Peter Levitan & Co.

The New Business of Advertising

New Business

Advertising Agency Business Development Is Hard Work

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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.

agency-graphic-300x160I 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.

The Net?

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 Real Net?

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.

AdPulp.

Advertising Week.

Agency Post.

Need help with your business development strategy and program? Need a kick in the butt? Give me a shout.

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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.