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10 Ways To Advertise Your Advertising Agency

Peter · March 27, 2019 · Leave a Comment

Do you advertise your advertising agency?

Based on my industry experience, most do not. This means that agencies are not aiming and tailoring their primary sales messages to their target audiences.

This post offers 10 ways to advertise your advertising agency as well as the why you should to it, like, yesterday.

Caveat: You should seriously consider advertising your advertising agency. However, you should first run a smart, consistent account-based marketing program to directly drive agency awareness to your best prospects.

Advertising – A Definition

Just for the heck of it, and to get us all on the same page, here is a definition of advertising. I use ‘advertising’ as a universal term for marketing communications companies.

Advertising is a means of communication with the users (or, non-users) of a product or service. Advertisements are messages paid for by those who send them and are intended to inform or influence people who receive them, as defined by the Advertising Association of the UK.

Why An Advertising Agency Should Advertise

There are four reasons an agency should advertise.

You want to be where prospective clients look for agencies.
You want to put your agency right in front of the right prospects (and even busy agency search consultants like Laura Bajkowski) 24/7.
You want to borrow the interest that on and offline publications can deliver.
You want to prove that you believe in advertising and that you are super creative.

10 Advertising Platforms Your Agency Should Consider

WARNING: Most likely, your agency cannot create and run efforts on all of these platforms. Roll them out based on your marketing plan.

TEST: Test everything. Do more of what works and less of what does not. Yeah, I’m being very obvious. But, testing is the mantra. Your clients want ROI. You do too and running your own programs may make you a better judge of how to judge success across advertising channels.

In addition to listing the ad platforms, I am also giving some, not all, of the reasons that a local/regional agency and an expert agency (example, lead gen B2B agency) should choose the platform. This is meant as food for thought. There are too many types of agencies for me to give every iteration. But, you get it.

Update: It is five hours after I wrote this. I now have number 11. It’s at the bottom of the list.

1. Google AdWords.

Every client in need of a new agency searches on Google. If you are not on page one for the search, buy the position.

Do keyword research and buy the keywords that meet your reach objectives.

Local/regional agency. It would be insane to not try to be on Google’s page one for your location. Example: if you are based in Seattle, buy ‘Seattle advertising agency’ or ‘Seattle SEO agency.’

Expert. Buy ‘Lead generation agency’ or ‘high tech leads agency.’ Do you want Purina as a client? Think about what their marketing team searches on.

2. YouTube.

I have an agency client that produces an interview with marketing leaders every month. They blast them out in emails, on their blog and… yup, leverage the power of the number two search engine to aim their videos at their audience. The agency also retargets. Since there are fewer results on YouTube than on Google, the agency gets more attention (and, yup, these videos also turn high up in Google searches.)

It would real easy for a local agency, most are, to ‘own’ their town’s video world. How about a weekly where to eat in Kansas City series shot on an iPhone?

Need inspiration? Here is john st.’s rather viral video (as of writing it has 2,447,266 views) about the power of Catvertising. Frankly, has any other agency ever had over 2 million views?

3. Advertising Agency Directories.

This is a serious no-brainer that many agencies do not take advantage of. In many cases, an agency directory is on Google’s page one and lists your competitors.

Make sure you are every relevant agency directory and spend the cash if it nets you a higher position or allows you to deliver more information (i.e. your work) and, especially, a link back to your website. [Read more…] about 10 Ways To Advertise Your Advertising Agency

Your Ad Agency Name And Getting Found

Peter · October 30, 2018 · Leave a Comment

Your Ad Agency Name

I am about to make two points. One is about the value of an ad agency name. The second is how to get future clients to find, notice and love you.

How is your ad agency name doing for ya? Is it memorable? Does it create some brand power? Does it describe what you do? Does it just sound ‘cool’? Does it help grow your agency?

Frankly, I do not think that a name matters that much. Sure, it probably shouldn’t be too complex, or too cute (though many are very cute) and it should be memorable in some way (there are, after all, 4,000 plus “agenceis” to choose from.)

By the way, head over to my two-part post on how to name your agency (or even help a client with their name). This post has been read over 31,000 times. Crazy!

An ‘Ad Agency Name Generator’ = Borrowed Interest To Get Found

I don’t know about you, but I get a few emails a month from people asking me if I take guest posts on this blog. This week I got a request from an ad agency name generator. I said no – but I like the website.

The ad agency name generator. Actually, it is called Business Name Generator. Like most automated web-based generator tools it is kinda fun to play with. That said, it could actually offer you some (LOL) branding ideas.

I played with the tool and came up with a few names just for you should you want to rename your agency or need a fresh one for your new gig. Here are a few for inspiration or just laughs.

I got to these random names by searching on: “ad agency”…

Poke
Woop
Velocity
Surge
Gorilla
Rogue
Tiger
Kick
Quicksilver
Ricochet

OK, I’ll stop (and, yes, some of these are already in use). Hey, go play.

Drive Traffic

The Business Name Generator tool is interesting since it is really a website designed to sell domains – not ad business names. The Name Generator is just a smart traffic generating hook. The website also has these other name generators: Blog Name Generator; Podcast Name; Startup Name; Product Name, etc. to target people looking for these other names. Of course, hopefully, once they find the name they’ll go buy the URL.

I love the idea of using a list, or relevant resources or some other form of bait to get people to pay attention to what you are selling.

A ‘Leadership’ Idea

No question: a clear way to own a marketing or brand category is to look and sound like the leader. The right name could do this (maybe not.) Blogs do this, kinda. Well, if you can actually break out of blog-subject-clutter and are willing to commit to single expert subjects. However, this takes a lot of time to get traction.

A suggestion… Build the go-to data-driven category directory – possibly a stand-alone website/microsite. Become positioned as a leader that is the category information resource. This acts as a nice magnet.

Consider doing what tiny Growth Supply does. This simple information website delivers “All Free Tools For Entrepreneurs and Startups”. This directory get views — as a result, it has a very high USA Alexa ranking at 152,734 vs., for example, the New York agency Barton F. Graf at 348,470. By the way, what is your ad agency rank?

Think about your agency and a resource tool. An ad agancy brand that actually owns a category via an information resource a can rule.

What could it look like? Build a database marketing / brand category / industry directory & resource that lists:

The ultimate resource for news on database marketing
Industry news websites.
Industry events. Global and regional.
Industry awards.
Related ‘ marketing idea’ websites.
Review websites.
Industry research – primary and secondary.
Category advertising history websites.
And, on…

Keep it up to date with new listings. There is something new every week that a brand might find interesting.

Pay an intern to do this ‘fill in the blanks’ work.

Become THE resource… a resource that gets shared.

A brand that actually owns a category like database-marketing can be the ultimate resource.

Just food for thought.

By the way, I have a resource list – and it gets viewed and shared: The Big Advertising Agency Resource List.

Does Your Advertising Agency Do Content Marketing Right?

Peter · July 2, 2018 · 1 Comment

Is Your Advertising Agency A Savvy Content Marketer?

I’ve read acres of advertising agency content (blogs, white papers, videos, on LinkedIn, etc.). Some rock and some suck. Many agencies, once they have stellar content, do not put in the effort to spread the wealth. As in, they do not amplify their brilliant thinking across a range of social media and traditional marketing platforms. This is a missed efficiency driver. Here’s a how to maximize your hard content building work.

To be clear, ‘content’ means the stuff that agency’s use to deliver their insightful thought leadership programs which are designed to sell the agency’s brains, expertise and to drive inbound visits and interest. Just for the hell of it, here is the definition of content from Google…

A type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts) that does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services.

Here is another well-crafted definition from the Content Marketing Institute…

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.

Great Content: Part One

One of the best content marketing companies I’ve visited/read is TrinityP3 an Australian-based global marketing management consultancy with offices on four continents. TrinityP3 is a primary thought leader in the advertising client and agency space.

Darren Woolley, founder and Global CEO, along with Mike Morgan, are the driving force behind TrinityP3. To date, they have hundreds of blog posts covering a wide range of subjects including agency management, agency search, compensation, media buying, procurement, and scope of work and, even infographics. I’m talking lots of content. [Read more…] about Does Your Advertising Agency Do Content Marketing Right?

On Being Smart

Peter · December 15, 2017 · Leave a Comment

Smart Is A Good Thing (For 2018)

Hey, I like being smart. Yeah, I just said that.

I bet you like being smart too. In fact, as you know, being smart is an essential element in driving brilliant marketing. This includes being curious.

So, without further ado, here are a couple of smart places to help you get smarter before 2018. This MIT article and Stanford interview got my intellectual juices flowing and I’ll assume yours will flow too.

First, here is a hot list from MIT’s Technology Review. Its list of the 50 Smartest Companies 2017 offers a look at companies that have found the inflection point between innovative technology and a sound business model. Something I’d think a savvy 2018 advertising agency would like to find.

Second, is a video of the Stanford interview with Chamath Palihapitiya, Founder and CEO Social Capital, on Money as an Instrument of Change. I have listened to Chamath in YouTube videos this past week (the CNBC guest host is also worth your time) and find that he opens up my mind and, yup, makes me smarter.