New Business

The Perfect Advertising Agency Pitch

January 21, 2022 By Peter Leave a Comment

How To Run A Perfect Advertising Agency Pitch

Avi Dan followed me as the guy running Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Worldwide’s business development program (and, I think did a better job than me as by the end of my tenure all I could think about was the growing Internet space). Avi just wrote the following article on LinkedIn about the subject of the good, bad, and ugly advertising agency pitch. I thought that I’d respond a bit to his thinking because I wrote the New York Times best-selling book on how to run the world’s most powerful, new business-delivering ad agency pitch.

From Avi’s bio… “Avi Dan is a columnist for Forbes, a former CEO and board member of 3 major agencies, and a highly regarded agency pitch consultant. By his own estimate, he has been involved in over 200 pitches in the past 30 years.”

From Avi…

Q&A With A Pitch Consultant: “Don’t Hire The Agency That Inspires You, Hire The Agency That Is Inspired BY YOU”

In 2019, the year right before Covid, a Morgan Stanley analyst had reported that a record $35 Billion of advertising spending was up for review. That was almost more money hanging in the balance than the amount under review during the previous two years, combined. With the economy picking up now, advertisers are, once again, rethinking their agency relationships. Ad Age had recently reported that one-third of all advertisers stated that, they plan to put their business into a pitch.

Peter: One-third? Crazy. This really can only mean one of two things. Either advertising agencies are doing a shit job or clients have no clue what they really want from their agency. A smart client should be able to get smart thinking and service out of their own — current — agency. I have been an agency owner and a client. Good clients know how to manage their agencies. Well, most. It is absurd that one-third should think they have a failing relationship. Too high.

Q: Why do you think there are so many reviews lately?

A: If those numbers tell you anything, it’s that, advertisers aren’t happy with their agencies, even the good ones. For example, Wieden had lost KFC and Droga5 had recently lost IHOP. Marketing is much more complex these days, and very few agencies are capable of evolving fast enough to keep up with the needs of their client. What’s surprising isn’t that so much is in review, but, that it didn’t happen sooner.

Peter: Avi says… “very few agencies are capable of evolving fast enough.” OK, possibly true for many. But not Droga5 and Wieden. These best-of-class agencies are just too good, big and well-managed. So, I’ll point to clients as a failure point. By the way, how can anyone be expected to dramatically increase pancake and waffle sales during a pandemic?

Q: How are pitches different now?

A: The briefs for pitches that we see coming through to us now, are more transformational. Clients are deep into the digital transformation, and so is the consumer and the media. Technology, cloud services, eCommerce, data, and virtual CX are becoming critical issues for the enterprise.

Peter: The marketing world has been way about the idea of digital transformational since I left Saatchi in 1995 to put major newspapers online (and invent website advertising – yes, I did that) or in 2000 when my company Activebuddy invented interactive chatbots including SmarterChild and commercial bots for clients like Radiohead. Is Avi saying that the zillions of agency people that live and breath digital do not understand transformation? Could they be worse at it than a marketing director at IHOP? Side note. I have been a consultant in a few advertising agency pitches lately and every agency talks transformation or related subjects. How could they not?

Q: You are very critical of the pitch process. Why? [Read more…] about The Perfect Advertising Agency Pitch

What Is Account Based Marketing

January 19, 2022 By Peter Leave a Comment

What Is Account Based Marketing?

I will start with a quick story. One of my advertising agency clients, an ex-Microsoft marketer, is based in Dubai. When we started working together a few years ago he asked me about my thinking on the best practices for using account based marketing. He had just discovered it. I have been coaching agencies on how to run account based marketing programs for years and asked him for his definition of what he had in mind. He essentially described B2B direct marketing wrapped in new lingo. I laughed.

Yes, there is account based marketing (ABM) — but it is just the current marketing universe’s definition (think hype) of direct marketing which sounds a bit too old-fashioned. Kinda like a typewriter or Rolodex. Like the typewriter which turned into your laptop or the Rolodex which is now your contact database, B2B direct marketing is now called ABM.

I am going to be writing about best practices for account based marketing over the next few blog posts. I am also being interviewed on the subject for a marketing podcast. I’ll be discussing how to define ABM – as in answering the questions… “what is ABM? And how can a busy agency can design and run a kick-ass program.”

What Is Account Based Marketing?

Here is on definition (there are many) and a definition of direct marketing.

From Optimizely: Account based marketing (ABM) is a business marketing strategy that concentrates resources on a set of target accounts within a market. It uses personalized campaigns designed to engage each account, basing the marketing message on the specific attributes and needs of the account.

What Is Direct Marketing?

From Investopedia: Direct marketing consists of any marketing that relies on direct communication or distribution to individual consumers, rather than through a third party such as mass media.

Sound similar?

Bottom Line…

B2B ABM, in this case, advertising agency outbound marketing, is about identifying your best prospects (yes, this is work), Finding the best ways to reach them (yes more work), understanding their motivations and issues, developing the contact plan (yes, complex), and creating ‘content’ or IP that will get their attention and make them WANT to talk with you. To do this you will need a plan that does two things…

Is based on sound process.

Is keep it simple stupid so you can do it 24/7.

And, please make your messaging UNIGNORABLE.

More specific advice to come. Stay tuned.

The chart is from eMarketer.

Ask For The Order

January 4, 2022 By Peter Leave a Comment

After I left Advertising… I Learned How To Ask For The Order.

I left advertising for the first time in 1995 to start one of my two Internet / digital companies. You can catch up by reading How I Discovered the Internet After Saatchi. It is a decent read about my asking for a new career and about how to ask for the order.

When I founded and ran New Jersey Online, a very hot and popular first-of-its-kind online news website, my owners, the Newhouse family (think Conde Nast, mucho magazines, mucho newspapers, and Random House) handed me Jim Hageman as my sales director. Jim had been very a serious sales director at the Miami Herald.

As Saatchi & Saatchi’s USA and European business development director – I thought that I knew how sales worked. That was until I went on sales calls with Jim (we were inventing and selling first-gen Internet advertising.) One of the key things he taught me was to never leave a sales meeting without doing for the ‘ask for the order’ dance. If the prospect said yes, great. If, no, we tried to craft a program that fit their needs – and gave some stuff away to soften them up. i.e. we’d sweeten the pot. It worked a lot. And, it became of of my atomic habits.

Today I See A Lot OF Advertising Agencies That Are Way Too Shy – They Do Not Ask For The Order.

Below is a quick example of a smart guy that knows how to perform the ASK. In this case, Jim Clear (a New York Times Best Selling author of “Atomic Habits”) is asking me to share his newsletter with my friends. A clear ASK (yes a clear ask from James Clear). My point, see how he does it… Nicely plus an offer for you.

Learn from this to grow your company’s newsletter and even your advertising agency client Referral Program (you have one, right?)

___________________

Hi there! It’s James Clear. [Read more…] about Ask For The Order

Advertising Agency Sales Prospecting

December 3, 2021 By Peter Leave a Comment

The Art & Science of Advertising Agency Sales Prospecting – A Smart ‘KISS’ Approach

You know what advertising agency sales prospecting is. Yup. But… let’s start with a couple of definitions to get us on the same page.

From Shopify: Prospecting is the first step in the sales process, which consists of identifying potential customers, aka prospects. The goal of prospecting is to develop a database of likely customers and then systematically communicate with them in the hopes of converting them from potential customer to current customer.

From Peter Levitan: Sales prospecting is efficiently going after and getting the new clients for your advertising agency that y’all deserve.

A ramble: All advertising agencies, digital marketing expert agencies, PR, well you get the idea, need to grow. If you have been reading me for a long time, I’ve told you that you start to lose that new client the minute they become a client. So, knowing that your clients will eventually leave by the back door means that you better be working hard at bringing them in the front.

NOTE: The following is NOT a definitive prospecting plan. I am just toplining the core elements that you have to do. Sales prospecting is both science and art. I help agencies every day get this particular act together.

Sales Prospecting

I am going to assume that you have a referral strategy so you have taken care of that critical business development tactic. But, you cannot rely on referrals and WOM alone for growth. Can’t, shouldn’t. Way too many agencies do this. need a referral plan? Here you go.

Your Brand Positioning Comes First

To be a great prospector, you need to offer the market, your specific market, a compelling brand proposition that will get their attention — one that resonates. You can do all of the prospecting you want but if you do not sound like you will meet a potential client’s needs then ‘fuhgettaboutit‘… you will be wasting your time and money. Need to rethink your positioning? Go here – How To Position An Advertising Agency. [Read more…] about Advertising Agency Sales Prospecting

Smart 2014 Advertising Quote From Mad Men

November 19, 2021 By Peter Leave a Comment

A Very Smart Advertising Quote From Mad Men

I originally wrote this blog post in 2013 – a year that I published 189 blog posts (a year that my consultancy started to boom). This “Smart 2014 Advertising Quote From Mad Men” post had a brilliant message from Don Draper to all advertising agencies:

The day you sign a client is the day you start losing them.

This total factoid about losing clients is why advertising agency new business has to be 24 / 7 / 365. Only the relentless win. Sleep and you will close your doors. I couldn’t come up with a better ad for my business development consultancy. A few dozen + clients after 2013 and I will hammer this point – Only the way actively unignorable win at business development and agency growth.

I highly recommend that you peruse my over 800 blog posts on how to grow your advertising agency. And how to run your business development program 24/7. Here is my list just for you. It is Don Draper approved.