospective employees?  [Read more…] about Ad Agency Social Media Check List

A Twitter Tool For Advertising Agencies

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I love Twitter Tools

download broCheck out the Twitter tool SocialBro (and, don’t thank me for naming this company). Here is what they say about themselves:

SocialBro’s advanced solutions for Twitter marketing are built around what you need. From Enterprise scale organisations coordinating multi channel strategies across multiple teams to individual influencers building a personal brand, our clever tools work with your preferred Twitter client (e.g. Hootsuite or Tweetdeck) to help you achieve your goals on Twitter.

Here is just one of the detailed traffic reports I get from them about my Twitter account. Now, make sure you think about the following detail about me when you look at these numbers:

I post on west coast time. Therefore, my east coast audience is getting up earlier than me.

When see what my Followers talk about in their feeds, consider that I write about advertising, social media and marketing. I am not so sure about the “love” thing.

My audience works 24/7 across the globe. I don’t have best days or seriously best times.

For more, many more, insights on SocialBro, head over to Razor Social. If you haven’t been to this fab website… Go there!

SocialBro Browse your Twitter Community

Want More Twitter Tools?

Here is a link to my post about 11 must have social media tools for advertising agency business development — and agency clients.

Mitch Joel On The Art Of Ad Agency Social Media

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Twist Image’s Mitch Joel On The Art of Ad Agency Social Media As A Business Development Tool

And… Writing Like Crazy Since 2003

Mitch_lowres_rgbQuick note. It is 1 January 2018 and Mitch just served up his 599th podcast. He started blogging in 2003. That is what I call some serious focus and consistency. This is how to run social media.

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Here is an interview with Mitch Joel as a counterpoint to his interviewing me for his “6 Pixels of Separation” podcast.

Mitch is President of the WPP Montreal-based agency Twist Image – one of the largest independent digital marketing agencies in North America. Mitch is the most prolific user of social media in the agency world. In addition to his podcast, he authors the agency’s blog, has written two books (with a third on the way), writes for the “Harvard Business Review” and “Huffington Post”, has over 64,000 @mitchjoel Twitter Followers and speaks at major conferences.

Peter: When did you start blogging?

Mitch: I started blogging in 2003. The spirit of it came from my pedigree and background in publishing, media and writing. When I saw the blogging platform come out, it was Blogger at the time, I thought that blogging would be a different and unique way for our agency to do some form of thought leadership. Although, I didn’t call it ‘thought leadership’ at the time.

We were there at the early days of digital becoming something in marketing. It just seemed like the right, comfortable fit for me. Then I got very addicted. I publish eight hundred to a thousand words every day. I couldn’t tell you logically why I do this. I don’t check my stats. I do it because I like to write and there happens to be a publish button.

You’re up to four hundred and forty-four podcasts. Why did you move into podcasting in addition to such prolific blogging?

[Read more…] about Mitch Joel On The Art Of Ad Agency Social Media