Insights

Do Advertising Agencies Have Business Plans?

Peter · April 16, 2014 · Leave a Comment

This post is is based on my personal SEO experience and is meant to be instructive for all small, medium and large advertising agencies that want high search results for their websites. That’s you, right?

I am in Mexico working. Just for the hell of it, I took a look at where my site ranks in the Google results for “advertising agency business plan.” Since my business is helping advertising (and design and digital) agencies position and market themselves for growth (and actually write a smart / active new business plan), I figured I’d see where I rank on this particular search. Well, I come in on page 1 (that’s sweetly good) – but, only at position number 8.

Now, considering that I am preceded by some famous and huge names…

Bplans / Fuel Lines / Wiki How / Inc. / Forbes and Entrepreneur, I am not feeling too bad.

However, I have over 250 blog posts related to this subject and I think that I should rank higher. Note: my competitor Fuel Lines started his industry blog in 2008 (wow!) and I didn’t start blogging about new business until January 2012… I shouldn’t be feeing too bad.

An important fact: I only have four blog posts with “business plan” in the headline. Lame… well, five including this new post.

So, here is what I am going to do about growing my Google position:

I will write more posts like this that have the keywords “advertising” and “business plans” in the headline and of course, include these keywords (but not too many) in the body copy.

I am also linking from this page to 3 past posts with these words in the headline. Note: most of this website is about new business after all. Here you go:

Your Advertising Agency New Business Plan

How To Write An Ad Agency Business Plan

Why Don’t Advertising And Digital Agencies Have A Business Plan?

Another factoid that answers the question… do agencies have business plans?

After talking with dozens of agencies, I figure, at best, 20% have up-to-date business plans and about 50% (I am being kind) have well-thought-out business development plans. Given that there are over 4,000 advertising agencies around the world, my market opportunity is huge / and so is yours if you have a plan.

Finally, I am going to ask you to contact me. I get about 3 qualified incoming inquiries from agencies a week. I’ll tell you how this happens. It isn’t magic and there is absolutely no reason that you can’t get lots-o incoming as well.

By the way, sign up below for my weekly newsletter.

Post Advertising: Big Data And Small Data

Peter · April 15, 2014 · Leave a Comment

Ten years ago I wrote a brilliant (yes, it was and is brilliant) white paper on how even big marketers like Nike and Disney fail to manage / love / re-market to their customer base. This fail still going on across industries. However, I’d like to think that understanding the value of CRM has advanced.

Below (after I force you to read my 2004 white paper “Get a Grip – The Marketing Power Of Managing Customer Relationships”) I will introduce you to one of the best posts / insights into how marketers should be starting to use big data for CRM C/O the Marketo blog.

[If you have any problem seeing the SlideShare doc below, you can find it right here.]

First My Take On Small Data & Nike & Disney

[slideshare id=13759471&doc=getagrippdf-120725210347-phpapp01&type=d]

OK, Now For Big Data and Marketo

This is without question, one of the best marketing blog posts I’ve read in a long time. DJ Waldlow’s post, “If You’ve Got It, Use It (Data, That Is)”, deconstructs his weekend experience with Fandango to illustrate how to use big data to customize / ROIize marketing. Oh, lets toss in realtime cause like big data you are becoming obsessed with this too. These are generally good things to be focussed on.

Here is DJ’s conclusion:

Big data is all the rage. The potential to do something interesting with that data to create more personalized user experiences is ginormous. However, if you don’t have the resources – human capital, financial capital, etc. – to leverage big data, start small. As described above, Fandango is using some pretty basic data they have about me to personalize my experience across channels (app, mobile/SMS, web, and email). It’s simple, yet incredibly effective.

Back to the top (ala Nike) — Big Data? Just do it. Or, at least start to think how to start to use it. I bet some of your clients are.

The Kinks On U.S. Tax Day

Peter · April 15, 2014 · Leave a Comment

Lets see, I bet that only about 75% of my blog readers know this Kinks song. Am I being muy generoso? None the less… today, April 15, is tax day here in the United States of America.

Therefore a wonderful song from the British Invasion…

The tax man’s taken all my dough,
And left me in my stately home,
Lazing on a sunny afternoon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLs09J_x6-c

And I can’t sail my yacht,
He’s taken everything I’ve got,
All I’ve got’s this sunny afternoon.

Save me, save me, save me from this squeeze.
I got a big fat mama trying to break me.
And I love to live so pleasantly,
Live this life of luxury,
Lazing on a sunny afternoon.
In the summertime
In the summertime
In the summertime

My girlfriend’s run off with my car,
And gone back to her ma and pa,
Telling tales of drunkenness and cruelty.
Now I’m sitting here,
Sipping at my ice cool beer,
Lazing on a sunny afternoon.

Help me, help me, help me sail away,
Well give me two good reasons why I oughta stay.
‘Cause I love to live so pleasantly,
Live this life of luxury,
Lazing on a sunny afternoon.
In the summertime
In the summertime
In the summertime

Ah, save me, save me, save me from this squeeze.
I got a big fat mama trying to break me.
And I love to live so pleasantly,
Live this life of luxury,
Lazing on a sunny afternoon.
In the summertime
In the summertime
In the summertime

My take on paying taxes is that it is better to HAVE to pay them than to not make money. Oh, and have a good accountant.

1 Reason To Pitch French Advertising Clients

Peter · April 13, 2014 · Leave a Comment

One of the better weekly newsletters I get is from the long-time-insight-rich-website Six Pixels of Separation. As the website says:

TWIST IMAGE PRESIDENT, MITCH JOEL, BRINGS YOU DIGITAL MARKETING AND MEDIA HACKING INSIGHTS AND PROVOCATIONS FROM HIS ALWAYS ON/ALWAYS CONNECTED WORLD.

Twist Image is a digital agency with offices in Montreal and Toronto that kicks most digital agency’s marketing butt and, as you can see, has a blog that adds value and drives agency awareness. Interesting fact… the agency website does a location lookup to personalize the home page. In my case, it knows that I am in Mexico right now. Nice touch.

OK, Back To Pitching French Clients

The blog has a guest feature called: Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention. This week it points to the news that the French government has dictated that management can’t email employees after work hours. In France that means after 6PM. Here is the post along with a link to the CNET News article.

French say ‘non’ to work email after 6 p.m. – cNet. “Ahh, who doesn’t want to spend their entire childhood and teenage years studying in an old school education institution that is making young people miserable, feeling inadequate and, ultimately, forcing them into a regiment of memorization of things they should never need to remember? I see this often when you look at more traditional European countries and their non-progressive school curriculums The good news? You get to graduate and become a ‘fonctionnaires,’ (if you live in France). A place that makes insane rules like this. I have a better idea: why stop at email? Just shut down the electricity for all fonctionnaires so nobody has to do anything? Alternately, you could just say, ‘hey, what if we let these adults make their own rules and attempt to find their own balance? Wow, what decade are we living in? How stupid do we think that people are?” (Mitch for Hugh).

My take…

France is fucked up. I am not a small government guy but please… can’t people run their own lives? Are the French babies that need coddling?
Recent press has discussed France’s issue of losing talented digital / programming / entrepreneur / creative class types to countries where they can do their thing in a pro-business environment.
It must be a sign of the times when management (this means some of you) has to be told to let people live their lives. I never emailed my staff after 6PM. I am a really good, understanding, caring pro family guy. I didn’t need laws to be act like a decent person. 🙂

If French agencies are going to work at say 80% of capacity then go and get business from the French clients that need 100% agencies. Hello Peugeot. That said, you will need to have a French language website like Twist Image (it helps that they are in Quebec where the government dictates that they need a bilingual website.) Hmm… is there something about French speakers?

Bon chance!

12 Ad Agency Presentation Mistakes – Why?

Peter · April 2, 2014 · Leave a Comment

I interviewed Tony Mikes, Founder/Managing Director of the 800 strong agency network Second Wind today (my agency used to be a happy member.) The interview will be one of ten expert interviews that will be included in my book on ad agency pitching. You can see the title I slaved over at the very bottom of this email.

The interview confirmed the sad truth that many agencies are making serious presentation mistakes when they pitch for new business. I already knew this because I’ve talked with many agency owners, agency search consultants, presentation experts and… clients that have sat through mistake ridden presentations. Tony reconfirmed it.

I can’t wait to publish Tony’s insightful comments. They come from firsthand experience when he recently sat on the client side of the table during the RFP and finalist process. The pitch was for the National Aquarium account and the interview with Tony is (pick your word): revealing, sad, unnerving and any other word that you can come up with that describes the lunacy of avoidable agency failure.

Tony hit on the almost all of my twelve ad agency presentation mistakes. Each of these will be discussed at length in the book.

Immediately bore the audience
Don’t have a distinctive message
Don’t have a logical flow
Load up the room with agency people
Bring poor presenters
Don’t deliver any WOW’s
Bring tons of ideas – make many of them irrelevant
Spend too much time talking about YOU not THEM
Don’t rehearse
Misuse PowerPoint
Don’t stage manage
Run out of time

Yikes. As I said, sad but true. By the way, if you search my site for other articles on pitching you will find ones like this: Half of Advertising Agency Staff Hates Pitching. This research was the genesis of my book’s reason for being.

Oh, the title…. The Levitan Pitch: Buy This Book. Win More Pitches.

Now, please sign up for my email newsletter below to make sure that your competitor down the street doesn’t read my book before you read it. I want you to win more pitches, not the other agency.