Search Results for: insight

Why Clients Fire Advertising Agencies

Peter · December 8, 2014 · Leave a Comment

Why Do Clients Fire Advertising Agencies?

Take a read of the SoDA Report below which includes an expert opinion on the subject of why clients fire their agencies and other subjects that will help you keep your clients happy and make you smarter than the agency next door.

Oh, why do advertising and digital agencies get hired and fired? A key reason for getting fired (other than the new Marketing Director’s need to look active; and an agency’s failure to keep up with the rapid pace of change) is very often the very same reason clients hire agencies in the first place…

It has a lot to do with interpersonal chemistry according to Darren Woolley of Australia’s TrinityP3, a leading global advertising agency search consultant and client advisor. I love this point: “It’s all about the relationship.”

Darren is also one of the most valuable contributors to my book on pitching… You can read one of my two interviews with him on the client mind-set and how to win more pitches in an earlier post right here. [Read more…] about Why Clients Fire Advertising Agencies

Are You More About ‘Likes’ than Being ‘Liked’? PR Master Peter Shankman Lays It Out.

Peter · November 24, 2014 · Leave a Comment

Some Thoughts On Social Media and Real Life ‘Liked’ Vs. ‘Likes’ From PR Master Peter Shankman

I spoke at HubSpot’s enormous Inbound 2014 conference in September. This was without question the largest advertising conference I’ve attended. It consumed the entire Boston convention center. I was told that there were around 7,000 people attending. The draw was Hubspot’s leadership in inbound marketing and a fantastic list of speakers.

I had two favorite moments. One was a ‘comedy central’ (and insightful) monologue and the other was, yes, about me and how I wrote my new book from idea to published in just 6 months.

1 – An Interview With Peter Shankman – The Funniest Man In Marketing

PR master Peter Shankman was one of the most insightful speakers at Inbound 2014. Peter drove a large audience of marketers and advertising agency types into fits of hysteria during his 45-minute talk about being a smart (and nice) marketer. His staccato monologue was all stand-up and included only one slide. It was a rare PowerPoint-free and very funny experience. I hope that HubSpot puts the talk up on its website soon.

Peter discussed the marketing power of good customer service and how he built the online PR tool HARO and sold it 3 years after launch. Most businesses and, in the case of the marketing-oriented Inbound audience, advertising agencies dream of creating a service or product that can be sold. He did it.

Peter’s latest book, “Zombie Loyalists”, will be out in January. In the meantime, visit the book’s website.

Peter, tell me a bit about your Inbound talk.

It was a lot of fun. A smart marketing audience like that hears a lot of about social and metrics, scale and analytics, but to be able to talk to them a little bit about the basics of customer service and being nicer to your audience and how that actually generates more revenue than almost everything else combined is a lot of fun. I love being able to share that insight.

You’re saying that just being nice is a forgotten marketing tool?

Advertising Agency: Do Not Pitch That Account!

Peter · November 11, 2014 · Leave a Comment

Hello Advertising Agency Leaders: Do Not Pitch That Account – Yet!

Please, Don’t Do It!

The following blog post on when not to pitch for a new account is from my book, The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches. I suggest that you buy the book if you want to (do I need to say this?) win more pitches.

Buy the book – > Here.

Virtually all of the advertising search consultants that I interviewed for the book said that advertising agencies pitch too often. Many agencies seem to pitch almost any account that knocks.

They are inclined to pitch most incoming because (pick one or more): they are feeling the pinch of lower margins; they just lost their big account; they are generally nervous and don’t know the next time they will be invited to a dance; don’t have a serious new business plan that attracts the right clients; haven’t actually identified the types of clients they really want to work with, etc. This pitch anything that breathes mentality really reared its head big time during the recession, but it has become omnipresent in our new world of projects vs. AOR searches.

From the book….

Just Say No!

Before you embark on a new pitch, you should be asking yourself one extremely important question…

Should we be pitching this account?

I know what you are thinking… Levitan’s kidding, right? We’ve made it through the RFI and RFP stages, and now he wants us to ask if we should even be going to the finals?

It’s still ok to say “no”, and now is the time to take a deep breath and review a go-no-go decision. You are about to spend a great deal of time and money. Are you sure that you should go through the next step? Are your colleague’s groans getting louder? Looking in any way ambivalent about the pitch will not help your pitch team feel good about charging into it. Passionless pitches don’t win.

Pitch or not is usually one of the most difficult decisions agency manage- ment has to make. There is a good chance that you think that you’ve already answered this question if you participated in an RFP that led to your selection as a short list candidate. I believe that even if you’ve performed a sound decision making process, now is the time to stop to determine if this potentially expensive pitch is worth the time, effort, and human and cash cost.

Ad Agency: Why No Sales Methodology?

Peter · October 7, 2014 · 4 Comments

I came across the revealing ad agency business development infographic below on the RSW/US website. The infographic highlights some of the findings from RSW/US’s 2014 Agency Marketer New Business Report.

The infographic sucks. Um, no. The infographic doesn’t suck, but it points out one critical agency fail that… SUCKS!

According to the RSW/US 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. So, let’s solve this problem. [Read more…] about Ad Agency: Why No Sales Methodology?