Contrary to (some) popular belief, Gary Vaynerchuk actually loves you and your advertising agency. He wants to help you grow. Here is my take on today’s Gary Vaynerchuk plus a rather inspiring B2B marketing video.
FYI: One of my best-read blog posts is “Gary Vaynerchuk Is Full Of Shit.” It is a response to his early damning of the advertising industry. Take a read. By the way, it has been read over 5,000 times. Why? Well, putting “Gary Vaynerchuk’ and “Full Of Shit” in your headline gets Google’s attention and speaks to my audience.
My original sense of Gary being full of shit stemmed from Gary’s 2015’s “Do you know the problem with Marketing?” episode of the Ad Age Digital Crash Course:
Here’s the ‘shit’ part. In the video, GaryVee pontificates in ‘Gary Speak’ about how advertising agencies don’t care about selling products (only about winning awards); that emotion does not sell (tell that to Apple’s “Think Different”); that ‘traditional’ advertising is inefficient (like much of digital isn’t); that creatives might want to consider shooting 10 spots for $300K each vs. one for $3 million (this is a new idea??? what world is he living in?) and that maybe we should think about testing advertising before we run it (hmm… that’s a new one).
I love self-promotion. And I get railing at the old ways of doing business to further one’s cause. But, please, cut the way too obvious crap and don’t be insulting.
Gary Vaynerchuk Is Not Full Of Shit – He Wants To Love You (And Your Ad Agency)
OK, that was Gary in 2015 when he was building Vaynermedia and needed some service differentiation. Let’s cut to 2019. He recently spoke to a meeting of the Association of Independent Mortgage Experts. Watch the speech and Q&A below. Gary has both mellowed and has a lot of insight to deliver – to any B2B marketer. Just like your advertising agency.
A couple of Gary’s key points:
Buy underpriced attention for your agency marketing. This includes hammering underutilized LinkedIn. Hammer. Post like 40X a day.
Create longer content, like Gary’s videos, and cut them up for distribution. Amplify everything.
Don’t go out and hire a “social media expert” to run your program. YOU spend the 50 hours to learn it before you can ever judge the value of the freelancer/expert. I remember asking advertising agency CEO’s at Advertising Week if they ever placed a Google ad. The answer was no. I was like, are you kidding me? Do you even know WTF is going on?
Gary was asked how he finds the time to get things done. His answer – you probably waste three hours a day on really stupid shit. That 1-hour meeting should be 15 minutes.
If you run a local advertising agency, let’s say in Raleigh Durham, create a local show. Do a podcast, a local newsletter, a blog… just become known locally for your agency voice.
Big One: Romance your clients. Ever say thank you? Call up a client one year later to discuss that great project you did 12 months earlier? Send an unexpected gift? Call back a prospect that has fallen off your A-List? Find a good reason to say, Howdy.
The GaryVee Video…
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