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The Cobbler’s Shoe Excuse

Peter · June 26, 2021 · Leave a Comment

The Shoemaker’s Children Go Barefoot

I hear a lot of excuses from large, medium, and small advertising agencies about why they are not running a long-term, 24-7, active business development program. These agencies often chuckle – a wary chuckle, before mentioning the cobbler’s shoe excuse.

You know what I’m talking about. The excuse is that the agency is so focused on its day-to-day clients that they neglect their own biz dev, or better expressed, their own sales program. These agencies act like the way too busy shoemaker whose children go barefoot. “Yup, I’m like really busy making shoes for my customers. Just don’t have the time to take care of the kids.”

Of course. This is insanity. Many agencies touch failure because one of their large, cash-cow clients leaves, and the agency does not have the active pipeline that will deliver the next big account. Insanity. I have never seen an agency in my long-term experience that did not eventually lose a major account.

A Recipe For Business Development Failure Success

Let’s get really simple. This is what every advertising and digital and PR agency has to do. Period. Give me a shout and I can help you create and run the plan that will make these actions happen fast. As in, make those shoes for your kids.

Caveat: Is this radically new information? No. But, this is the blueprint. If you do not do this, then go barefoot.

Have agency leadership that recognizes that they must play a major role in agency growth. When I ran business development at Saatchi & Saatchi, both Maurice and Charles dove into pitches.
Figure out who is in charge of the day-to-day management of the business development program.
Make sure that your advertising agency can get found by a future client that is looking for your type of agency. Just for kicks, start with a ‘blank sheet’ and try finding your agency. Do you stand out from the 4,000 marketing options that are in front of most clients? Have a get-found plan.
Have an active friends, business associates, family referral plan. WOM does not always happen automatically or when you want it. You need to manage your WOM outreach.
Love the clients you have and grow them. This can not be placed on automatic. Do your people know how to nurture?
Build the agency marketing plan. A manageable plan. And, KISS.
Have a standout positioning. Being an expert in something would be a rather good idea. Translate this into an “elevator pitch.” You could even carve up your positions and use targeted marketing to deliver multiple messages. You can be both a mobile and a pet marketing expert. Try different landing pages.
Know exactly what clients you want and how to entice them to want you. Ask yourself, “why would that client want to get to know me?”
Build your prospect lists. And, personas.
Leverage Account-Based Marketing to go get their attention. This takes time. Make sure you nail a LinkedIn program and then move on.
Create thought leadership that cannot be IGNORED. Please be unignorable.
Build a website that is sales-oriented. And different. Drive contacts. Did I say sales-oriented?
Use video to sell yourself, your story, your reason for being. Just for kicks, try using paper. Yes, paper.
Have a must-follow process that includes plan elements, a marketing calendar, to-do lists, and very clear responsibilities, and a CRM system.

13 Free Big Data Tools For Advertising Agency New Business

Peter · March 30, 2021 · 4 Comments

I misnamed this 2013 blog post. “13 Free Big Data Tools For Advertising Agency New Business.” It should have been named “You are driving marketing directors and potential future clients insane. Here is how to do outbound (ABM) marketing that grabs attention.” Y’all have to get past sending so much ignorable advertising agency new business development messaging.

Talk with any CMO or marketing director or company owner and they will tell you that they receive buckets of incoming business development messages and content from advertising and digital agencies – every week.

The barrage of often ignorable incoming includes these delivery systems: [Read more…] about 13 Free Big Data Tools For Advertising Agency New Business

The Ultimate Advertising Agency List

Peter · March 23, 2021 · 2 Comments

How Do Clients Find Your Advertising Agency? Think List.

I just reread this post about the advertising agency list world and I laughed when I realized that I had left out a couple of ways that clients find advertising agencies. First, leverage your network. That means tell your friends, clients, aunt Helen and etc. that you are great and want new clients that are into growing their business.

Beyond just lists (see below) both of these highly-searched websites require that you have a master plan for how to leverage their unique platforms. The platforms? Google and LinkedIn. Passive marketing does not work for either.

OK, back to the original post. There are multiple ways that a prospective client will find an advertising agency. These range from very aggressive agency outreach to highly intelligent outreach (yup, two different approaches) to your inbound program to your agency reputation to being on the radar of search consultants to simply getting found on the day that new client wakes up and says, “How can I find my new advertising agency” and locates an advertising agency list.

While you should have a very intelligent account-based marketing business development program, you must be available when a client searches via an advertising agency list.

There is an extra benefit of my list. Use the list to find your competitors and their best marketing practices. These lists will help you find the winners.

The List Of Advertising Agency Lists

Here is a quick look at the advertising lists you should be on. Some will be easy, some will require a bit of work. But, you need to be able to be found.

Wikipedia’s List of Advertising Agencies. This list is not just the big boys. An example, Tombras group from Knoxville is on the list.

AdAge’s A-List. Look, there must be some way that AdAge finds these agencies. Maybe you should think about letting the editors know that you are alive.

AdForum. Hey, this is what they say and I’d imagine that clients pay attention… “AdForum’s Global Directory of Advertising Agencies is the advertising industry’s premier resource for learning about agencies in the USA, Europe, Asia, Oceana, and MENA. Our interactive map identifies agencies according to region and core competencies – ranging from digital marketing and social media
strategies to mobile app development, brand engagement, and product design.”

AgencyList. Why not be here? You have to dig this fact… “Agency List has 1st page Google exposure in over 45 major cities.” [Read more…] about The Ultimate Advertising Agency List

Want Advertising Agency New Business Leads? The Ratti Report Delivers

Peter · February 26, 2021 · 2 Comments

Steve Ratti And The Ratti Report – Advertising Agency New Business Leads Served Up Daily…

As Steve Ratti, the Managing Editor of The Ratti Report says:

“Ratti Report is the leading digital newspaper for ad agencies aggressively seeking pitchable new business intel. Celebrating 10 years in publication, we continue to track down great clients for our great agency membership.”

The bottom line for The Ratti Report is that it delivers 1,000 or so actionable advertising agency new business leads per year – a few new ones each day. These are go-for-it leads for the advertising agency universe. Yes, not all leads will be perfect for your agency. But, hey, some will be if you are good at sales.

Check out my conversation with Mr. Ratti on how he does his magic, how advertising

Steve Ratti on LinkedIn.

The Ratti Report.

YO – Hypnotism coming: Remember to subscribe to Advertising Stories. Remember to subscribe to Advertising Stories.

Remember… so you will hear my whole series on virtual pitching.

A nice thing for me… Feedspot has recognized Advertising Stories as being a top 15 advertising podcast.

Advertising Agency Podcast Strategy That Cannot Be Ignored

Peter · February 14, 2021 · Leave a Comment

You Will Need An Unignorable Advertising Agency Podcast Strategy

I recently wrote a white paper on how to create a successful advertising agency podcast. “9 Unignorable Reasons Why Your Advertising Agency Should Not Podcast” covers learning from my 15-year podcast marketing journey and provides the pros and cons of podcasting. Even better, the doc is designed to guide you through an advertising agency podcast strategy that will deliver a must-listen-to podcast show. Here is how I start the 3,000-word white paper:

What’s Up With Podcasting?

I recorded my first podcast in 2007 when I owned the Portland advertising agency Citrus. After recording 18 shows, I gave up.

Why did I give up? It was just too early in the podcasting wilderness to put the time and effort into the show. I had great conversations with an editor of ADWEEK Magazine about the future of digital marketing and the growing power of Google as an ad platform (she was right); a business development guru that grew Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Worldwide, and two with the father of podcasting itself. You can hear a couple of those early interviews in my current podcast series “Advertising Stories”.

I recently gave up again.

I just ended my latest podcasting series. Why? Last June I had a plan to test a series of podcasts to see if this audio platform, which has grown exponentially since 2007, could drive my awareness and leads to my advertising agency business development consultancy. My plan was to record 40 shows between May and December 2020. These are really good interviews with cool, smart advertising people from New York to New Delhi… and I am a good interviewer. But, despite doing lots of things right, I have seen no appreciable business gain from all of this work. Some pain, no gain.

Which brings me to this instructive missive.

OK, that was the intro. You can get the white paper by subscribing to my occasional email newsletter (see the links on this page) or by contacting me at peter@peterlevitan.com

A Winning Advertising Agency Podcast Strategy – How To Be Unignorable

In the last section of my advertising agency podcast recommendations doc, after my take on some “how-tos”, I discuss how to create a podcast that is well-targeted and will be hard to ignore. I stress hard to ignore (by your cherished target market) because the list below covers the things that you will undoubtedly compete with for your future client’s work-life attention and time:

The client’s actual 8 to 7 management and marketing job.
72 daily emails.
All the incoming biz dev messaging coming in from your advertising agency competitors that are vying for the same client’s attention.
Facebook.
LinkedIn.
Instagram.
YouTube.
TikTok.
SMS text messages from Gary Vaynerchuk.
Clubhouse. Yikes, now Clubhouse.
And, a world of a zillion general podcasts from small players like The New York Times, Campaign Magazine, and NPR. Even worse, you will not be alone in the growing world of 30 to 60-minute marketing and advertising agency podcasts.