Insights

How Clients Find Advertising Agencies

Peter · July 15, 2013 · 2 Comments

I am starting a series of articles on how advertising and marketing clients find and select advertising agencies. My goal is to cover the advertising business development process from when a client first decides that they need a new advertising, design, public relations or digital agency to how they make their final selection.

Having been a global business development director at Saatchi & Saatchi, the owner of my own advertising agency and a marketing services client as CEO of two Internet startups, I know that finding the right agency is not easy. In fact, it is time consuming and a bit nerve wracking for clients of all sizes that have to make the right decision. Wrong is very costly in time and money wasted.

The first article on The Advertising Week Social Club is about Agency Spotter, a new digital solution that helps clients search for and discover the right agency for their specific requirements. Here is Agency Spotter in their own words:

Agency Spotter is reinventing how businesses find and work with creative agencies.

For every business, finding creative agencies takes significant time and is full of risk. Agency Spotter is a new start-up aiming to help change that. Our digital platform makes it much faster to find great agencies that fit your need and provides more information to help you make more confident decisions.

Over the next few months, I’ll cover the subject of advertising agency business development from the client perspective. I will review what clients are looking for, the process, the tools that clients use to find agencies (like Agency Spotter and the 4 A’s), the value of agency search consultants, how agency business development directors interact with prospects and more. Stay tuned.

My next interview in this series is on how to win a car account. Its with Ian Beavis, EVP Global Automotive Group at The Nielsen Company; former VP Marketing at Kia Motors; SVP Mitsubishi Motors USA and agency CEO for his opinions on what might work.

If you have any thoughts on subjects or people I should cover in future interviews, please send me an email – peter@peterlevitan.com

If you don’t want to wait to read all of the articles and would like to have me help you grow your agency (faster) take me up on my Corleone offer.

Pinterest = Content = Inbound Marketing = New Business

Peter · July 10, 2013 · Leave a Comment

Pinterest content works. Google indexes it, people like its simplicity and it is very easy to update. And… it drives incoming traffic. Think new business.

I’ve got 1,117 pins and 38 boards covering hundreds of ad agencies in my Pinterest agency directory. It is found every day and agencies write me to ask to be included or to update their page. I’ve even had a couple of clients thank me for the directory, “Thanks, what an easy way to see all the agencies in my town.”

Pinterest delivers targeted incoming new business leads via DIY inbound marketing. It took me and an Odesk helper from the Philippines (I love outsourcing) about three weeks to get it up. Cost? My time and about $300.

My point? Just imagine what your agency could do if it concentrated on “owning” a client or business related subject on Pinterest. You could…

Create a directory of every major CPG company.

Aggregate the “best of” social media promotions with sections on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.

Do a “This Week In Marketing Technology.”

List and review the websites of your favorite client’s competitors.

Point to the history of Cannes Lions winners.

Show the history of mobile phones to start to brand your agency as “mobile.”

And on.

Need more business development stimulation? It is here.

Advertising Agency New Business: A Personal Update

Peter · July 8, 2013 · Leave a Comment

Here is a quick update on my business life. I’ll be on a mini-vacation for a few days

I started to spin my advertising agency new business consultancy in late February by loading up my blog with keyword-rich “advertising agency new business / business development” content. Around 15,000 words or so in a bunch of evergreen posts. I supported that with tweets for both my posts and retweets of related content.

I continued the inbound marketing program and now have 184 posts.

These include some posts for my book, “Boomercide: From Woodstock to Suicide.”

I supplemented this blog activity with guest posts on the highly visited AdPulp and Agency Post blogs to start to build authority for peterlevitan.com. I am about to start a series on how clients find and choose advertising agencies for Advertising Week.

I built my agency directory on Pinterest using outsourced help from a great assistant in the Philippines via Odesk. Agencies now send me information on their new websites.

I wrote a couple of white papers on how Seattle and Portland agencies use (or overuse) social media on their websites. I sent Seattle Advertising and Digital Agencies and Their Love Of Social Media and a Portland version to Seattle and Portland agencies. Despite how brilliant the white papers are, I wasn’t surprised that I only got a 5% response (as in, thanks.) Why? I don’t think most agencies are sufficiently curious about virtually anything but their own navel. (I only write this because people tell me they enjoy my honesty.)

I built “The Good, Bad & Ugly”, a review of advertising agency websites and how agencies do or do not do a good job with their interent marketing programs. I gave the presentation in New York to a group of agency CEO’s. I’ve also presented this in Seattle and Portland.

I just ran a Portland Advertising Federation event about how advertising agencies could / should work with startups. I interviewed folks from Wieden+Kennedy, Nike+ Accelerator, Upstart Labs and Opal, a very smart startup that a Portland agency launched. I’ll put up a video of the event soon.

The net.. you may be wondering…

I’ve got agency clients in Portland, New York, Milan and hopefully Mexico (care of a recent discussion.) I’ve worked on agency positioning, agency Internet marketing, the whole enchilada advertising agency new business plan and RFP management. I have been helpful. Or, so they say.

So far so good.

Nerds.com

In the past couple of weeks a team from the USA (that’s me plus one more), Budapest, Scotland and soon Thailand launched a new business based on the power of Nerds (its now in alpha for testing purposes.) Nerds will be a website plus for nerds and the people interested in the nerd lifestyle. Here is a great stat… there are over 2.2 million monthly broad matches for the term “nerds” on Google. This is huge. The goal of the business is to “own” the idea of nerd and monetize it. I’d like to think of the business as becoming a Fab meets Betches Love This.

Cartoon / comics characters might play a large role. We are meeting with a LARGE animation company this week in California. Who knows.

This is my third internet start-up.

Stay way tuned.

IDL Worldwide & Best Ad Agency Sign

Peter · July 2, 2013 · Leave a Comment

One could argue that coming up with recognition for “Best Agency Sign” is not that relevant to the ad business. But, IDL Worldwide, as they say on Twitter: “@IDLWorldwide. Brand in Real Life”, is about experiences. To kinda prove the point to people walking through Portland’s trendy North Park Blocks (I say trendy just to piss off Portland folks) that IDL lives up to “real life”, they have a Working / Playing neon sign over their front door.

Since sizable crowds walk by the agency during Portland’s First Thursday Art Walk, the agency proudly declares PLAYING while serving free beers to people who come into see IDL’s art show.

So, what I dig is that they are living and declaring the agency’s stated mantra and reason for being.

Here is their neon sign which changes from…