Peter Levitan & Co.

The New Business of Advertising

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How To Predict An Advertising Agency Search

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Can You Predict When A Client Will Search For A New Advertising Agency?

Can You Predict When a Client Will Start the Search for a New Agency InterviewA friend who ran an advertising agency in L.A. once told me that he made at least five ‘warm calls’ every week to prospective clients. This agency CEO was gregarious, had a great rap about advertising trends that clients liked to hear and he was very smart. He knew that on any given day, a few clients woke up thinking that they needed a new agency to replace their AOR or to hand out a project. He just wanted to be on the client’s radar when that day happened.

Clearly, not all agency CEO’s can or will make these calls. Though, sales pressure applied with TLC does work for some.

Another way to get ahead of the search process is to use a business development database and news tool like Access Confidential. To get a better understanding of Access Confidential and their pitch that they can help agencies know about a new business pitch before the other agencies, I interviewed Lisa Colantuono, a partner at the highly successful agency search consultancy AAR and a contributor to my book on pitching. I posted this interview on HubSpot’s Agency Post. Here is my lead-in.

Another Holy Grail (can there be more than one?) is being able to predict when a client is unhappy with their current agency and is getting ready to begin the search process. This is a tough one, so I searched to see if there was any existing advice on being able to predict when a client is about to search for a new agency. My quest led me to Access Confidential.

Access Confidential is an online new business tool from AAR Partners, a leading agency search consultancy with a history of conducting more than 1,500 searches. Access Confidential includes an up-to-date client database, business news, and a research hotline, and it is used to forecast when clients will look for a new agency.

I also asked Lisa about the current new business landscape. Here is the Q&A.

What do you think is the biggest or fastest-growing client need as we move into 2015?

Innovation with an eye toward creating purposed-based brands.

Successful agencies will help identify emotional values in their client’s brands and use them for real-time engagement and meaningful positioning. Consumers are going to continue to have influence over brands. Agencies that help marketers to embrace it will succeed. You can boil this down to the need to turn big data (and the overwhelming amount of data) into core brand insights for marketers, which will remain as an asset. Analytics and programmatic and real-time buying, as well as social command centers to keep an ear to the ground on what’s trending, are all important tools to offer a client. But the greatest tool will be the interpretation of the data.

Ah, innovation.

Ad Agency Social Media Check List

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An Ad Agency Social Media Check List – But, Determine If You Can Do It All

How to Start an Advertising Agency Expert Business AdviceI put a new infographic on social media planning and a  checklist below. It is a good one. Big thanks to Post Planner and its article “FINALLY! A Checklist for Social Media Marketing that Actually Helps or the advice and graphic. “

Good stuff.

But.

Most advertising agencies cannot and will not do all that is recommended. I firmly believe that the 2 biggest issues confronting ad agency business development  programs are the lack of a clear plan (or any plan for that matter) and biting off more social media marketing than they can chew. This leads to inaction and inertia…. and not running the program 24/7. Therefore, my caution. This is a great chart on what to do and how to do it. But don’t bite it all off. You probably won’t be able to run it all.

That said, you must do the first two recommendations:

Define your target audience. I am continuously amazed at how few (50%?) of ad agency social media programs look like they do not have clear objectives and understand what will be of value to their target audience. Is it current or future clients? Culture support for your agency? The press? Prospective employees?  [Read more…] about Ad Agency Social Media Check List

“The Levitan Pitch” Ad Agency Book Video

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“The Levitan Pitch” Ad Agency Book Author Video — On Amazon

Yes You Can Write and Publish A Business Book in 6 MonthsI’ve written and talked about why and how your ad agency should write a book. You can see my presentation “The Agency Book. From Idea To Published In 6 Months” below.

In the presentation I mention that video is a great way to promote your agency-built book and that the video can go up on your author page on Amazon (very easy to do.) You can see how it fits in right HERE. But, to make your life easier, I put the video below.

As I discussed in the presentation, interviews are a great way to create lots of content – easily. In fact, my author video is an interview I set up with my friend Rebecca Armstrong, the leader of Portland’s ad agency North. The whole experience took about 45 minutes and it was done in one take. Again, very easy.

 

Here is my SlideShare presentation.

 

A Twitter Tool For Advertising Agencies

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I love Twitter Tools

download broCheck out the Twitter tool SocialBro (and, don’t thank me for naming this company). Here is what they say about themselves:

SocialBro’s advanced solutions for Twitter marketing are built around what you need. From Enterprise scale organisations coordinating multi channel strategies across multiple teams to individual influencers building a personal brand, our clever tools work with your preferred Twitter client (e.g. Hootsuite or Tweetdeck) to help you achieve your goals on Twitter.

Here is just one of the detailed traffic reports I get from them about my Twitter account. Now, make sure you think about the following detail about me when you look at these numbers:

I post on west coast time. Therefore, my east coast audience is getting up earlier than me.

When see what my Followers talk about in their feeds, consider that I write about advertising, social media and marketing. I am not so sure about the “love” thing.

My audience works 24/7 across the globe. I don’t have best days or seriously best times.

For more, many more, insights on SocialBro, head over to Razor Social. If you haven’t been to this fab website… Go there!

SocialBro Browse your Twitter Community

Want More Twitter Tools?

Here is a link to my post about 11 must have social media tools for advertising agency business development — and agency clients.

Charlie Hebdo, Cartoons and Advertising

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Charlie Hebdo and The Power of Cartoons In Advertising & Social Media

charlieI have been watching CNN’s “Reliable Sources“, it is a thoughtful and smart TV news show that covers the media world. I highly recommend it. From CNN:

Now more than ever, the press is a part of every story it covers. And CNN’s “Reliable Sources” is one of television’s only regular programs to examine how journalists do their jobs and how the media affect the stories they cover.

As one would expect, the show’s been covering the Charlie Hebdo murders, ramifications for the worldwide press and how they are reporting the story in detail.

One of my biggest takeaways from the whole Charlie Hebdo story is how freakin powerful cartoons are. Which brings me to the point…

Why So Few Cartoons In Advertising and Social Media?

Cartoons grab attention.

Cartoons can be so powerful they’ve driven people to murder. OK, we are not looking for this level of passion in advertising. But, think about it. Why aren’t we using this storytelling energy more?

Cartoons are not boring look-alike advertising messages (see ‘be not boring’ below.)

Cartoons are visual and help cure some information overload issues.

Cartoons tell stories. I have 12 cartoons in my book on pitching. They make a strong visual point about what not to do if you WANT to fail in new business pitches.

Cartoons are visual content that have some staying power in a world that eats up content and spits it out a a rapidly growing rate.

Cartoons can be serialized to create campaigns.

Cartoons get shared.

Cartoons can run in print, social media and in video.

Cartoons fit on phones.

Our love of infographics is essentially a love of cartooning. A stretch? Maybe. But, I dig data-visualization vs. dull-data.

Use More Cartoons…

My good friend  Steve Klinetobe runs the Cartoon Agency. Here is how they describe themselves:

We help companies be NOT boring using the universal awesomeness of cartoon storytelling.

Technically, we’re a content marketing agency. That means we help our clients plan, develop and deliver smart, buzz boosting content for their blogs, social media, and other such things.

But! There is a difference (or as us marketers like to say, a differentiator).

We create cartoons. That’s right, big-eyed funnies that reach out and grab your audience by the heart.

If I were a Creative Director or social media strategist, I’d be thinking of using cartoons. Why aren’t more advertising, mobile and ‘content genrators’ doing this? Even Google’s algorithms like cartoons.

Moving on to advertising agency new business: Why not use cartoons to begin to sell your agency on your website, in your blogs or as something different in your outbound marketing? You will stand out from the other 10,000 agencies, you will tell your story in a delightful way and you could have some fun doing it.

don't be distinctive mistake copy jpegAm I just spewing? I put my money where my mouth is. The cartoon at the left is one of 12 from my book. Here is a post I did on the cartoons.

We all talk about making connections. I think that using  cartons can often work harder than just words.

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Yes, you can buy your very own “The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches” on Amazon.

You can also buy a poster of all 12 cartoons right here at Society6. I guarantee that if you put this poster up in your agency you will win more pitches.