Peter Levitan & Co.

The New Business of Advertising

Social Media

You And Your Blog Posts Are Getting Older

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I’ve been thinking lately about the dates on my blog posts. Like when is a blog post perceived as too old? Is there a point when y’all start to think that the posts are getting too gray?

Quick Background

I launched my advertising agency business development blog in 2013.

I now have over 650 blog posts on ad agency biz dev, agency management, presenting and pitching, how to keep clients and, for many, how to sell the agency you built.

The best read are – we are talking thousands of reads – right here:

How To Build An Advertising New Business Program 

How To Name Your Advertising Agency: Part One 

8 Tips For How To Sell Your Agency

The Worst Advertising Agency presentation – Ever 

So, When Is Old Too Old?

The Issues & Opportunities Of Managing Past Blog Posts…

Some of my most important, as in insightful/informational/designed to help your agency, blog posts are over two years old. I wonder how much an ageing blog date impacts a visitor’s sense of relevance.

I have been thinking about writing some CSS code to only keep dates on recent posts, like let’s say posts no older than a year. And dumping the dates on older posts.

Many of my best, as in most informative, blog posts are now well down the loooong list. I can easily change the date of an individual blog post in WordPress’ Settings / General / Date Format. If I do this date-delete, I need to make sure that the post sounds ‘recent’ and does not reference something too far in the past.

This is just something I am wrestling with. It isn’t hard to fix. But, like everything when you are busy… It takes a bit of time.

Good News

This is the kind of stuff I think about so when you hire me to help grow your agency, I’ve thought this through. Good news because many of you should be thinking about getting older.

I know you want to talk to me… go ahead, go here.

 

 

How To Grow With Linkedin

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Get Heavy With Linkedin

I am looking at Linkedin over the past couple of days and I see a very smart Australian sales/ marketing buddy posting with heavy frequency on LinkedIn. I am like: “What’s Up?”

Here is our quick but valuable discussion.

(SHHH… the secret is Reach & Frequency)

Peter:

Damn. You are cranking out content on Linkedin. Does it work?

Mystery Marketer:

Yes, it does

Was posting three times a day and got little traction

Then increased to six times a day and got more traction.

Now 12 times a day and 24 hours a day and getting a lot of traction.

Big insight is most people on average only check LinkedIn once every 17 days and for no more than 30 minutes.

Therefore while you and I may sit on it every day the audience I want could be coming online at any time so I always have to be there.

12 times a day and 364 days a year (I take Christmas Day off)

And, no piece of content is shared more than three times. 2/3 of the content shared is relevant content from the industry and 1/3 is our own content.

Peter:

Thanks for the info. Agree… action begets leads, interest. Heavy, active marketers can get lost in the thought that their audience is as enthralled with marketing platforms (i.e. Linkedin) as they are.
In my head, it always comes down to the old idea of reach and frequency. This worked for P&G, why not your advertising agency?
And, the idea of running an active business development program fits in with yesterday’s post.

More Linkedin To Come

There are lots of articles about how to use Linkedin but not too many on how to use it to specifically grow your advertising agency. I am going to write more on this subject — and use my own experiences as examples.

Does Your Advertising Agency Blog Kick Ass?

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Advertising Agency Blog Objectives & Strategies

This is how Google displayed my website to the world via a search on “advertising agency new business” – a perfect search phrase for my advertising agency consultancy. This makes me happy and is a direct result of my meeting the business objectives of my blog. My objectives are clear – get traffic for my keywords, present myself as an advertising industry thought leader and drive leads. I’ve achieved this via over 650 dedicated, focused blog posts. Does your advertising agency blog meet Its objectives?

Your Advertising Agency Blog

Here are what I consider the leading objectives and strategies for an advertising agency blog. I know that if you follow these best practices that your blog’s traffic will grow exponentially.

To get started, know that: according to Hubspot, business blogging leads to an average of 55% more website visitors. I think that this is light – you will do better. Blogs are worth it – if managed.

The 7 Most Important Blog Objectives

Core Objectives – this is the blueprint:

  1. Drive Google love.
  2. Grow website traffic.
  3. Support your agency’s brand identity and credibility.
  4. Look and sound like an industry leader. A thought leader.
  5. Build an email list.
  6. Attract the best talent.
  7. Attract media attention.
  8. Build a blog that drives leads.

[Read more…] about Does Your Advertising Agency Blog Kick Ass?

Does Your Advertising Agency Do Content Marketing Right?

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Is Your Advertising Agency A Savvy Content Marketer?

I’ve read acres of advertising agency content (blogs, white papers, videos, on LinkedIn, etc.). Some rock and some suck. Many agencies, once they have stellar content, do not put in the effort to spread the wealth. As in, they do not amplify their brilliant thinking across a range of social media and traditional marketing platforms. This is a missed efficiency driver. Here’s a how to maximize your hard content building work.

To be clear, ‘content’ means the stuff that agency’s use to deliver their insightful thought leadership programs which are designed to sell the agency’s brains, expertise and to drive inbound visits and interest. Just for the hell of it, here is the definition of content from Google…

A type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts) that does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services.

Here is another well-crafted definition from the Content Marketing Institute…

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.

Great Content: Part One

One of the best content marketing companies I’ve visited/read is TrinityP3 an Australian-based global marketing management consultancy with offices on four continents. TrinityP3 is a primary thought leader in the advertising client and agency space.

Darren Woolley, founder and Global CEO, along with Mike Morgan, are the driving force behind TrinityP3. To date, they have hundreds of blog posts covering a wide range of subjects including agency management, agency search, compensation, media buying, procurement, and scope of work and, even infographics. I’m talking lots of content.  [Read more…] about Does Your Advertising Agency Do Content Marketing Right?

Marketing Technology LUMAscape = Insane

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The Insane Marketing Technology LUMAscape

I’m laughing a bit. Clarity is not exactly what I get from this Marketing Technology LUMAscape chart. Clearly, LUMAscape provides a great organized overview. However, the marketing tech landscape is insane – especially when shown in aggregate.

Insane due to its complexity, competing platforms, the time that is required for any ad agency to drill down into the information, etc. For me, the chart makes charting the path through this ever growing marketing technology universe daunting – and time-consuming and expensive (for the agency and its clients).

But. But. Clients are shifting dollars to marketing technology. And, while this ad zone is complex, your agency better be applying some gray matter and resources to this area. Here’s some research proof about the shifting landscape.

LUMAscape Gets It Right

LUMAscapes are an excellent example of smart, compelling content marketing.

Here is how LUMAcape describes itself:

LUMAscapes are some of the industry’s most widely referenced resources. They organize the ecosystem across all critical categories and provide clarity to a complex digital media and marketing landscape.

Want even more organized and sharable complexity?

Head over to see mobile, display, video, content and sales tech LUMAscapes. Yikes!

A note to advertising agencies.

Consider acting like LUMAscape.

LUMAscape probably hired a bunch of intern-types to create a list for each subject group and then a more senior person edited and ranked and then handed it all to a junior designer and — Voila, LUMAscape has a great sales tool that gets distributed by people like me. Couldn’t you create some on-going, easy to produce yet valuable insights that can be reproduced and distributed? This kinda stuff can get your agency noticed.