Peter Levitan & Co.

The New Business of Advertising

New Business

How To Name Your Advertising Agency: Part Two

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8 pitfalls to watch for when naming your baby BabyCenterThis is Part Two of the two part series on how advertising agencies name themselves. Other than the gyrations that agencies constantly go through with how to design and redesign their website; what and how they name themselves is one of their most important branding decisions. Part One is right here.

Just a reminder… I worked for three ad agencies. Two were “founder” agencies: Dancer Fitzgerald Sample (remember “Where’s the beef?”) and Saatchi & Saatchi (which bought Dancer) and the other was my very own Portland agency with its “current usage” name: Citrus. Or, as one of our creative directors thought was critical to our success, citrus, with a lower case “c.’

The Naming Process

Yes, there is a process to naming. I believe that selecting a name should be one of the most important elements of your new advertising agency’s marketing plan (a new name also works for agency’s that need a facelift and repositioning.) And, importantly, this process deserves your team’s best thinking and the time to ensure that you have selected the most powerful name possible. Most of us thought hard about what name to give our kids or the letters on our vanity license plates. Your company deserves this as well.

Objectives & Positioning.

You cannot begin to name your brand without establishing a clear brand positioning and business objectives which in the case of ad agencies sometimes just means sounding cool. In San Francisco alone, agency names span Muh-Tay-Zik Hof-fer’s self-love (OK, maybe its just name-play) to Argonaut’s promise of brand voyage (I assume) to Engine Company 1 (yes, you guessed it) to Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners and Goodby Silverstein & Partners’ authenticity (for old times sake) to BarrettSF and its hope for BarrettNY — I suspect. [Read more…] about How To Name Your Advertising Agency: Part Two

29 Social Media Marketing Tools + Infographic

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Take a look at this great, as in comprehensive, if a bit daunting, infographic and list of 29 powerful social media marketing and management tools from Ian Cleary’s Razor Social website. Make sure to check out his website for even more sleep-loss aids.

I will soon be parsing and rating these specifically for advertising agency new business, cause your agency ain’t gonna be able to use all of these unless you’ve managed to lose most of your clients. However, not using a smart selection of some of these to help manage your agency’s social new business programs is also madness.

Marketing Tools: 29 Powerful Tools for a Social Media Marketer

Marketing-Tools

 

 

 

There are a few more marketing infographics listed in my advertising agency directory right here at Peter Levitan’s Pinterest agency directory…

Advertising Agency Business Development Seminar @ Portland Ad Fed

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Agencies love their friends, their Rolodex’s (yes, we still use this word) and claim that they win more business from referrals than any other new business method. 3 reasons why:

  1. Friends are friends and friends have friends.
  2. Friends should recommend you.
  3. Current and past clients should recommend you. See “The One Number You Should Grow” from the Harvard Business Review.

But, there is a point when you run out of friends with friends and then its time to actually do some real business development. That’s why Rebecca Armstrong, Principal and Managing Director at NORTH; Ryan Buchannan, CEO eRoi and Peter Levitan, CEO Peter Levitan & Co. — oh, that’s me are speaking on how to grow your friends, contacts and prospect lists.

It is: An Advertising Agency Business Development Seminar – “New Business Is More Than A Big Rolodex”

Date: November 21.

Place: Portland, Oregon

Info from The Portland Advertising Federation (yes, new website coming soon….)

Need some language:

The more prospective clients you get to know, the more new business you will win. It’s that simple. Or, is it? New business is a presentation and hands-on workshop designed to help advertising agency management and employees create enlightened new business programs that will get more meetings and build relationships with the right prospects.

We will work together to examine and discuss a range of business development techniques used by successful agencies. We’ll explore list building and how to create and deliver compelling client insights that will grab the attention of the client-side decision makers you want to meet with – well before they put out that RFP. This seminar is for all agency employees because new business should be an agency-wide goal.

2 New Levitan Guest Posts on Agency Post and Advertising Week

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I am keeping up my guest posting on authoritative advertising websites to get my thought-leadership out and build my website’s authority and page rank. Just in case you don’t know what these important SEO terms are, here are definitions:

Authority from Search Engine Land: Is your site an authority? Is it a widely recognized leader in its field, area, business or in some other way? That’s the goal. No one knows exactly how search engines calculate authority and, in fact, there are probably multiple “authority” signals. The type of links your site receives (lots of quality or ‘neighborhood’ links?) or social references (from respected accounts?) and engagement metrics (long clicks?) may all play a role in site authority.

Page Rank from Search Engine Land and Google: PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at considerably more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; for example, it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important.”Using these and other factors, Google provides its views on pages’ relative importance.

This Week’s Guest Posts

On Advertising Week Social Club — “Advertising Account Executives On The Frontline”

Intro: “I think that advertising agencies have to think hard about how they deliver value. It is often more about intangibles than the actual “work.” A great deal of our value resides in the Account Executive role and the client relationship. We know this because poor “account service” is often listed as the primary reason that a client has decided to switch agencies.”

On Agency Post — “eatbigfish Challenges The Limits.” FYI: eatbigfish is the leading “challerger brand” advertising agency.

Intro: “Aside from the agency name, most advertising, digital, branding and strategic consultancy websites are interchangeable. However, eatbigfish’s isn’t. It’s a marketing and business development juggernaut. Shouldn’t that be the point? “

Does your Agency Guest Post?

No? Send me an email and lets schedule a conversation about how you can amp up your social media marketing program so you get  more incoming leads – I mean lots more. Believe me smart, dedicated advertising agency social media tied to intelligent, action-oriented SEO works… I’ve got advertising agency clients on three continents from my SEO programs.