Peter Levitan & Co.

The New Business of Advertising

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Lovely LinkedIn Statistics

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LinkedIn Statistics I Love

125 Amazing LinkedIn Statistics Facts July 2015I received well over 2,000 referrals to this website from LinkedIn last year. I like that. I work it so it happens. In addition, hundreds of people in my network and in related fields have read my LinkedIn posts. Virtually all of my advertising agency clients come in as a result of my daily  social media activity on this blog, LinkedIn, Twitter, guest posts and occasional commenting on other websites..

So, because of my LinkedIn success… I offer:

125 LinkedIn Statistics From DMR.

Take a read.

And, for your reading pleasure, here are links to my blog post missives on LinkedIn and how LinkedIn can be used to grow your business.

 

Just Read This: Web Design – The First 100 Years

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Just Read This – Why?

w100.068More is not necessarily a good thing. New is not necessarily a good thing. Internet-scale is not necessarily a good thing. That’s my paraphrase of this extremely insightful perspective on our digital world.

Need a bit more to get you reading? From Web Design – The First 100 Years. (I find this paragraph on youth vs. age particularly interesting because I was a member of the team that did the first consumer advertising program for email in 1983 — Easylink from Western Union – yes, Western Union.)

This contempt for the past also ignores the reality of our industry, which is that we work almost exclusively with legacy technologies.

The operating system that runs the Internet is 45 years old.

The protocols for how devices talk to each other are 40 years old.

Even what we think of as the web is nearing its 25th birthday.

Some of what we use is downright ancient—flat panel displays were invented in 1964, the keyboard is 150 years old.

The processor that’s the model for modern CPUs dates from 1976.

Even email, which everyone keeps trying to reinvent, is nearing retirement age.

I cheated by calling this talk ‘Web Design: The First 100 years’ because we’re already nearly halfway there. However dismissive we are of this stuff, however much we insist that it will get swept away by a new generation of better technology, it stubbornly refuses to go. Our industry has deep roots in the past that we should celebrate and acknowledge.

And this… for a good laugh…

w100.062So because powerful people in our industry read bad scifi as children, we now confront a stupid vision of the web as gateway to robot paradise.

Here’s Ray Kurzweil, a man who honestly and sincerely believes he is never going to die. He works at Google. Presumably he stays at Google because he feels it advances his agenda.

Google works on some loopy stuff in between plastering the Internet with ads.

Read, think, slow down, enjoy… That’s one of my mantras.

21 Ad Agency Business Development Must Do’s

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What Every Ad Agency Must Do To Grow

keep-calm-and-love-number-21-1A simple fact: You have to decide to work at business development and then do the work.

Here are 21 ad agency business development actions that will absolutely result in growth.

 

  1. Have clear attainable (or even audacious) business objectives – and, while you are at it, write a business plan to get there.
  2. Nurture an agency business development culture from the CEO on down (or, is it up?)
  3. Craft a business development plan with clear-cut objectives and strategies.
  4. Have an effective sales pitch based on something your agency owns or can act like it owns.
  5. Have an action-oriented hook that generates client interest and meetings. If not, go back to number 4 and work it out.
  6. Make business development an integral part of your agency’s daily life.
  7. Manage business development the same way you treat a client job. Have a process.
  8. Know who is responsible for what and have a calendar.
  9. Make sure that everyone in the agency knows that new business is everyone’s business and that no new business growth = staff reductions and possibly, I am afraid to say this, no new foosball table.
  10. Have a list of the top clients you want and create a compelling sales pitch. I stress: compelling.
  11. Design a sales-oriented agency website for that client who is only going to give you 8 seconds to make an impression. Your goal is getting them to contact you.
  12. Use the website to deliver some human chemistry vibes. Please use video to bring your agency to life. A brief video.
  13. Have a short list of the top clients you want, create personas and build a compelling sales pitch just for them. I stress: compelling. Put yourself in their shoes. They want to succeed at their jobs too.
  14. Stay in touch on a reasonably regular basis via email (gently) or some other form of direct marketing.
  15. Use social media correctly. That means having an objectives-driven LinkedIn, Twitter, blog, Facebook etc. strategy and the will to keep at it. Kill the program if you can’t keep it up. Dated blog posts are worse than no blog posts. I don’t even want to discuss having an empty aging Twitter account.
  16. Consider concentrating on (and owning) a specific client category or becoming a media or technology or creative specialist. Pick one.
  17. Learn to pitch like Steve Jobs (you already know this.)
  18. Learn to negotiate like Steve Jobs. Most agencies have no clue how to negotiate.
  19. Take this offer and contact me. I’ve been there and done it. 
  20. Buy my book.
  21. Get a good night’s sleep.

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UK Advertising New Business Is Down

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News To You? Digital is Up But… “New business on the slide in 2015”

New business on the slide in 2015 cInterested in seeing where the advertising action is these days?

Here are some bellwether numbers from the UK market for January through June 2015.

Digital continues to be the only area (vs. advertising, direct marketing, carrier pigeon) that is moving on up.

I think that a part of this is that ‘everything’ is now digital. And, we don’t really know what the definitions mean anymore. What do I mean? Video and TV have mashed up. Direct marketing has mashed into digital. Media is what… digital +. Integrated means what? Like, don’t digital agencies integrate?

This from Campaign Magazine:

New business on the slide in 2015

The Real Power Of Video

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The Power of The Advertising Agency Video

Putting a video on your website will increase your odds of selling your advertising agency’s services. I’d like to think that most agencies get this. But, not all do. Here are some compelling stats to help you make sure that you use the power of video on your website.

  • 59% of senior executives prefer video over text. (Source: Brainshark)
  • The average user spends 88% more time on a website with video. (Source: Mist Media)Of the 80% of internet users who watched a video ad, 46% took some sort of action after viewing the ad. (Source: Video Brewery)
  • About 46% of people say they’d be more likely to seek out information about a product or service after seeing it in an online video. (Source: Eloqua)
  • Zappos has reported that placing a video on a sales page increases sales impact from 6% to 30%.

Surprising? I didn’t think so. So… how do advertising agencies use video on their websites to help sell the agency?

Four Ways Advertising Agencies Use Video As A Sales Tool

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