Peter Levitan & Co.
The New Business of Advertising
I’ll keep it simple and just shoot you over to this smart infographic (larger version.) I like that it provides a daily guide to how to use LinkedIn to drive new business engagement.
By the way, is your ad agency missing from the Pinterest Advertising Agency Directory? Let me know. I am starting to get some substantial traffic to the directory. I’d have to assume that prospective clients as well as ad agency types are using it.
I’ve “suggested” that advertising agencies put more focus on the growing world of mobile advertising. I understand that this is yet another media option that needs care and attention at your already busy agency. But… you have to get with it. You will soon have no choice and it could be too late for your agency if you don’t pay attention to this media shift.
From eMarketer:
Next year, eMarketer predicts, overall spending on desktop advertising will increase by just 0.41%, while mobile ad spending will grow a further 56.00% to $14.97 billion. By 2016, spending on mobile will rival desktop spending, and in 2017 it will blow past, posting $35.62 in ad spending compared to the desktop’s $27.21 billion.
The trends are working at warp speed. What business will your agency be in in 2017?
I’d be getting real good at video strategy and production. Which, by the way, if you are in advertising, you are already good at.
An Advertising Agency Staff That Hates Pitching Isn’t A Good ThingA 2013 study by the research firm Provoke Insights confirmed what we all know. The advertising agency new business pitching process can be debilitating.
From Provoke:
“… approximately half (47%) of advertising professionals surveyed by Provoke Insights say they are dissatisfied with the current internal approach to pitching.
47%. Ok, pitching is intense. So, what else is new? Pitching is also intense for architects, nuclear power plant designers and fighter jets salespeople. Writing, presenting and winning (or losing) pitches is intense.
It can also be exhilarating (more on that a bit later.)
Issues include: “unrealistic timelines” say 66% of respondents / “long work hours” say 65%
And, because Provoke is a research company who paid for the research, we get this nod towards having insightful insights:
“Forty-four percent of advertising professionals stated that if there were better availability of research and data, pitches would run smoother and (be) more successful.”
Here’s more on what resources agencies say they need to kill it:
By the way, I posted about how to use free, smart internet based tools to create insights here: 13 Free Big Data Tools For Advertising Agency New Business.
Back to exhilarating.
The full report can be read on AdRants.
Once again some great data on what CMO’s think about advertising agencies and the pitch process from pitch consultant Avi Dan. Head over to Forbes to see the article, “What are 10 great ad agencies of 2013 according to CMO’s?”
Avi conducted an online survey in November, 2013 with 1,850 CMO’s to determine their ranking of leading advertising agencies and to get insights into their views on what it takes to win a pitch. While its nice to see my hometown boy Wieden + Kennedy be ranked as the best agency, I don’t find this information that useful. Maybe it is to a top 100 brand but it isn’t to the other 10,000+ clients out there or the other 4,000 agencies. [Read more…] about The Advertising Agency Model, New Business, Pitches and CMO’s
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.
I 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.
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 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.
Need help with your business development strategy and program? Need a kick in the butt? Give me a shout.