Peter Levitan & Co.

The New Business of Advertising

Insights

Inbound Marketing Works

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Inbound Marketing Delivers Inbound New Business

inbound-marketing-graphicOK, not big news here: inbound marketing works. But, in the interest of sharing, I’d just like to say it works for me big time and how it does that.

A couple of weeks ago I sensed that the number of high-octane inbound inquiries was falling off. I usually get at least a couple of qualified new business leads from interested advertising agencies a week. Noting the decline, I did the following…

  • I increased the number of new blog posts. I make sure these are very SEO friendly.
  • I boosted a Facebook post on my ‘corporate’ Facebook page (note, not a page I update on a frequent basis, at least not as much as my blog). $50 helped me get this post on advertising agency search consultants read by 1,275 well-targeted advertising leaders.
  • I upped my use of Buffer to get high traffic past posts scheduled in increased frequency on LinkedIn and Twitter. I scheduled these at different times across the day and night since my business is global.
  • I increased posting relevant blog posts in advertising and industry-related LinkedIn Groups.

Did it work?

Yes. I now have four ‘hot’ leads – from the USA, South America, and Europe. Was this a direct result of my upping my inbound efforts? I can’t directly attribute all of the leads to this effort  since not all agencies ever remember how they heard of me*. However, I have seen a 300% increase in the type of leads I want.

This makes me happy.

So…. I will just do more. Why not? My increased efforts just cost me some time and $50 bucks.

*Interestingly, it is often a long-term / repeat exposure to my brand. They see me via SEO on Google, read the blog, see guest posts, read me on LinkedIn and have bought my book on pitching.

 

 

Is Your Advertising Agency Ignoring Chatbots?

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Is Your Advertising Agency Watching The Chatbot Space?

I’ve written about the potential of chatbots as an advertising agency revenue and new business source. Read about it here on HubSpot and here on my blog.

Facebook + Microsoft + Google = Pay Attention

If you have any reason to think that chatbots are NOT going to be a major part of the digital world & your marketing, listen to the leaders of Facebook, Microsoft and Google on what they are up to.

 

Ad Agency Business Development Trick

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My Business Development Trick Interview

screen-shot-2016-11-20-at-10-30-57-amI have a business development trick I use when working with my ad agency clients. It’s my easiest and yet most beneficial trick. After some highly intelligent blabbing, I point “my” agencies to a set of benchmark agencies that are directly relevant to my customized business development plan recommendations. These benchmark agencies are perfect examples of how to fine-tune an agency positioning, how to enunciate the positioning, how to do thought leadership, how to be concise, how to actually run a ‘sales’ program that delivers new clients and how to build a website that gets read… as in, not quickly passed by.

One of those benchmark agencies has been London’s LONDON Advertising.

I’ll play the trick for you if you chat me up… and hire me. In the meantime, here is an interview I did with Michael Mosynski the CEO of LONDON Advertising that’s inside my book on winning more ad agency pitches… The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches. 

I suspect that there will be some ideas in here, Michael will help you create an agency story (note his simple sales pitch) that drives interest, how to beat mega agencies to win big accounts, how to build interpersonal chemistry and how to win the pitch. Oh, and how to create a simple agency website that sells the agency. Maybe one of the greatest tricks of all.

The LONDON Advertising Interview

Michael Mosynski is CEO of LONDON Advertising. He launched the agency seven years ago as a global agency built for today’s marketplace. The agency’s clients include Boots No7, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, Ketel One, W&O Travel, and Wegwood.

Prior to starting LONDON, Michael was the CEO of M&C Saatchi Hong Kong, Middle East, and London’s IS. Prior to joining M&C Saatchi, he held a range of senior positions at Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Worldwide. We worked together in London.

PL: LONDON Advertising is positioned as an international, yet very nimble one-office agency that that delivers “One Brilliant Idea that can work in any media, anywhere in the world.” Why does this positioning generate interest from multinational clients? [Read more…] about Ad Agency Business Development Trick

Chatbots and Your Advertising Agency

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Chatbots, Bots, Guest Posting and Your Advertising Agency

screen-shot-2016-11-18-at-11-05-24-amCheck out my article Why Bots Are the Next Big Frontier for Agencies that was posted this morning on HubSpot’s marketing blog. The article discusses my views on the power of Chatbots, the looming opportunity for advertising agencies to get on this bandwagon and my personal experience running ActiveBuddy, an early Chatbot company.

3 Takeaways

My article offers three big takeaways (I mean immediately actionable takeaways) for your ad agency and its new business program:

  1. Something new for you to talk about. Pay attention to AI and Chatbots. Savvy advertising agencies will jump on this bandwagon. It is real. Why? People like to talk to smart, friendly, uber programmed computers rather than tap out on the keyboard and phone. Oh, and Facebook loves chatbots.
  2. Your skill. Advertising agencies are good at writing or should be. Creating smart Chatbots is all about understanding human communications and writing scripts that recognize how interpersonal communications work. This is what a savvy advertising agency is good at. That savvy agency is also good at building brand to consumer conversations. Believe me, you’ve spent almost 10 years building static apps. Chatbots will unleash your inner conversational bot expertise. This is already in-house.
  3. Reach. I’m sure that you love your agency blog. But, guest posting on a mega website like HubSpot will drive way more incremental reach for your thought leadership, ideas and brand awareness. Why? Alexa tells me that HubSpot is the 529th highest ranked website. Get this, Ogilvy’s website is ranked at only 41,659 — after zillions of years of being in the ad business. Even a smart one at Ogilvy should think about guest posting if she’d like to reach more folks.

On the subject of reach… after only a couple of hours, my post was shared lots. See….

screen-shot-2016-11-18-at-10-54-01-amLast point. Here is the video ActiveBuddy made 14 years ago to launch our company. You’ll see that I thought bots were a big fucking idea then. I still do.