Peter Levitan & Co.

The New Business of Advertising

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How To Win The Advertising Agency Pitch

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Hubspot Advertising Agency Expert Series: How To Win The Pitch

Screen Shot 2017-03-30 at 3.29.41 PMI won my first advertising agency pitch over 30 years ago and have been pitching ever since. And, channeling a bit of chutzpah, I’ve won more than my fair share at Saatchi & Saatchi, at my two Internet startups (I pitched VC’s and advertising clients) and at my own ad agency. In fact, I put my not so secret secrets in my book, The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches. I say not so secret because the agencies that win more pitches do so by following a set of logical rules or processes and truly understand the needs of the client being pitched.

Frankly, I’d love you to buy the book. However, our friends at Hubspot will help you get going to more wins by having me deliver a 1-hour seminar on pitching in their Agency Expert Webinar Series.

The “Win” session is in a couple of weeks – so get it on your calendar…. June 14 at 11 AM ET that’s 4 PM GMT.

 

My online presentation: The Pitch: Present Smarter To Win MoreClients. You can sign up right here @ Registration.

My goal is to help your agency and people master the new business pitch process. This means more wins; more profits; more happiness; more craft beers and longer holidays (OK, more beers.)

About HubSpot’s Agency Expert Webinar Series

HubSpot’s Agency Expert Webinar series is an opportunity for professionals in the agency space to hear from industry leaders and learn about their areas of expertise.

Hear from thought leaders about their experiences in agency life in one-hour YouTube live segments, focusing on topics ranging from agency growth and brand experiences to finding new talent and procuring clients.

My Presentation On Pitching & Presenting

My presentation will track the key elements and advice from my book, “The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches.”

You don’t have to buy the book to track the presentation. But, why not buy it anyway – you will win more advertising agency pitches. Hey, go ahead and buy multiple copies. You can do that with just a couple of clicks … and even get a free chapter at the top of this page.

What You Will Learn

I’ll track these key elements of the book…

Chapters One & Two:

These chapters reveal the very high cost of failing to run well-crafted, efficient pitches. Chapter One includes an instructive and humorous story about the worst advertising pitch ever… for the global Adidas account at Saatchi London. Chapter Two offers a system for how to choose which pitches to go for and which must be avoided.

Chapters Three & Four:

Chapter Three begins to help you position your pitch and presentation for success by learning how you will understand the client’s mindset, type of assignment and what style of agency and relationship the client is actually looking for. Chapter Four covers “The 12 Deadliest Presentation Mistakes” that must be avoided to win that new account.

Chapter Five:

This detailed chapter is a ‘how-to’ of 30 techniques on how to build a brilliant presentation that will increase your odds of winning. These ideas cover the three major elements of a successful pitch: process management, content development, and how to craft a compelling presentation. Each element is supported by an insight that offers a fast way to achieve these objectives.

Chapters Six & Seven:

These chapters deliver insightful interviews with advertising industry leaders. You’ll get valuable learning via 14 interviews with a range of clients, presentation gurus, and industry association experts. Finally, the book includes real-world insights from 16 of the world’s leading search consultants. Believe me, they’ve heard it all.

Expedia And Sales Chutzpah

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A Lesson From Expedia On Sales Chutzpah

Screen Shot 2017-05-20 at 5.02.30 PMOK, we all have bad customer service experiences. I get it. But when the bad experiences go across four Expedia service phone conversations (that lasted about three plus hours over two days) and another six back and forth Twitter direct tweets and the customer who is spending over $5,000 on the trip is still unsatisfied (that’s me), there must be something wrong with how Expedia runs the humanbeing (vs. digital) sales service side of its business.

No, This Post Is Not About Expedia. It Is About Your Ad, PR, Digital, etc. Agency

Stick with me because this blog post is actually about a way to grow your agency – a way that requires a bit of chutzpah. However, before I get to your agency and an unignorable sales tactic, I have to share a tiny bit of customer service related background to set up the chutzpah recommendation.

A few weeks ago, I used Expedia to book two tickets from Mexico City to Budapest for a summer trip to see the Hungarian F1 Grand Prix race. This week, I called Expedia to change the trip by adding a few days up front and move the original first destination from Budapest to Vienna. I knew about and was willing to spend the extra $500 flight change charge and, before I called, I had also looked at all of the available flight options. I was prepared for the service rep call. But, I was not prepared for the following:

Expedia’s phone system could never recognize my itinerary number or phone number (the ones that are listed on Expedia’s original flight plan document). I knew I was in the system because when I finally got to a rep, she recognized the numbers. What’s up with Expedia’s automated phone system and the interface with its database?

While it took me about 30 seconds to get to the Iberia Airlines and Expedia sites to find my reservation detail, it took the multiple Expedia reps I talked to at around two minutes.

I was repeatedly asked if Mexico City was my origination airport (I live in Mexico) and if I was to change flights in Madrid as stated on my reservation. Um, yes.

The reps took forever to find alternative flights although I was helping them find the alternatives. And on. I won’t bore you with more including the third rep who apologized for how sloooooow Expedia’s computer was working.

Taken individually, these don’t appear to be too onerous. However, in aggregate, they were and I gave up without making the flight change.

OK, two more points.

I was so pissed off that I sent LinkedIn InMails to three Expedia marketing execs gently complaining about the service and asking them if they ever sat in on customer calls – consider this action an internal “Store-Check”. It’s been four days since I sent the emails. Any response? No. Sure these folks get lots of emails. But, I used attention-getting customer-centric subject lines.

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The Cost Of Ad Agency Business Development

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Ad Agency Business Development. What Does It Actually Cost?Screen Shot 2017-05-13 at 9.53.38 AM

Simple answer? Ad agency business development costs… a lot. A more detailed answer follows.

I recently spoke about ad agency business development (essentially the art of Account Based Marketing) at Hanapin Marketing’s PPC Hero conference in L.A. and did a day long ‘how to pitch’ workshop for a major agency network at their annual meeting in Miami. I came away from both sessions thinking about the high cost of business development.

The True Cost Of Business Development

Since there is no one size fits all answer to what BD costs, I am going to illustrate the cost for a typical medium sized agency. Based on many conversations with agency leadership and the research done for my book on pitching (see the top of this page or just go here to buy it), the cost of participating in a serious pitch can cost close to $100,000. Sounds high, right? But, here is my math.

I am making the assumption that a typical medium size agency responds to 10 RFP’s and participates in 6 serious pitches per year. Of course, your mileage may vary.

RFP’s cost $15,000 to write and produce. This includes both hard and soft costs as in labor and overhead. At 10 RFP’s per year, that’s $150,000.

Pitches are more expensive.  Lets go with $35,000 per pitch. If you are an active agency, you’ll do 6 per year at a total cost of $210,000. FYI, I’ve run pitches at Saatchi & Saatchi that cost over $100,000. Not at all happy about that but that is a fact at the huge agencies pitching for huge pieces of business.

OK, back to the mid-size agency. The annual agency cost for RFP’s and pitching is $360,000.

But, there is more and I am going to be very conservative here. I am going with $200,00 per year for the cost of an active business development program itself. That’s the hard costs and the cost of a BD director and significant management time.

The total… $360,000 plus $200,000 = $560,000 or $56,000 per RFP and $93,333 per pitch.

Ouch.

Business Development – A Cost Center Or Opportunity?

The big question at many client companies is whether or not marketing is a cost or a business opportunity. Of course, you tell your clients that it is an opportunity that pays for itself. No marketing, no sales. Well, this is the case at many agencies. They simply do not spend the effort (as in time, investment and planning – oh, and execution) to run smart aggressive business development programs. As both an ex-Saatchi guy and small Oregon agency owner, I am blown away by this.

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How Do Clients Choose An Advertising Agency?

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How Do Clients Choose An Advertising Agency?

choiceAh, let me count the ways clients decide which advertising agency to contact when they need to dial up their marketing. But, let’s just keep this blog post real simple. They choose them based on what they do.

The “Data” Agency.

I am going to Miami next week to do an all-day workshop on business development pitching (plus agency sales in general and negotiating) for a large data marketing firm. While prepping for a discussion on how to sound unique, I took a look at how many of the top data oriented agencies talk about themselves. So, just to demonstrate what I call sameness vs. distinction, I offer their descriptions. These come from their websites. I’ve kept their names off to protect the innocent.

Note: I know that it is very difficult to find the words that deliver distinction when you need to start with a very clear definition of what you do. However, I think the following, at least, demonstrates that an advertising agency has to think hard about their words.

But, you know this. Therefore, this is just food for thought. I suggest that you take a hard look at your own descriptive words vs. your direct competitors. Since most clients are making a high percentage of their decisions about your agency before they ever call you (an understatement), this is a rather smart analysis that I recommend you do every six months given the speed of change.

The Agencies…

ABC. Make lifetime connections with the industry’s most advanced data-driven marketing.

DEF is a premier digital data analytics firm that works with the world’s leading brands to create, implement and action advanced analytics. 

GHI. We use data, technology, intuition and creativity to connect people to brands in a meaningful way.

JKL. We’re a data-driven marketing agency. We build individual relationships at scale using sophisticated data platforms and the same technologies that are disrupting the media environment.

MNO is a technology and services company that provides the data foundation for the world’s best marketers.

PQR is a global data-driven, technology-enabled performance-marketing agency.

STU is the leading global information services company, providing data and analytical tools to clients around the world.

Write Your Advertising Book

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Write Your Advertising Agency Book

I’ve written and presented at conferences about writing an advertising agency book. It could be a book book, a digital book or even a zine. Just write it and benefit.

The benefits? People will buy it. You will look like an expert. You could make a few bucks. You will get more incoming leads. Actually, it should be about getting more leads.

The Levitan Pitch — My Sales

The sales of my book The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches. (look at the top of this page) are still growing. And, I keep getting leads from people that read it. This is all good. While not a goal, I even make some bucks (for me and Jeff Bezos). See a decent the two month period below. Hey, book sales are buying me my trip to this summer’s Hungarian Grand Prix (that’s Formula 1 for you NASCAR fans.)

 

My Two-Month Amazon Book Sales