Search Results for: linkedin

8 Point Ad Agency New Business Check List

Peter · August 2, 2013 · Leave a Comment

Advertising – Digital – PR agency new business isn’t hard to do. Its just hard to do… it. Here’s a check list to help.

I talk to a couple of agencies every week that tell me that they can’t seem to get their new business engine cranking. Unfortunately, the one thing that really gets them moving is when they lose an account. Well, guess what, its a bit late if you wait for fear to get motivated. This might help… ask yourself how many months you can run your agency on your credit line and the cash you currently have in the bank? If its less than six, get going.

The 8 Point Ad Agency New Business Check List

1. Determine what clients you want. Make a short, manageable list using a set of decision making criteria. The criteria could include client categories, size of account, geography, clients that have demonstrated a love for what you do (as in advertising or PR), clients that could use your speciality (assuming that you have a specialty as in mobile or millennial marketing or Instagram) and decide if the account is too much of a long-shot like Coke.

2. Build a detailed contact database of your Group A clients and then a Group B that includes all the others that you should stay in touch with via automated tactics like monthly emails. Use compiled databases like The List Inc. (well worth the $) and brute force using international workers from oDesk or a local intern to build and manage the list.

3. Have something valuable to say. No, this does not mean sending your latest work. This means sending things that might be of value to the client. OK, if you are targeting Intel in Hillsdale and your new CD worked for Intel in San Jose then send her related work and a case history. Or, if you are really bold… tell them you repositioned your agency to meet their needs like my friends at RedSquare. Click on this link before mid-September to see how they exploded their agency to become more competitive.

4. Get the word out at a scheduled pace. More personalized outreach to Group A and once every month or two to Group B. Be top of mind when the client wakes up and needs a new agency.

5. Make friends. Don’t be passive. Its OK to call up Group A for a chat and maybe invite then to a local gig or online seminar if they are far away. Here is my take on cold-calling, um, warm-calling.

6. Be social. Smart social media marketing will work to bring leads in. But, by smart I mean that you have to build an active social media plan based on meeting your target market’s needs. Do not write tons of content about what interests you or your staff party. Write about what interests the prospect and hit their pain points. Learn to really love LinkedIn and Twitter (use your prospect’s hashtags to subtly get noticed by them.) Facebook is for your employees, your future clients and you mom. And, I love the ease and Google friendliness of Pinterest — is your agency in my agency directory?

7. Be consistent. Have a master calendar and stick to it. The good news here is that the other agencies are not doing this with any consistency.

8. Be active. Passive does not work.

–> Oh, here is a bonus #9: If you really need a kick in the biz dev butt or hand-holding and/or the advice of someone who has been there and done it globally at Saatchi and locally for his very own agency… contact me.

The 10 Most Important Ad Agency New Business Actions

Peter · June 7, 2013 · Leave a Comment

Here are the 10 most important actions that an ad agency must do to build a killer new business program:

Have a business development plan. The plan could be a one-pager but it must include objectives, target criteria for categories and individual clients, strategies and actions.
Treat your agency’s new business program like a client job. Have timetables, crystal clear internal staff assignments and responsibilities. A business development calendar with deadlines will help with planning and implementation.
Put a senior manager in charge. Give this person the time to do the job. Consider a way to get past the billable hours issue. This job is too important to the health of your P&L.
Think really hard about how to use and manage the power of social media for inbound marketing. The key here is to have a sub-plan for your social media efforts. This is how I rank the value of social media on a need to have basis: search engine optimized blog posts (and agency website copy), then Twitter and LinkedIn (both tied to broadcast your blogs), YouTube, Pinterest, SlideShare and then Facebook.
Build a client prospect database (Excel works. Salesforce works even better — if someone has been assigned to manage it) and, most importantly, track all in and outbound marketing activities. Data is good.
Be consistant. Don’t wait until you lose business to ramp up your new business program. Here is a guarantee – you will eventually lose business so keep filling the pipeline.
Hold periodic status meetings. But, not too many.
Track all activities. Data and analytics are your best friend. Do what works over and over. Kill what dosen’t.
Make sure your CEO is involved. Hungry CEO’s are a very good thing. In my experience, No CEO attention = No ACTIVE business development program.
Stay hungry. Be audacious. Kick ass. This is your chance to look and sound different from the other 3,999 advertising agencies and to drive awareness of a unique door opening message. Need some idea stimulation? Take a look at how London’s Joint uses humor to drive home the idea that they have a few open client categories.

If you need some help developing your program, building your lists or managing your process give me a call.

5 Things Ad Agency CEO’S Need To Do

Peter · May 13, 2013 · Leave a Comment

Just 5 Things (To Start)

A few years ago, long after Google’s AdWords started to eat ad dollars, I asked a few ad agency CEO’s if they had ever placed an online Google ad. The unanimous answer was… no.

Two nights ago, I asked a similar group if they had ever used a CMS tool like WordPress. The answer… (OK, getting better) was about 30%. (Um, that might be a bit optimistic).

30% is good but not great. I think that this lack of CEO curiosity and hands-on experience is a significant problem. How can CEO’s talk social media, digital media and advertising disruption if they haven’t used the disrupting technology themselves?

So, what should these CEO’s do? Pick a rainy weekend day and play with the Internet.

Go Forth And Tweet

Open a Twitter account, create a simple profile (look at mine for example @peterlevitan) and seriously post for a couple of weeks. Find out what is involved in creating this real-time marketing tool. It isn’t that difficult and you can even use a publishing system like Buffer or a RSS reader like Feedly.com to automatically Tweet about websites that you find. It couldn’t be easier. Use key words and hash tags to drive views (these are those #’s that can look like #advertising for example if you want to actually target Twitter users that follow advertising.) If after a couple of weeks you love it, sense that you might want to participate in your agency’s Twitter feed then work on your Twitter plan. If you just wanted to see what Twitter felt like, then close your account and now your can truthfully tell people that you really get Twitter.

Blog On

Ask your blog meister to show you how to create blog posts using your CMS system. CMS stands for content management system, but you already knew that. You’d be surprised how easy posting is. The hard part is doing it with consistency and having an actual agency blog strategy that results in a blog that drives agency business. This process should help you gain insight into the strategic opportunities that an agency blog offers. Ask yourself if your agency blog is targeting prospective clients, your industry, your staff or…. well, given how much time blogging takes, figure just who is the target audience after all?

Place A Google Ad

Ask virtually anyone in the agency to take you through the process of creating and targeting a Google AdWords text ad. Google AdWords was the major source of Google’s $42.5 billion in 2012 ad revenues. You really should understand all about this advertising channel. The only way to really get a handle on it is to place an ad. A suggestion. Pick a prospective client and target them. See what happens.

Try Facebook Or LinkedIn

Both Facebook and LinkedIn have very easy to use self-serve advertising tools. Within minutes you could create and place a targeted an ad for your agency that links back to your Facebook, LinkedIn or agency website. You’ll see what works by using their analytical tools. The dry cleaner down the block does this. You can too – believe me.

Go Geek

Speaking of analytics, I’ll assume that your agency website uses an analytical tool like Google Analytics. There is a lot of learning residing in your traffic data. Take a look who is visiting your website, where they are coming from, if they are using a computer or mobile device (this can be surprising), what keywords they used to find you, how much time they are spending on the website and so much more. Its strangely addictive and very revealing and you’ll be on your way to becoming an SEO genius.

There are more things that you, and I mean you, could be doing. But, just start here and you’ll sound brilliant at lunch with your colleagues or next agency network meeting.

By the way, I can help you figure out your social media strategy. Well, what I mean is help you create a plan that uses social media to actually drive agency new business. Talk to me.

OK, OK… Here Is Oner More

Guest blog on high traffic websites to get your agency and yourself out there much fur=ther than you could on your advertising agency blog.

I did and it got me: more new agency clients; speaking gigs; fame and cash. Here is a post on why guest blogging is for you (even if you use a ghost writer).

The Advertising Resource List…

Hey, go here to see lots of online resources you can use to grow your business and personal brand right here…