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Is It OK For Ad Agencies To Shout?

Peter · February 25, 2015 · Leave a Comment

Yes, it is OK for ad agencies to shout.

First, a story.

I received an email last week from a reader that told me that he thought that I was promoting my book on presenting and pitching too hard. I found this comment thought provoking for a few reasons.

I have, like most of you, been ‘selling’ something for years. I’ve sold creative, strategic thinking, internet startup ideas, ad agency services, an ad agency itself and two books. Selling comes naturally to me. Not hard selling. But, selling nonetheless.

Why shouldn’t I be promoting my book? It is after-all my book; a new business tool for me (I get new clients because they have read the book) and it is a great read, if I do say so myself. OK, I’ll let others talk about its value at the bottom of this post.

I wrote the book as a marketing tactic and ‘publishing event’. It delivers credibility and gives me an outbound marketing tool (I send it to the right people) and an inbound source of lots of content. It has 70,000 words that I can repurpose on this blog, as guest posts, on LinkedIn and on SlideShare.

The book forms the basis of one of my strongest recommendations to my ad agency clients: help your agency stand out by writing a book. [Read more…] about Is It OK For Ad Agencies To Shout?

Why Advertising Agencies Don’t Win New Business

Peter · December 24, 2014 · Leave a Comment

OK, Why Don’t Advertising Agencies Win New Business?

Advertising agencies don’t win new business on a consistent basis for many reasons. No huge news here. But, there are a few core reasons that are so obvious that I just don’t understand why so many agencies make these mistakes. For the sake of Christmas Eve brevity, I will list three of the most important.

The No Clear Value Agency.

The agency doesn’t have anything special to offer clients. For example, they are not more creative, more strategic, more digitally aware, more media savvy or have not chosen to be a specialist in any category. They haven’t applied the same strategic thinking to their agency positioning that they do (or claim to do) for their clients.

Considering that there are over 4,000 ‘Advertising Agencies’ in the USA and dozens in any large metropolitan area, how can an agency think that they will grow without a distinctive brand position or sales proposition?

If you don’t think I am right, take a look at a range of agency websites on my Pinterest advertising agency directory.
If you would like to see a list of some agency positioning options head over here to see my “how to position an advertising agency” post.

The No Plan Agency.

According to the RSW/US’s 2014 Agency Marketer New Business Report , 66% Of Ad Agencies Have No Business Development or Sales Methodology. What? 66%! Having run ‘sales’ (sorry, it is sales) at Saatchi, my own agency and two Internet companies, I know that a company that has something to sell in the B2B marketplace cannot succeed without a biz dev plan and implementation methodology. Cannot, full-stop. No methodology means no plan and no plan means no growth no growth means lower income.

The No Action Agency.

Once an agency has a compelling brand position and a sales plan, they need to run with it – 24/7. After No Value Proposition and No Plan, I think that the number one reason that advertising agencies don’t win new business is because they do not run their plan on a consistent basis. These agencies have an essentially start-stop approach that reflects a lack of CEO attention, simple planning and scheduling (calendars rule here), a sense of who is actually in charge of what (treat your new business planning like you treat client jobs), and the use of inbound and social media marketing that will deliver the right clients to your website or email box on a regular basis.

15 Minutes To Get To Yes…

If you would like to get past: No Value, No Plan, No Action, give me a shout. My very own new business program has yielded me a range of happy advertising agency clients on four continents. I know from experience that a 15 to 30 minute phone call will get you thinking about how I can help you grow your agency in 2015.

That is what I call my Corleone offer. Don’t refuse it.

Why I Guest Post On Agency Post

Peter · November 13, 2014 · 2 Comments

Guest Post On Agency Post For Fun and Profit

A post on today’s Agency Post blog got me thinking about the value of guest posting for ad agency new business. In fact, I’ve written on this subject before.

Here: 2 New Levitan Guest Posts on Agency Post and Advertising Week

And, here: Thanks To HubSpot, Ad Contrarian & Advertising Week

Once again, my relationship with Agency Post nets me awareness via my posts to their large and growing audience. Here is a post from Agency Post that includes a quote and shoutout from them about me. This one is about why I think that advertising agencies should write books. Here’s the paragraph:

“Advertising agencies should seriously consider writing books for four reasons: the credibility factor, to stand out because their competition isn’t, the physical nature of books (yes, physical objects are a good thing), and agencies have all of the elements to make it happen –something to say, writers, art directors, and the digital marketing chops to drive awareness,” said Peter Levitan, the author of The Levitan Pitch who spoke at the 2014 INBOUND conference on how agencies can write a book in six months.

Check out the whole post. –> The Path to New Business? 20 Agencies That Have Published a Book

The post provides a sweet list of ad agency books.

Note that one of the best agency books is inadvertently missing from the list. I heartedly recommend that you read Mitch Joel’s Ctrl Alt Delete: Reboot Your Business. Reboot Your Life. Your Future Depends on It. Mitch is President of Canada’s ad agency Twist Image and one the all time leaders in leveraging social media for the agency’s awareness and thought leadership via his blog, podcast and books. This is one prolific dude.

OK, one more guest post: Here is my take on writing advertising agency books via an interview with Beau Fraser, president of the agency The Gate Worldwide. Should Your Advertising Agency Write A Book? (FYI: Beau’s book is mentioned in today’s Agency Post article.)

The New Business Bottom Line:

Agencies that put themselves out in the social universe drive agency awareness and targeted inbound traffic to their messaging.

My advice that I give to all of my agency clients is to write strategic blogs (blogs written for their target markets and not other agencies) / post on other blogs for awareness / post on Twitter / publish on LinkedIn / play with Facebook / consider Pinterest and Instagram (if you are up for that) / write books (or zines if you want to get out fast) / put your thoughts up on SlideShare / speak at conferences and use the world of social media tools to learn about your potential clients and what your agency competition is doing in the social space.

All it takes is a smart business development and social media plan and a bias for action. Oh, and my help to get this done in early 2015. How? Take me up on my Vito Corleone offer.

How To Run A Profitable Advertising Agency (2 of 2)

Peter · September 23, 2014 · Leave a Comment

Here is Part Two of my blog post on how to run a profitable advertising agency.

You might want to start at Part One. Part One also tells you, based on my own personal perspective of myself, why you might want to believe most, if not all, of what I am about to tell you.

13. Grow your digital assets faster. Bring on more technologists to leapfrog even early-adopter digital agencies. A lot of agencies are now behind simply because they didn’t start hiring more geeks sooner.

14. Pick a growth area. It’s not too late to become the smartest video or mobile agency (no one is yet.) Not even the big boys have mobile figured out. However, it may be too late to be known as the best “social media agency” given the sea of social experts. One more digital point, and I know that you know this — digital agencies have a higher multiple than full-service agencies. If you want to sell in the next three years, you best add valuable digital skill-sets.

15. Provide exceptional client service. All AE’s must know how to think like a client in order to anticipate client needs and address any potential issues before they materialize and metastasize. Consider sending your AE’s to an AE class. The worst call I could ever imagine is a client telling me that our account service sucked. It’s just too easy to fix. Fixing creativity is much harder.

16. Create an agency work process that is dedicated to profitability. Then stick with it. The ever-elastic creative process must be tamed. If you need a work process template ask me and I’ll shoot you one. [Read more…] about How To Run A Profitable Advertising Agency (2 of 2)