Peter Levitan & Co.

The New Business of Advertising

Marketing

Do Advertising Agencies Have Business Plans?

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This post is is based on my personal SEO experience and is meant to be instructive for all small, medium and large advertising agencies that want high search results for their websites. That’s you, right?

I am in Mexico working. Just for the hell of it, I took a look at where my site ranks in the Google results for “advertising agency business plan.” Since my business is helping advertising (and design and digital) agencies position and market themselves for growth (and actually write a smart / active new business plan), I figured I’d see where I rank on this particular search. Well, I come in on page 1 (that’s sweetly good) – but, only at position number 8.

advertising agency business plan Google Search

Now, considering that I am preceded by some famous and huge names…

Bplans / Fuel Lines / Wiki How / Inc. / Forbes and Entrepreneur, I am not feeling too bad.

However, I have over 250 blog posts related to this subject and I think that I should rank higher. Note: my competitor Fuel Lines started his industry blog in 2008 (wow!) and I didn’t start blogging about new business until January 2012…  I shouldn’t be feeing too bad.

An important fact: I only have four blog posts with “business plan” in the headline. Lame… well, five including this new post.

So, here is what I am going to do about growing my Google position:

I will write more posts like this that have the keywords “advertising” and “business plans” in the headline and of course, include these keywords (but not too many) in the body copy.

I am also linking from this page to 3 past posts with these words in the headline. Note: most of this website is about new business after all. Here you go:

Your Advertising Agency New Business Plan

How To Write An Ad Agency Business Plan

Why Don’t Advertising And Digital Agencies Have A Business Plan?

Another factoid that answers the question… do agencies have business plans?

After talking with dozens of agencies, I figure, at best, 20% have up-to-date business plans and about 50% (I am being kind) have well-thought-out business development plans. Given that there are over 4,000 advertising agencies around the world, my market opportunity is huge / and so is yours if you have a plan.

Finally, I am going to ask you to contact me. I get about 3 qualified incoming inquiries from agencies a week. I’ll tell you how this happens. It isn’t magic and there is absolutely no reason that you can’t get lots-o incoming as well.

By the way, sign up below for my weekly newsletter.

 

Post Advertising: Big Data And Small Data

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Ten years ago I wrote a brilliant (yes, it was and is brilliant) white paper on how even big marketers like Nike and Disney fail to manage / love / re-market to their customer base. This fail still going on across industries. However, I’d like to think that understanding the value of CRM has advanced.

Below (after I force you to read my 2004 white paper “Get a Grip – The Marketing Power Of Managing Customer Relationships”) I will introduce you to one of the best posts / insights into how marketers should be starting to use big data for CRM C/O the Marketo blog.

[If you have any problem seeing the SlideShare doc below, you can find it right here.]

First My Take On Small Data & Nike & Disney

[slideshare id=13759471&doc=getagrippdf-120725210347-phpapp01&type=d]

OK, Now For Big Data and Marketo

This is without question, one of the best marketing blog posts I’ve read in a long time. DJ Waldlow’s post, “If You’ve Got It, Use It (Data, That Is)”, deconstructs his weekend experience with Fandango to illustrate how to use big data to customize / ROIize marketing. Oh, lets toss in realtime cause like big data you are becoming obsessed with this too. These are generally good things to be focussed on.

Here is DJ’s conclusion:

Big data is all the rage. The potential to do something interesting with that data to create more personalized user experiences is ginormous. However, if you don’t have the resources – human capital, financial capital, etc. – to leverage big data, start small. As described above, Fandango is using some pretty basic data they have about me to personalize my experience across channels (app, mobile/SMS, web, and email). It’s simple, yet incredibly effective.

Back to the top (ala Nike) — Big Data? Just do it. Or, at least start to think how to start to use it. I bet some of your clients are.

Inbound Content Marketing & Ad Agency New Business

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Here is a sweet chart from a study on content marketing from Eloqua. The bottom line… create smart, targeted, strategic content (think blogs, white papers, SlideShare presentations, etc.) that will work as inbound marketing tools and client magnets. Content marketing works for me. That’s how I get my qualified leads. Here is the chart.

www.oracle.com webfolder mediaeloqua documents Content Marketing Kapost Eloqua ebook

Easy Plan

Here is a fast micro plan for how to do it. Of course, the devil is in the details.

  • Go get a blank media / creative brief and write it like you would do for a new client program:
  • Determine who your target audience is. Is it any client with over $1,000,000 to spend? The dentist down the street? The entire automative category?It probably isn’t the art director at the competitive agency so stop writing the 7,000th blog post on responsive design with keywords only a web developer will be interested in.
  • Determine what you want your target audience to do. Like, call you up. Or, join your mailing list.
  • Create a two – three month content plan. Think like an editor. What will  the subjects be that will be of interest to your audience? What are the keywords they use to search for information?
  • Assign someone to mange and at least a couple of people to write the blog.
  • Start with at least 15 blog posts of from 500 to 1,000 words.
  • Keep at it. As the chart shows, it takes a loooong time to get up to speed.
  • Tie the blog automatically to Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+.

Then…kiss your new clients.

 

Ready To Leave Advertising For Silicon?

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If you are ready to leave advertising for what might appear to be greener silicon valley or alley pastures*… Here are some places that might be looking for you and their recruitment tag lines. These lines are actually quite effective (except for Walmart’s which is _____, well, you fill in the blank.)

Take one of the tag lines before getting on New York’s 7 train to battle with your clients.

Hmm. I wouldn’t have thought that these guys would have such good copywriting. But, then again, they can afford good writing.
*Note about greener pastures. My old friend Michael Keeshan used to tell employees that were leaving his agency that “the grass is just as shit brown on the other side of the fence.” Or as my more yoga-style friends like to say: “wherever you go, there you are.” But, Google does have nice buses when its neighbors are not beating them with baseball bats.

Advertising Age & Web Marketing ala 1997

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Ah, the joys of doing an Internet search on yourself. Here is an oldy but goody editorial I wrote for Advertising Age in May, 1997 on advertising agencies not getting into digital marketing fast enough. Remember… this is from 1997. I left Saatchi & Saatchi in 1995 to put newspapers online for Advance Publications. Yes, I invented the Internet with my friend Al. If you are an Advertising Age subscriber, you can see the editorial here.

Opinion: Have agencies lost their footing in Web marketing?

I’m worried that the advertising community is getting behind the curve when it comes to the Internet. Most clients are ahead of their agencies in understanding the value of Internet marketing–I know, because they’re coming to us to design their programs.

What’s holding agencies back? A love of proven media and maybe some myths.

1. Advertising agencies cannot make money planning and producing Web advertising.

Agency profits, strangled by clients during the past 10 years, don’t leave much room to dabble in new low cash-flow technologies. It’s easier to plan and buy TV.

However, almost every client is now marketing on the Web. Since the Web seems a bit better at direct response and promotion than brand building, I think it provides agencies with a great opportunity to grab from these other ripe budgets.

2. The only folks making money on the Web are pornographers.

Dell is selling $7 million worth of computers online every week. New Jersey’s Planet Honda has sold over $1 million worth of cars and parts off its site. Condomania is selling $1,000 worth of condoms every day off of a $10,000 Web site.

3. Banners do not work.

I worked in advertising for over 15 years, and the only time I could swear on a Bible that advertising had any direct effect on sales was when my airline client’s fare ads sent people to the counter. Now, when I look at my advertisers’ banner statistics, I know exactly what worked and what didn’t.

4. Web advertising will not work for mass brands.

Why not? Both men and women buy pasta, and when they’re online, they’re not using other media. Use the Web to leverage some of that mega co-op spend out there. Imagine a banner that says “50¢ off pasta today at A&P” and also links to that “brand-building” Italian odyssey site the creatives want to build.

5. The only big-time advertisers on the Web are large Web sites or technology companies.

Advertising follows the eyeballs. It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million users; TV, 13; cable, 10; and the Internet, five. That’s why a recent scan of “high-tech” Web advertisers included Rockport, Levi’s, Visa, Gatorade and Godiva.

6. Push is the future.

Maybe familiarity with broadcast is why the new “idea” of push is so beloved by the advertising industry. Pull is the power of the Internet. It may be hard to learn how to turn it into an advertising tool, but it is intrinsically more powerful and consumer-focused.

7. PointCast is push.

OK, I do like push. But sorry, guys, e-mail is the push God. E-mail is easy to use, it’s low-tech and highly targeted. There are more than 35 million Americans (70 million worldwide) using e-mail every day, while there are only 1 million active PointCast users. Pick one.

Peter Levitan is president of Advance Publications’New Jersey Online.

So, was I right? I was certainly opinionated. I am still.