Insights

Does B2B Social Media Still Work?

Peter · June 11, 2019 · 2 Comments

Does B2B social media marketing still work for advertising agencies?

I’ll get to that answer in a minute.

Background: I have been thinking of writing a book on the why, how, when and when to move overseas. Thinking about this is a result of my being asked every week about the how and why I moved from Portland, OR to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico in 2016. My book would be crammed with facts by country, the personal side of living overseas (with many interviews with digital nomads and expats) and associated benfits and costs.

I mentioned this new idea to my wife and she asked me… why not a blog? It has an ongoing life and gets written in manageable chunks vs. a static book. Plus a blog can be monetized. Publishing books in 2019 is a pain in the ass – for both traditional publishers and self-published authors (I know, I’ve published four books).

Of course, like so many business endeavors, the rubber hits the road when one starts to figure out how to market the blog or book. That is how I got to starting to think about how to grow an audience.

Me

This blog has gotten between 75 and 60 thousand visitors a year. I’m happy – these are strong numbers for a focussed blog about advertising agency business development.

I know that growth has come from a small set of factors.

I started in 2012 when there were significantly fewer blogs in general and a smaller set of advertising agency consultants.
I have strong SEO skills that have helped me to live on page one for the right Google searches.
I did a lot of guest posting from 2014 to 2016. This got my name and URL out there.

However, like many of my marketing friends and agency clients, I am seeing a reduction in traffic. I believe that this is a result of market shifts:

Competition for B2B eyeballs is much stronger.
Organic reach is tanking. Google is less friendly (for many reasons).
Mobile viewership continues to grow (smaller screens do not help me get shares and convert – this might be an arguable point).

Spend Money

Many of the agencies that thought that all they had to do is to spend the time writing brilliant blogs posts to build audience are not getting the traction they had hoped for.

The solution… you must market your social media programs. Even $100 a month marketing budget can help your company’s social media program reach its prospects. Passive is way too passive in today’s competitive social universe.

But… writing blog posts and managing LinkedIn and Instagram and even more costs money and time itself.

My solution is at the bottom.

Daunting Social Media Facts

Here are some facts about social media platforms in 2019 that might cause a marketer to really think hard about the competition for eyeballs. Simply put, given the growth in all social media platforms, can your blog and other social media efforts ever deliver the audience you seek? I come to this question via both my personal journey and watching dozens of advertising agencies fail at driving interest via social media.

Blogs: There are over 500 million blogs. WordPress alone estimates that there are 60 million WordPress blogs.
LinkedIn’s monthly active user base is over 260 million (Apptopia).
Instagram: Instagram has over 1 billion monthly active users. More than 500 million use the platform every day (Statista).
Facebook: Over 2 billion active users (Statista).
YouTube: Total number of YouTube monthly viewers worldwide – 149 million (Statista).
Twitter: From the Washington Post – “Twitter claimed 321 million monthly users, down 9 million, or more than 2 percent from the same time last year.”

Repeated Point Coming

(!) The solution… you must market your social media programs. Even $100 a month marketing budget can help your company’s social media program reach its prospects. Passive is way too passive in today’s competitive universe.

(!) Something else to consider – really grow your account based marketing program. Go beyond social media marketing to doing more direct marketing to your list to make sure your sales message is delivered.

Oh, try this: Talk to me.

How To Study Your Competitive Advertising Agencies

Peter · June 10, 2019 · Leave a Comment

3 Competitive Advertising Agency Growth And Business Development Tools

This post provides a brief look at 3 tools for you to study your competitive advertising agencies. And, they are excellent insight drivers to use for your new client business development program. Want to prove to prospects that they need you? Use these tools to deliver insights and to make your point.

In order to be truly competitive, you need to know what your competitive agencies are doing online, how well they are doing and what wonderful and effective marketing and content plays they are using to drive their awareness and new client interest.

Good news, many of these analytics can be used for free – up to a point. Neil’s tools are free. SEMrush and SimilarWeb will start you out for free and then change for enhanced analytics.

I’ll be adding more business development tools – Sign up on the left for my weekly newsletter so you don’t fall behind your very own agency competitors.

Neil Patel’s UberSuggest, Traffic Analyzer, and SEO Analyzer and SEO Analyzer

Neil Patel’s free UberSuggest, Traffic Analyzer, and SEO Analyzer tools generate free website analysis reports that include top keywords and pages and suggested revisions to improve website health. Use it for your advertising agency website and then compare it to your competition. By the way, note how Neil uses these tools to drive his own traffic and love. IP is cool people.

Here is a quick look at an analysis of the digital award winning agency The Many’s Site Audit.

SEMrush

Need some more online visibility? SEMrush is a longstanding winner in the analytics arena. Their online research tools deliver insights into traffic analytics; organic and advertising research; backlinks and keyword research.

Take a look at New York’s Oberland, another hot agency. I bet your agency would be happy with 19,300 visits last May 2019.

11 Must Have Ad Agency Business Development Tools

Peter · June 8, 2019 · 1 Comment

11 Must-Have Ad Agency Business Development Tools (Updated From 2014).

NOTE: I first wrote this 11 Must-Have Ad Agency Business Development Tools blog post at the very end of 2014 and a few minutes ago the website checker app Checkbot pointed out that this post has a couple of dead links. (4.5 years later and it is interesting to see what tools have survivied). So, I thought that I’d repost and make things work. I suspect a reason for the broken links is that some of these tools are history. Here is what I found.

Back to 2014 – it is still worth the read… Blog post Consistency, actually the lack of it, is one of the most pressing issues that reduces the effectiveness of most advertising agency new business programs. So… Here are some ad agency business development tools that I recommend to keep your agency’s new business and content development program on track. (Tweet this.)

These tools (and there is a big world of tools out there these days) will help your efficiency and, more importantly, make you look like a subject matter expert because you are on that ball. Even better, as you use these tools for your own business development efforts, you will be gaining social media expertise that will dazzle your client prospects.

Clients (the ones you do not have yet) need your help according to this research from Ascend2.

Almost half of the clients surveyed have significant social media obstacles to overcome. You can help them by helping yourself.

This list of 11 tools is my first set of recommended online social media management tools. There will be more coming. [Read more…] about 11 Must Have Ad Agency Business Development Tools

B2B Ghosting Is Bullshit

Peter · June 4, 2019 · Leave a Comment

B2B Ghosting Sucks.

Do you know what ghosting is? Here is a definition… From a Google search. I believe that the definition works for both interpersonal relationships, the current common usage, and B2B interactions.

The practice of ending a personal relationship with someone by suddenly and without explanation withdrawing from all communication.

Why mention ghosting in a B2B blog post about an advertising agency business relationship? Because B2B ghosting happens too often.

The B2B Black Hole Proposal AKA – You’ve Been Ghosted

You’ve probably been here. You send a prospect a proposal (they asked for it) or a recommendation to an advertising client (because you are smart and this is what they want from a good agency) and you do not hear back. No response. Nada. Like its starting to feel like never. And, sure you followed up. But, nada. Let’s call it ghosting.

And, worse, any way you think about it, it is simply rude.

This B2B ghosting definition occurred to me today for a couple of reasons.

First, I heard an episode about ghosting on This American Life. The episode is yet another good one from these stellar folks, listen to it. Get A Spine.
Second, I have two proposals out to agencies without any feedback or response.
These proposals are sitting at two Brooklyn agencies and they have gone dark. Important: they asked for the proposals. I delivered. I have been doing this advertising agency proposal / big idea way too long to get upset. But, I do think that not responding is way too unprofessional.

This is a learning moment – a decent subject for a blog post.

Get Past Ghosting

Your mom did not bring you up to act like this. Rude is not cool.

So, y’all need to respond to proposals. Note, NOT doing so is bad Karma. You are, after all, an agency that wants your current and future clients to respond to YOU. Right?

Side note: I get a hundred plus visits to my website every day. Better yet, I get multiple quality leads from advertising agencies a month. These leads, after a conversation, often result in a proposal. Many of the proposals result in clients for my consultancy.

Hardly any end up as dark hole ghosts. Most agencies understand good Karma. And, they listened to their mom. Maybe they even listened to the Dali Lama. Apparently, this Karma stuff might not be an active ingredient at Brooklyn agencies.

OK, it’s a small sample.

LOL. I am over it. Writing is so cathartic.

How To Name Your Advertising Agency: Part One

Peter · May 17, 2019 · Leave a Comment

A Strategic Guide To How To Find Your New Advertising Agency Name

This is Part One of a two-part series on how to name your advertising agency (or, most businesses for that matter).

Other than the gyrations that agencies constantly go through with how to position their agency (go here to see my advice on agency positioning); design and redesign their website… how they name themselves is one of their most important branding decisions.

I worked for three advertising agencies. Two were “founder” agencies: Dancer Fitzgerald Sample (remember “Where’s the beef?”) and Saatchi & Saatchi (which bought Dancer) and the other was my very own Portland agency and its “current usage” name: Citrus. Or, as one of our creative directors thought was critical to our success, citrus, with a lower case “c.’

A Question…

Do advertising names matter? Wow, this is a tough one to answer. As you will see from the different naming conventions listed below, how one chooses a name is a broad journey. However, just for the hell of it, here are some of the names for AdAge’s 2018 Small Agency Awards. Do any of these agency names instill immediate confidence? A must call reaction? Are memorable?

Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners
Mistress
Johnxhannes
The Chopping Block
Funworks
Oberland
Walrus (cool website)
Phenomenon
Brownstein Group
Steak
Yard
G&M Plumbing
Spawn ideas
Next/Now

My favorite (at least for this one second) is Next/Now. This name kind of meets a client pain point.

Part One: The Wonderful World of the Advertising Agency Name

I recently asked one of my advertising agency clients how they selected their name (note, it’s a word you use every day in your kitchen.) They said that they went through a fairly random process with the goal of finding a name that was easy to remember and not taken. Well, that’s one way to do it. Another is to apply process. [Read more…] about How To Name Your Advertising Agency: Part One