Peter Levitan & Co.

The New Business of Advertising

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How Clients Find An Advertising Agency

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How Do Clients Find Their Next Advertising Agency?

One of the more challenging questions I ask my advertising agency business development clients is, “How do your prospective advertising, design, digital or PR clients find your advertising agency?”

In most cases, the number one answer is referrals or WOM. Of course, of course, this is a wonderful way to gain future client interest. However, the referral route is rather passive unless an agency has a highly active referral program. Even with a proactive in-house referral program, counting on referrals is not a high numbers game and is a bit too passive.

I am not a fan of passivity and think that an advertising agency needs to be everywhere a prospective client might look for them.

Everywhere.

In the old days, that even included having a Yellow Pages ad. Call me if you do not know what the Yellow Pages were.

Back to the question… “How do your prospective advertising, design, digital or PR clients find your advertising agency?”

The general list of responses goes like this. I’ve included links to some previous thoughts on some of these front doors:

  • Through direct referrals from clients, friends, and family. General word of mouth. Read: Six Business Development Referral Strategies.
  • Clients find us using a Google search. Read: Google Will Screw Your Ad Agency.
  • We run ads on Google.
  • We are on third-party advertising agency lists. Read: The Ultimate Advertising Agency List
  • We have won creative and marketing awards that increase our brand awareness. Clios help.
  • We get press from advertising industry publications.
  • We get press from client category/industry publications.
  • A future client saw one of our ‘great’ existing client ads or programs and contacted us.
  • Our social media programs attract new client interest. Read: Does B2B Social Media Still Work?
  • Our account-based marketing sales program directly targets the clients we want.
  • We get RFI and RFP requests advertising agency consultants. Read: 34 Advertising Agency Search Consultants.
  • We are listed on the local advertising club website.

So, How Do Clients Find Their Next Advertising Agency? As in, like yours?

First, let’s agree that you want to be found (maybe not by every potential client. But, you still want to out there.)

The only way to do that is to be everywhere a potential client will look for you. If this sounds simple and you are already doing this, Great. If not and you need an actionable strategy and tactics to solve this formable problem/opportunity…

Let’s talk about how to grow your business. You are in a hurry, right?

Contact me and take me up on my free Vito Corleone offer. 

Getting Advertising Agency Sales Pitch Attention Via Hello Sir

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How Your Advertising Agency’s Sales Pitch Is Like An Indian Shopkeeper

I was in the Indian states of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh and Delhi and Mumbai for the month of January. As a tourist, my attention was desired by many shop keepers, solo tour guides and taxi drivers.

The usual sales pitch come-on, the way for me to be enticed to turn and make eye contact, were questions. Essentially two: a questioning “Hello Sir?” or “Where are you from.”

While I always heard the question, I learned not to make eye contact in most cases as the ultimate offer being made was usually the same. I was being asked to enter a shop to buy something, generally, pashmina scarfs or a new suit, to receive an offer of transportation or some form of guidance. In some way, I was sad that I did not speak with everyone. That I dismissed their personal ‘pitch’ through silence. But, really, I had no choice if I wanted to get on with my daily plans.

Advertising Agency Business Development, It’s Sales Pitch And “Hello Sir”

Over the years, I’ve noticed that many advertising, design and PR agencies do little more than what the Indian shopkeepers did. These agencies simply find a way to wave their hands to say “Here we are” to prospective clients. 

The agency sales message can be effective in getting attention for a fleeting moment, but the next set of words or information looks like all the other hand waving from other agency competitors. The agencies offer little in a customized sales pitch or insights that would help the client want to turn their head and want to hear more.

Sameness, or worse, being ignored, is a space that many agencies business development programs live in.

I’ll talk more about building strategic and action-oriented brand and message differentiation in the next couple of weeks. OK, I have actually been writing about this for years. But, I’ll deliver more direct ideas and collation of past thinking.

Most agencies have to get past, “Hello Sir.”

Hello Sir

Ask me how your agency’s sales pitch can break you out of the “pashmina” pack.

 

P&G And A Brighter Toothpaste Idea

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P&G – Here’s My Toothpaste Idea

I happened upon a P&G executive in Varanasi during my India trip, I am here the month of January. Our conversation netted a new toothpaste idea.

He said that he was in R&D and when I asked for detail, he told me that he was “upstream” which I take for management.

I asked if P&G was exploring the marijuana industry/opportunity and was told that if so, it was not discussed in the hallways.

I (humorously) suggested that they create a marijuana THC or CMD toothpaste.

My tagline: Use (Brandname-to-be-Determine) Toothpaste…

“For A Truly Brighter Smile”

Or…

“Start Your Day With A Smile”

 

7 New Advertising Agency Resources

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My holiday gift this year is to send you off with 7 new advertising agency resources. Some of these tools should help you grow your agency by fine-tuning its marketing programs and making you look smart.

Yes, that is David Ogilvy. His Madmen resources included a typewriter, pencil and paper and brilliant ideas. It was a bit less complicated then. Oh, except for coming up with brilliant ideas. Y’all still need those.

If you dig these new resources, head over the master advertising agency resource list for a bazillion more.

Speed Is Good.

Google PageSpeed Insights. Do you know how fast your website download speed is and how its performance ranks against your competitive agencies? Here’s the drill. If your site takes too long to download, it will lose some traffic.

Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. Here’s another very important test. If you are like me, over 20% of your website visitors are looking at you on a mobile device then you better make sure that they are digging how fast your website loads.

BROWSEO. We might be getting a bit geeky here. That said, BROWSEO helps you view any web page like search engines see it. The tool helps you to identify issues with your site and with your current and future clients’ websites.

What Are People Searching For?

AnswerThePublic. This is a free visual tool that shows you what questions and queries your consumers have by getting a free report of what they’re searching for at Google.

Google Trends. Chances are good that you are aware of Google Trends. This a powerful tool to help you know what is hot and what is not on Google’s search universe. A look at the top 2019 Google searches may or may not make you a fan of humanity.

Amazon Best Sellers. Here is a list just for you if you want to see what the world is buying.

Social Mention.  Ever wonder what the world is saying about you or your company? Here you go. This is what they say (better than I could): Social Mention is a simple, useful tool for monitoring and tracking social media. It helps you see who’s making references to you or your company — or to any topic, for that matter. It aggregates user-generated content from across different social networks, letting you search and analyze it all in one place.

OK. One More Advertising Agency Resource.

That’s me if you want to grow your bottom line in 2020.

Is Domino’s Delivery Insurance Bad Advertising?

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A quick note before I get to Domino’s and their Delivery Insurance advertising… We’ve all seen the, mostly consternation, at the husband who buys his wife a Peloton bike for Christmas. The issues: husband type gives beautiful wife an exercise bike; she (at 120 LBs kicks into gear and by the end drops three LBs.) PC issues here. People go crazy. Spoof TV commercial goes very viral. But, for comparison on the PC scale, I discuss worker exploitation that stars in a Domino’s TV commercial. Did this ad get anyone’s attention? Well, a bit. But not at the level of Peloton.

I am sitting in front of my TV in Mexico watching Sunday NFL football games. Domino’s is spending some big bucks to show me a commercial about its “Delivery Insurance” where their employees freak out, run around the kitchen, drive fast and run down the street and walkways to deliver pizzas that quite possibly had arrived earlier without the right topping. Holy shit, who can live without their pepperoni?

Domino’s Advertising Problem

Like you, I have seen numerous articles in the past couple of months about how Amazon’s hourly-wage employees suffer injury trying to get you that new pair of headphones within 24 hours. Some parts of Amazon’s warehouses look like slave-driven machines. This hasn’t been a good PR season for Bezos.

Given the Amazon press, do you think that Domino’s Kate Trumbull, VP of advertising and Hispanic marketing has been paying attention to how a major corporation can damage its employees in a quest for speed? Does Domino’s ad agency pay attention?

Take a look at this commercial. Take a look at how the hourly-wage employees, note – average hourly wage at Domino’s is $6 to $11 per hour for a delivery driver (I’ll do the math for you – that’s about $20,000 per year) – is hustling like a fucking NASCAR whirling dervish to get you that missing dipping sauce.

I guess the next question is… does the TV viewer care about the insane Domino’s work system as long as they get their sausage?

Am I being too sensitive?