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How to Build A Winning Advertising Agency Business Development Program

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advertising agency business development

How To Build An Effective, High-ROI Advertising Agency Business Development Program

Start Here. Ask Yourself: How Is Your Marketing, Digital, and Advertising Agency Business Development Program Going? 

What do I mean? Are you getting the leads you want? Are these clients high margin? Do they want great thinking, media planning and creativity from you? Might they be long-term? Do they look cool on your client list?

#1: Tough News From the 2024 RSW/US Agency New Business Report

RSW/US asked agencies: “How Difficult Is Obtaining New Business, Compared to Last Year?”

58% of agencies found it harder to obtain new business in 2023, and 38% of ad agencies reported a decrease in new business opportunities in 2023, up from 26% in 2022.

#2: My Second Book On How To Run And Grow A Kick-Ass Advertising Agency Is being bought by your competitor down the street.

If you want to run a kick-ass advertising, digital, or whatever you call your agency business development program that stands out, makes more money, and is happy, then buy my new book. Its 27 chapters cover every aspect of agency management (including staffing issues), business development, and building critical personal branding. Go here: “How To Build A Kick-Ass Advertising Agency.”

 Advertising Agency Business Development Strategies and Tactics

This is an update to “How to Build A Winning Advertising Agency New Business Program.” Your competitors have read it over 50,000 times.

Advertising agency business development is a 24/7 operation that requires the right agency positioning, strategies, action, and efficiency. I help my agency clients get there faster by building them a custom, efficient business development plan. A plan that they will run 24/7.

The post’s popularity is due to three key factors:

1. It directly addresses a major marketing pain point: how to build a winning and efficient advertising agency business growth plan.

2. The post is well optimized for search engines, delivers high value, and, therefore…

3. Google loves it. FYI, my number two trafficked post is, “How To Name Your Advertising Agency – Part One” at 30,000 + views. While always rethinking their website, advertising agencies also obsess about their name. By the way, the How to Name post is also a very good cheat sheet on naming that you can steal if a client ever needs a new brand name.

Your Competiton Is Growing – Be Unignorable

Your potential clients have over 4,000 marketing communications ‘agency’ options (other agencies, new consultancies, freelancers, even your ex-creative director…).

Therefore, any form of business development passivity on your part – sucks. If you think you are doing everything right, you probably are not. How can I say this? I never thought that all was well whilst running business development at Saatchi & Saatchi and when I owned my own west coast agency.

A critical message about not being unignorable… Watch this. I built it for my friends at AAR Partners, the leading ad agency search consultant. By the way, I read this thinking about consultants, “34 Advertising Agency Search Consultants“.

 

OK, Let’s Go… The 24/7 Business Development Plan 

I moved from New York to Bend, Oregon, in 2002 to buy a very successful advertising agency (and raise a family 20 minutes from a ski lift).

Citrus grew to add a Portland office and national accounts including Dr. Martens, Harrah’s, Leagalzoom, Nike, Providence Health & Services, the Montana Lottery, and the UN.

I woke up every day as if a client like Nike would walk out the back door along with its revenues. I bet as an ad agency owner or manager you have rough nights too. One of the things I knew I could and should do was to manage this back-door issue was to have an active, I stress active, new business plan in place.

Here are some (I stress some) of the elements of my marketing plan. They helped me grow Saatchi & Saatchi and my agency Citrus. I hope my insights help you grow your agency.

Execution Rules.

When I set out to write this advertising agency new business post I didn’t think that it would be this long – a warning to the ADHD types. However, advertising agencies’ new business planning is complex and becoming more complex every day due to the rapid changes in our industry and technology. That said, the devil in business development, you know what’s coming, is in the detail. Success is all about execution.

For example, running a successful inbound biz dev program that attracts market attention must be based on a sound strategy and smart agency process if you want to run a 24/7 sales program. Staying the course is critical.

OK. OK. Help Me ChatGPT. Here is a quick FAQ that my buddy Chat created to help you understand the core elements of this missive.

What are the key elements of a successful advertising agency new business program?

  1. Strategic Positioning: Define clear business and sales objectives, including your agency’s unique value propositions like media expertise or demographic specializations (e.g., mobile advertising, Gen X marketing).
  2. Proactive Business Development: Employ a dedicated Business Development Director to lead client acquisition efforts, ensuring alignment with agency goals and maintaining regular prospect engagement.​ 
  3. Inbound and Outbound Marketing: Implement a balanced strategy with targeted content marketing (blogs, white papers) and smart use of social media platforms to generate inbound leads. Complement this with aggressive outbound tactics like cold calling, personalized emails, and strategic ad placements.
  4. Client Acquisition and Retention: Focus on acquiring clients through thoughtful qualification of leads, engaging pitches, and effective management of proposals and pitches. Post-acquisition, ensure smooth transitions and high client satisfaction to foster long-term relationships.
  5. Continuous Learning and Adaptation: Regularly update the business development plan to reflect market changes and internal growth goals. Utilize tools like CRM systems to track progress and optimize strategies based on data-driven insights.

How can an agency maintain continuous new business growth?

  • Consistency in Marketing Efforts: Regular updates and interactions via high-value emails and social media posts ensure continuous engagement with potential clients. 
  • Leveraging Thought Leadership: Establish your agency as a thought leader by narrowing your focus to specific niches or industries, thus standing out from the competition. 
  • Utilizing Advanced Tools and Analytics: Keep track of all marketing and pitch efforts through detailed analytics to understand what strategies work best and adjust accordingly.

What are common mistakes to avoid in agency new business development?

  • Overextending Without Focus: Avoid trying to be everything to everyone. Specialize in certain areas to differentiate your agency from others.
  • Neglecting Business Development Culture: Ensure that business development is ingrained in the agency’s culture, with all team members actively participating in growth activities.
  • Inefficient Use of Resources: Focus on quality over quantity in marketing efforts to avoid wasting resources on unqualified leads or ineffective strategies.

Back To Me: The Advertising Agency Business Development Plan. First Things First.

I have never been able to construct an effective business development program without first having an agency business plan.

The business plan should include (at least):

  • Your agency’s business and business development objectives
  • An assessment of your current strengths and weakness (I have all of my clients do an internal SWOT analysis)
  • A competitive agency positioning (specialization is a good thing)
  • An analysis of your space in the world – as in, why would a client hire you?
  • Clear target market objectives and target market personas
  • A service plan (it might mean adding new services)
  • Your inbound and outbound (think Account-Based Marketing) plan
  • The very important objective of running unignorable messaging
  • A dedication to being consistent and efficient – as in having a process

Your business plan should also help you plan for your future in the evolving world of marketing communications. I think that client confusion with the evolving state of advertising and marketing – this includes big and small clients – makes today a great time to be an agency. Winning agencies are resolving their business challenges, crafting the right services and guidance, and, importantly, are willing to modify their business model to avoid disruption to achieve success.

advertising agency business developmentIt is also imperative that you develop a roadmap for how to grow your current agency to become the agency of the future. The market, communication platforms, and client expectations are changing rapidly. Assess your current strengths, weaknesses, and how your agency expertise and personnel are going to stay ahead of change (do an annual SWOT analysis).

Change can be very profitable. What if you could restart your agency using a blank sheet of paper? Would you build a replica of your current agency or would it look dramatically different? If you think that change is in order, you better get started. Here is a powerful mantra from General Eric Shinseki. 

“If you dislike change, you’re going to dislike irrelevance even more.”

The Agency New Business Program – Join The 34%

advertising agency business developmentArmed with your business plan you can get ahead of your competitors by having a comprehensive new business plan. Most agencies do not have a plan. Get this industry research…

66% Of Advertising Agencies Report That They Do Not Have a Business Development Plan. This Is Lunacy!

Your plan should include most, if not all of the following: [Read more…] about How to Build A Winning Advertising Agency Business Development Program

Improve Your Advertising Agency Brand

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The Power of Personal Chemistry and the Advertising Agency Brand

The advertising agency brandI’ve talked a lot about how a stand-out, unignorable advertising agency brand can make or break your agency’s ability to attract the attention of a new client. Plus, the personal side of an agency brand can determine if you can win or lose a pitch.

Yo People Power

There seems to be one aspect of pitching that keeps coming up over and over and rises to the top of almost everyone’s list. That is the idea that agencies ultimately win or lose based on interpersonal chemistry and corporate culture alignment. How do I know this? I’ve asked a dozen advertising agency consultants about what works and does not in a pitch since so many agencies sound and look alike.

People win pitches.

Manage Personal Chemistry

My fear with the chemistry thing is that it can appear to be something that is just nature vs. something that can be managed and created. There is a school of thought that says that you either gel with the prospect or you don’t. Sorry, Advertising agency Business Development Director, it’s all about a managed chemical reaction, and that’s why it is called chemistry.

Yikes. After preparing a smart, tight presentation, are we ultimately at the mercy and vagaries of some mysterious and unmanageable human thing? Pheromones, anyone?

I refuse to think that we don’t have any control. I don’t like the idea that after the long and expensive journey from an agency’s business development outreach to RFIs, RFPs, and then on to the final presentation, it all comes down to fate: the client either digs you, or they don’t. It just sounds way too passive.

So what can we do to build chemistry?

Let’s start with what not to do. Do not make any of the mistakes discussed in the early chapters of my The Levitan Pitch. book. Think of it this way: if you are twenty-something and you are going out to find your mate, you shower and dress accordingly. If you are a surfer, you wear Hurley’s. If you work on Wall Street, you wear Prada. Once you’ve defined your target prospect and aligned persona, you know that you need to do the obvious: make eye contact and act interested in the other person’s story. You will try to avoid any conversation-killing words. Even better, you will lean in and listen and make adjustments to your side of the conversation to demonstrate your interest. You won’t bore them with endless stories that are all about you. You will flatter them.

OK, you get it. Avoid the things that you can control. Yes, I believe we can.

But can we manufacture and/or control interpersonal chemistry to drive the advertising agency brand? Or, is it just up to some form of automatic business-related pheromones?

New business chemistry gets even more complicated when you introduce the idea that chemistry must be built between two groups in addition to individuals. Sure, some pitches are won because of an agency’s charismatic leader. However, in most cases, it is your team that is being evaluated. In order to develop chemistry between two separate groups (clients and agency presenters), the presenter group, as a whole, needs to demonstrate an understanding of the client group’s challenges, a commonality of purpose, matching emotional commitment (passion), empathy for shared problems, and a common language. Ultimately you will build rapport with the client group if they think that you are all in sync, as in on the same wavelength, especially in understanding their business issues. This is one of the reasons that you always need to remember that the pitch is much more about them, not you.

Two key words to keep on the top of your mind and manage are values, as in having and demonstrating shared values, and trust, as in building confidence in your agency’s integrity and reliability. Building trust is particularly important in service pitches where the client will be committing to a personal relationship. Trust is more easily given between two similar groups; groups that have already established commonalities. You are like me, therefore I understand you better and can trust you more easily.

Cultural alignment is also critical. Assuming that there isn’t a total disconnect between the client’s values and yours (this is something you should have figured out back at the RFP stage), cultural alignment can be managed. To get there, make sure ahead of any meeting that you read up on the client’s Mission and Vision Statements, review their brand values, and understand their corporate goals. If the client is a public company, read their annual report. It provides a comprehensive overview of the company’s business and financial condition and its dreams.

Find commonalities between the client and your agency, and subtly reinforce these in the meeting.

An Advertising Agency Brand Example – Be Delightful

As I mentioned earlier in the book learn everything about the client you want.

My ex-client Sara Lee’s Mission Statement states that they want: “To simply delight you… every day.” Surely your agency could find a very creative way to mirror the idea of “delight” in your pitch and even (very sparingly) use the word “delight” to reinforce rapport.

WTF Takeaways From Ad Age Small Agency Conference

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Ad Age Small Agency Conference: Stating The Obvious… Way Too Often

Ad Age Small Agency Here are some smart, yet painful, takeaways from The Ad Age Small Agency Conference. I am not surprised at what the speakers say. But also a bit horrified. I mean, what you are about to hear are what I would consider no-brainers for how to run an advertising agency.

No Brainers… That is my What The Fuck. Am I being too dramatic? I don’t think so.

The issue is that these expert takeaways and advice should be ingrained in all advertising, digital design, and PR agencies. Clearly these takeaways are not. But, YMMV. I include some thoughts and links to “helpful’ thinking. Mine.

Not Speaking Client Language. From Mirren:

Brent Hodgin, Mirren’s Managing Director, is focused on language. As in client language.

“Clients are focused on growth and revenue and most agencies are focusing on brand reputation and positioning,” Hodgins said. “And that is a gap.” Awareness “in and of itself is not an end benefit,” he said, because you can grow awareness and still not move one product off the shelf.” He added: “When you don’t use the language of your client … it’s like you are an outsider trying to be an insider.”

The Levitan take. Hey, agencies are selling services to a prospective client that wants stuff. Figure out what stuff they want (gee like more sales and customers and the right analytics + KPIs) and talk their language. Do the upfront research.

Get past typical agency “branding” talk to talking about “sales”. Like ROI.

Some “CLIENT” language from my pitch book:

Here is a quote from an interview I did with Ian Beavis who has been EVP Automotive at Nielsen and ex auto CMO (Kia, Mitsubishi.) He has been pitched by dozens of agencies (and ran the Toyota account at Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising, as well)

Levitan: A final question. Agencies have a hard time creating a competitive agency brand positioning. Any insights and advice you can give to the agency world on how to be distinctive in this highly competitive category?

Beavis: You rarely hear of an agency being a business solution provider, as it just doesn’t sound cool or creative. A good agency solves a client’s business issues and is a partner. Very few qualify and even fewer truly embrace this challenge.

Clients want agencies that understand business objectives and business results. They want to hear that you get it. That’s it, folks. This WTF is about not doing the research to learn what that prospective client wants.

Agencies Have a Serious Branding Problem. From The Martin Agency.

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Best Advertising Podcast List

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advertising podcast listThe  Advertising Stories podcast program publishes smart, funny, and useful interviews with advertising and marketing leaders. There are a LOT of podcasts out there. So, to make life a bit easier, here is my very own best advertising podcast list.

I have produced 40 episodes since June. And, As you know WOM rocks, so tell your friends all about Advertising Stories. Thank you.

Oh, and please subscribe via Apple Podcasts or use the subscribe links on this page.

Here Is The Best Advertising Podcast List – Handy Dandy.

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Buy These Advertising Books Today

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Advice: Buy These “Advertising” Books

I first met Paul Arden when I moved to Saatchi & Saatchi London in 1991 to run the J&J account and business development across Europe. Paul was one of Saatchi’s most famous creative directors, had worked on major agency accounts like British Airways, Silk Cut (a cigarette brand) and Fuji. He was a very serious London dude dressed in Saville Row suits and Havana cigar smoke.

Our first argument happened about five minutes into our first meeting on my second day. I think (know) that he had disdain for American ad guys and he presumed that I was a dweeb. Because we had to work together, the head of the office managed our relationship by seating us next to each other at a table in the big Saatchi Wimbledon tennis tournament tent. The kind of big money client event that was standard in those days. We sat down at our appointed places, looked at each other, laughed and decided to like each other.

The next argument occurred when Paul created a rather expensive video (without anyone’s approval) to illustrate the big idea that we presented to Adidas when we were a lock to win their international account and I was going to build my own sports agency to run it. This was a big fucking deal for the agency and me. We didn’t win it. It was the worst advertising pitch ever. Read about it here.

Paul’s Books

I highly recommend Paul’s books. Smart, full of easy to digest insights (you like small books, right?) and rather witty. Buy them and put them on your desk. About $28 bucks will make you look like you have your act together. Reading them will help you get your act together.

It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be.

Here’s the pitch on Amazon:

It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be is a handbook of how to succeed in the world – a pocket ‘bible’ for the talented and timid to make the unthinkable thinkable and the impossible possible. The world’s top advertising guru, Paul Arden, offers up his wisdom on issues as diverse as problem solving, responding to a brief, communicating, playing your cards right, making mistakes and creativity, all notions that can be applied to aspects of modern life.

Whatever You Think – Think The Opposite.

From Amazon:

The inspired follow-up to the international bestseller It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be.

Bursting with ideas, innovations, art, philosophy, science, and brilliantly bad advice from Paul Arden–a cult figure in the worlds of advertising, art, design, and marketing–Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite offers a new way to approach business and life.

Do me a favor by doing yourself a favor –  buy these.