Peter Levitan & Co.

The New Business of Advertising

Search Results for: insight

Advertising Websites Only Get 8 Seconds

· · 1 Comment

Let’s start this post with an admission… I don’t have informational graphics on every page of my site (some, but not a lot.) But.. stay tuned cause I have ten cartoons coming from my friend Steve and his The Cartoon Agency  that will support my new book’s discussion of the top ten pitch-killing mistakes that even super smart advertising agencies (that’s you amigos) make when they pitch.

8 Seconds, Only

One of the most important discussions I have with my advertising agency clients is about gauging the marketing power of their websites. I start the talk by telling them that I know that critiquing their website is like discussing their kid’s soccer moves. That said, the agencies are paying me to be honest, so I am.

I begin the review process by telling them that their visitors only give them 7 seconds of examination before they stay to learn more or  move on. Agencies… you better hook ’em in 7 seconds. I just found out that I am wrong. According to the smart Neil Patel its 8 seconds (more on him later):

goldfish

“How long do you think your attention span is? Maybe a minute or even two, right? Sadly, your attention span is 8 seconds. That’s one second shorter than that of a goldfish.”

What does that mean for your advertising agency websites? It means that you better pay lots of attention to attention deficit clients that may be looking at ten, twenty or more agency websites before they land on a few to contact. 8 seconds. Keep this in mind and make getting to a point an objective when you build or rebuild your websites. If you want to see how some agencies get this job done, or not, take a look at my set of San Francisco agencies and how they handle their 8 seconds.

Here is how Neil helps us visualize visualization by using his “This Is Your Brain On Visualization” infographic. There is a lot of information here for you and your clients.

Back To Niel Patel

I dig Neil because he provides great insights and is a serial self-promoter worth watching. His stuff works works. His Quicksprout website has a page rank of 5 and he has 1110,000+ Twitter Followers. From Neil’s bio:

Neil Patel is the co-founder of Crazy Egg, Hello Bar and KISSmetrics. He helps companies like Amazon, NBC, GM, HP and Viacom grow their revenue. The Wall Street Journal calls him a top influencer on the web, Forbes says he is one of the top 10 online marketers, and Entrepreneur Magazine says he created one of the 100 most brilliant companies in the world. He was recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President Obama and one of the top 100 entrepreneurs under the age of 35 by the United Nations.

Yeah, this is a bit crazy for a 29 year-old. But, he is surly working it. Check out his outrageously unrelenting promotions. Yes, a bit too many popups and forms for most advertising agency websites, but these is a lot of benchmark sales learning in there.

Last point. He walks his talk. See his visual bio.

 

Post Advertising: Big Data And Small Data

· · Leave a Comment

Ten years ago I wrote a brilliant (yes, it was and is brilliant) white paper on how even big marketers like Nike and Disney fail to manage / love / re-market to their customer base. This fail still going on across industries. However, I’d like to think that understanding the value of CRM has advanced.

Below (after I force you to read my 2004 white paper “Get a Grip – The Marketing Power Of Managing Customer Relationships”) I will introduce you to one of the best posts / insights into how marketers should be starting to use big data for CRM C/O the Marketo blog.

[If you have any problem seeing the SlideShare doc below, you can find it right here.]

First My Take On Small Data & Nike & Disney

[slideshare id=13759471&doc=getagrippdf-120725210347-phpapp01&type=d]

OK, Now For Big Data and Marketo

This is without question, one of the best marketing blog posts I’ve read in a long time. DJ Waldlow’s post, “If You’ve Got It, Use It (Data, That Is)”, deconstructs his weekend experience with Fandango to illustrate how to use big data to customize / ROIize marketing. Oh, lets toss in realtime cause like big data you are becoming obsessed with this too. These are generally good things to be focussed on.

Here is DJ’s conclusion:

Big data is all the rage. The potential to do something interesting with that data to create more personalized user experiences is ginormous. However, if you don’t have the resources – human capital, financial capital, etc. – to leverage big data, start small. As described above, Fandango is using some pretty basic data they have about me to personalize my experience across channels (app, mobile/SMS, web, and email). It’s simple, yet incredibly effective.

Back to the top (ala Nike) — Big Data? Just do it. Or, at least start to think how to start to use it. I bet some of your clients are.

1 Reason To Pitch French Advertising Clients

· · Leave a Comment

One of the better weekly newsletters I get is from the long-time-insight-rich-website Six Pixels of Separation. As the website says:

TWIST IMAGE PRESIDENT, MITCH JOEL, BRINGS YOU DIGITAL MARKETING AND MEDIA HACKING INSIGHTS AND PROVOCATIONS FROM HIS ALWAYS ON/ALWAYS CONNECTED WORLD.

Twist Image is a digital agency with offices in Montreal and Toronto that kicks most digital agency’s marketing butt and, as you can see, has a blog that adds value and drives agency awareness. Interesting fact… the agency website does a location lookup to personalize the home page. In my case, it knows that I am in Mexico right now. Nice touch.

Twist Image

OK, Back To Pitching French Clients

The blog has a guest feature called: Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention. This week it points to the news that the French government has dictated that management can’t email employees after work hours. In France that means after 6PM. Here is the post along with a link to the CNET News article.

French say ‘non’ to work email after 6 p.m. – cNet. “Ahh, who doesn’t want to spend their entire childhood and teenage years studying in an old school education institution that is making young people miserable, feeling inadequate and, ultimately, forcing them into a regiment of memorization of things they should never need to remember? I see this often when you look at more traditional European countries and their non-progressive school curriculums The good news? You get to graduate and become a ‘fonctionnaires,’ (if you live in France). A place that makes insane rules like this. I have a better idea: why stop at email? Just shut down the electricity for all fonctionnaires so nobody has to do anything? Alternately, you could just say, ‘hey, what if we let these adults make their own rules and attempt to find their own balance? Wow, what decade are we living in? How stupid do we think that people are?” (Mitch for Hugh).

My take…

  1. France is fucked up. I am not a small government guy but please… can’t people run their own lives? Are the French babies that need coddling?
  2. Recent press has discussed France’s issue of losing talented digital / programming / entrepreneur / creative class types to countries where they can do their thing in a pro-business environment.
  3. It must be a sign of the times when management (this means some of you) has to be told to let people live their lives. I never emailed my staff after 6PM. I am a really good, understanding, caring pro family guy. I didn’t need laws to be act like a decent person.  🙂

If French agencies are going to work at say 80% of capacity then go and get business from the French clients that need 100% agencies. Hello Peugeot. That said, you will need to have a French language website like Twist Image (it helps that they are in Quebec where the government dictates that they need a bilingual website.) Hmm… is there something about French speakers?

Bon chance!

Sign up for this blog’s weekly newsletter. It will make sure you know when my book on pitching comes out (soon.)

12 Ad Agency Presentation Mistakes – Why?

· · Leave a Comment

I interviewed Tony Mikes, Founder/Managing Director of the 800 strong agency network Second Wind today (my agency used to be a happy member.) The interview will be one of ten expert interviews that will be included in my book on ad agency pitching. You can see the title I slaved over at the very bottom of this email.

The interview confirmed the sad truth that many agencies are making serious presentation mistakes when they pitch for new business. I already knew this because I’ve talked with many agency owners, agency search consultants, presentation experts and… clients that have sat through mistake ridden presentations. Tony reconfirmed it.

I can’t wait to publish Tony’s insightful comments. They come from firsthand experience when he recently sat on the client side of the table during the RFP and finalist process. The pitch was for the National Aquarium account and the interview with Tony is (pick your word): revealing, sad, unnerving and any other word that you can come up with that describes the lunacy of avoidable agency failure.

Tony hit on the almost all of my twelve ad agency presentation mistakes. Each of these will be discussed at length in the book.

  1. Immediately bore the audience
  2. Don’t have a distinctive message
  3. Don’t have a logical flow
  4. Load up the room with agency people
  5. Bring poor presenters
  6. Don’t deliver any WOW’s
  7. Bring tons of ideas – make many of them irrelevant
  8. Spend too much time talking about YOU not THEM
  9. Don’t rehearse
  10. Misuse PowerPoint
  11. Don’t stage manage
  12. Run out of time

Yikes. As I said, sad but true. By the way, if you search my site for other articles on pitching you will find ones like this: Half of Advertising Agency Staff Hates Pitching. This research was the genesis of my book’s reason for being.

Oh, the title…. The Levitan Pitch: Buy This Book. Win More Pitches.

Now, please sign up for my email newsletter below to make sure that your competitor down the street doesn’t read my book before you read it. I want you to win more pitches, not the other agency.

 

The Worst Advertising Agency Presentation – Ever

· · 7 Comments

A Very Sad Story… The Worst Advertising Agency Presentation – Ever

advertising agency presentationThis is a story about the worst advertising agency presentation – ever (I know, I was in it.) It was bad.

This special experience, along with more stories, strong opinions, and brilliant advice (I’ve learned a lot over the years) is in my new book… How To Run A Kick-Ass Advertising Agency.

If you buy the 27-chapter book and read it, I guarantee that you will win more new business, run a tighter ship, and will make more money.

My First Advertising Agency Presentation

Back to the beginning: I won my first pitch in 1984. For the first email service.

I was an account executive at Dancer, Fitzgerald Sample, New York’s largest “Mad Men” era advertising agency (Saatchi & Saatchi bought Dancer in 1987.) The pitch was for Western Union’s $15 million EasyLink Service. EasyLink was the first commercial email service and launched the same year as the IBM PC – the times were changing fast. We won the pitch and I learned how a well-oiled presentation worked from a new business team that won nine out of ten pitches that year. After I began working on the business, I asked the senior client why we won. She stated three reasons: [Read more…] about The Worst Advertising Agency Presentation – Ever