Peter Levitan & Co.

The New Business of Advertising

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Does Your Advertising Agency Do Content Marketing Right?

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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?

3D Ad Agency New Business Marketing

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Ad Agency Marketing Is Holistic, Interconnected and 3D.

Brilliant ad agency marketing leads to searches that lead to your agency.  Today these searches are much more 3D and, often,  chaotic than you think.

Let’s imagine that you are the Marketing Director of Estee Lauder and you’ve just decided you need an ad agency to revitalize your women’s magazine program. Yes, magazines like Vogue still live. Before you go out and find an agency search consultant, you pull out your laptop and do a bit of research. You will use one or more of a combination of search tactics like getting referrals from like-minded marketing experts, you’ll review agencies that are current award winners, you’ll read ADWEEK and AdAge lists and on. You might even Google, “best women’s advertising agencies.” Believe me, having once been the CEO of two ad agency client companies, finding the right marketing partner isn’t easy.

Whatever the Marketing Director has done to get to a short list, her next stop is the agency’s website. I’ve written lots about how to build sales-oriented agency websites. However, I want to get a step beyond the website. It is a step I use whenever an ad agency client prospect contacts me. I take a look at their “about” / people page and then go to LinkedIn to get a bit more up close and personal about the agency’s key players. If I am interested, I’ll also check out the leader or employee’s Facebook page and Twitter feed. Here’s a duh… personal branding is critical these days. And, since an ad agency is made of its moving parts, in this case, its people, why wouldn’t Ms. Lauder check out the people’s brands and stories too. By the way, people chemistry is a key element in agency selection.

Best Practices:  LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Personal Brands.

I often see a total lack of consistency between the way an ad agency projects its image and the images that its people project.

Look, I get it. We are all individuals. But, there is a team benefit to being consistent – in key areas.

I think that agencies should have a set of best practices and agency-related branding guidelines for their key player’s personal branding with respect to their company’s branding. While we have all read about how to set up a killer social media profile, for example, chances are very good that some key players have simply not optimized their profile. This means, they simply do not look good to the outside world, including you, hopefully, next new client.

While an employee owns their own brand (and, of course, might actually be using their LinkedIn page to find their next job), each employee should at least sound and look like they work at your agency. Here are some examples of what I mean.

  • All related LinkedIn, etc. sites should have the latest agency branding (graphics and other branding devices.)
  • There needs to be some consistency in how the employee describes the agency.
  • It would be nice if the employee had one or more client Recommendations.
  • The profiles should be complete. I am not going to get into the art of personal branding. But, someone at the agency needs to do a review of the key people.
  • Last point, no you should not be the personal branding police. But, you do need to control your agency brand. Review your group’s personal brands and make sure that each person is aware of how you want your company represented.

Holistic Marketing.

In today’s marketing world, everything matters. Everything you do brands the agency. How you answer your phone, your agency email signatures, your position on Google, your relationship with the search community, your blog posts, all of your magnet sites including The Creative Ham. You know what I’m talkin about.

And…. how you look in your employee’s world. It all adds up.

If you want, give me a shout and I’ll use our Corleone moment to help you do a quick review.

How Do Clients Find Your Advertising Agency?

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How Do Clients Find Your Advertising Agency?

Let’s start with some defining and extremely important questions that you should be asking at least twice a year. OK, every month. In this case, I am aiming these questions at your advertising agency website.

  • How do potential clients find you? What was the path?
  • When they found your website, what did they look at?
  • What percentage of your visitors contacted you?
  • What percentage made some other actions like signing up for a newsletter or downloading a white paper?
  • Are you happy? Are the right clients making contact? Need to make adjustments? What’s your success metric?

Let’s break these down a bit.

How do potential clients find you?

First, let’s get referrals out of the way. Advertising agency business development research has indicated that referrals can account for over 80% of agency new client inquiries. While I love referrals and have written about the importance of having a documented active referral strategy, there is no question that referrals have become the default new business attractor because most agencies are not doing a stellar in or outbound sales job. Referrals then must drive the majority of leads. Not that there is anything wrong with referrals. They work. But, they can be a bit random.

The easiest way to determine how prospects found you is to ask them. Of course, many people will have forgotten their first intro to your world. They simply forgot or they used multiple ways in including a search, your LinkedIn page, that conference you spoke at, your tennis buddy, etc. But always ask this question – quickly before you get lost in sales speak.

Second, in respect to your website, use your Google or WordPress analytics to see where they came from. On Wednesday, 30 April, my individual visitors came to me via Google 116; direct 47 (where a user probably entered the URL); LinkedIn 5 and Bing 1 and other 9.

These numbers suggest that my content-oriented inbound sales strategy is working. Most people find me on Google because I have dedicated the past five years to writing over six hundred blog posts on the specific subject of advertising agency new business.

What did they look at? Did you help them get to the good stuff? Do you have a funneling plan?

Using Google and WordPress analytics, I know exactly what people are looking at on this website. Obviously, since my blog is so focused on one subject, my visitors are looking at my posts about ad agency business development. I mix this up occasionally by promoting edgier posts, like Gary Vaynerchuck Is Full Of Shit. But, the bottom line is that I am slavish to one subject. Frankly, most agencies have some trouble with being this focused and keyword conscious. It would also help if they had a focused positioning. Here are some thoughts on that rather important goal.

The typical advertising and communications agency website has a defining Home Page; an About page; Our Work; News or a Blog and a contact page. Is there a flow you want the visitor to take? A place you want them to end up? Are you funneling them towards an action? If they get lost or bail, are you tracking your exit pages?

If you are a B2B marketer, and that folks, is what an ad agency business development program is, you need to funnel the visitor to your contact page. Or, at least, have them ask for something like that brilliant white paper on a subject that supports your agency positioning and sales proposition. I build my mailing list via an offer of this paper: “22 Ways To Run A Highly Profitable Agency”. I admit that it comes to you via an ugly home page pop up. But, again, hey, it works.

What percentage contacted you and what’s your success metric?

Do the basic math. How well do you convert your visitors into sales prospects? Frankly, when I look at the number of visitors I get every day, I could get worried that I am not converting as many as I should. However, here is what I know:

First, I give a lot of information and insights away for free. Many agencies tell me that they often get all they can eat just by reading my stuff. This drives good vibes.

Second, I know that my sales cycle takes a long time. Many of my clients tell me that they have been reading my stuff for over a year. It takes most advertising agencies a long time to admit that they need business development advice.

Third, I am meeting my personal sales goals. Sure, I could dial up my website. But, it works. I am a lone ranger consultant. Given your agency’s overhead, you should be way focused on delivering a website experience that drives a high volume of the right leads.

What is your success metric? Without a metric, you will never know that your website is working.

So, give me a shout. Maybe its time for you to get some outside expert advice.

 

Pitch Consultants Advice For Advertising Agencies

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 Advice For Advertising Agencies That Want to Win

A chunk of my book on how to win more advertising agency pitches included interviews with industry playas. These folks were agency owners, 4A’s execs, search and pitch consultants, procurement decision makers and legal experts. Many readers found these interviews to be invaluable in helping to craft pitches that did not make any of the big mistakes that lead to coming in “second.” By the way, have you ever noticed that all of the not-chosen come in “second”?

More advice. I just came across the 4A’s “One Piece of Advice” for Agencies. Agency Search Consultants Advice for Agencies. (January 2018.) Since this advice is, in many cases similar to the advice in my book (and includes some of the same interviewees), I am forwarding the long PDF to you as continuing confirmation that some agencies do things right and, according to the consultants, many are still getting it wrong.

A link to the full document is below. There is so much truth here that I’ve highlighted one major point from each consultant’s advice.

 Agency Search Consultants Advice for Agencies

“One Piece of Advice” for Agencies January 2018

4A’s asked industry leading agency search consultants to provide “One Piece of Advice” that the association could share with members as they begin thinking about their 2018 new business plans.

The 4A’s consultant request noted, “Based on your knowledge of client marketer needs/wants and industry dynamics, what is the one thing that you would recommend that an agency either do or not do that can help the effectiveness of their new business efforts? We welcome your advice in any area of the agency search and selection process (prospecting, RFI/RFP submissions, creds, chemistry, presentations, etc.)”

Opportunity Assessment

Joanne Davis Consulting: “It’s not about you; it’s never been about you; it’s never going to be about you. It’s about the client.”

Do you really need to hear this again? It is always about the client and her goals, opportunities and issues.

Mercer Island Group: “Something the consultants understand better than most agencies is that you can’t offer a prospect relevant value until you have identified the prospect’s true business needs. The basic idea of the elevator speech is inherently flawed — as are most agency pitches; if you’re talking about things the prospect has no interest in, they will stop listening.”

Why do you think that pitch consulatants keep saying… that it is always about the client’s goals and issues?

Drexler/Fajen & Partners: “Agencies could spend more time really understanding as much as possible about the prospect’s business and their people and be prepared to demonstrate that in a natural way.”

Study big time: the client, its industry and the macro and micro business opportunities.

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Does Search Engine Optimization Work?

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Guess What… Search Engine Optimization Does Work

The chart above is from WordPress analytics on the source of my incoming traffic. Yup, Search Engine Optimization works. Just look at all the traffic I get from search engines. And, note how many searches come from just Google. In one month… 2,538!

When I ask agencies that contact me how they found me… the answer is always via a search engine (OK, sometimes because they read my book on pitching – know what, go up top and buy it.)

The Drill

So, here’s the drill. I’ve been blogging on one subject, ad / advertising agency business development for five or so years. I’ve got over 600 super well targeted and keyword optimized blog posts. I support these with amplified mentions, emails to over 2,000 subscribers, posts on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. As you can see, Google wins hands down.

What can your agency learn from this?

  • Be single-minded. Find your competitive agency positioning and blog accordingly.
  • Use the right keywords that your audience wants to read.
  • Blog often.
  • Have long posts. Yes, its ok to have short ones like this. But, Google likes loooong posts.
  • Work to get people to link to you.

You know this stuff. So, just do it. If you want incoming, you have to work at it.

But…

I know, you are very busy. And, you only have 17 blog posts. And, your best writers don’t want to blog. And, you worry about being too dedicated to one subject. Then, I advise my clients to do a range of other tactics.

One is to guest blog on much busier sites.