Search Results for: pitch

Advertising Agency Business Development & Cold Calling

Peter · March 5, 2019 · 2 Comments

Eeeew, Advertising Agency Cold Calling

One of my advertising agency business development clients asked me today if cold calling was better than doing nothing.

I responded that cold calling is so ineffectual that he might just want to do nothing. Of course, we had a more in-depth conversation about objectives, strategy and tactics — but his question points out that many agency people still employ cold calling. They must think it works.

Cold Facts About Cold Calling

I took these facts from the 2018 ZoomInfo blog about B2B cold calling:

63% of salespeople say cold calling is what they dislike most about their jobs
Cold calling is ineffective 90.9% of the time
Less than 2% of cold calls actually result in a meeting
Less than 1% of cold calls lead to a sale
In 2007 it took an average of 3.68 cold call attempts to reach a prospect. Today it takes 8 attempts

Don’t make cold calling an important element of your biz dev program. But, you know that.

Cold Information

One more serious point about make-believe B2B marketing. All you have to do to get Sales Qualified leads is to do content or inbound marketing.

As you traverse the world of business development thinkers, you will find people that tell you that inbound is the only way to go – even going so far as saying that if you are brilliant and narrowly focussed you will never have to pitch for business. Sorry, not true.

Today, as has been the case for years, you need to exercise all of your business development muscles and tactics to win.

Don’t make content marketing the only element of your biz dev program. But, you know that.

In and Out

Hey, I have no issue with inbound and social media marketing as I have built my global consultancy on inbound – I get it. My 650+ blog posts get Google, LinkedIn and Twitter action.

This has worked for me because when I get a call from my very (very!) narrow target audience of advertising, PR, and digital agencies, they most likely found me because I am on page one of most ad agency business development related searches. Now really, do you think your agency will be on page one for a search of PPC or PR or general, even local, agencies? Probably not. That’s why you also need to be very smart about outbound marketing. Or, as it is now called Account Based Marketing. Which simply means… find a set of companies that you want to work with and go after them with a very smart, well researched, insight-driven marketing program.

LOL. For years, we’ve called this ‘sales.’

As pointed out earlier, a ‘nerve-racking’ element of outbound marketing is the cold call. I prefer to call it / make it warm calling.

Just the mere mention of cold calling strikes fear in the hearts of the most accomplished advertising agency CEO’s and business development directors. Let’s face it, who really likes to pick up the phone to call a stranger and ask them for something… like their advertising or design account? Um, chances are rather good that it’s not you.

Because of this painful fact, we now have an entire industry of social media experts telling you that all you have to do today to win at business development is inbound marketing. You know, if you blog, Tweet, leverage Linkedin and Facebook, the business will just come knocking at your door.

Really? I don’t think so.

Please note, I am not telling you that a refined agency positioning plus the strategic use of social media coupled with targeted insight-driven content marketing won’t deliver incoming leads. I am just saying that inbound alone is a bit too passive for most aggressive (in a good way to be aggressive) sales programs.

I am sure you know what accounts that you’d like to work for and why they should think about you. OK? So, go get them. But, do not wait for the looong social media cycle to get them to find you. Will attracting the attention of the specific clients you want to work with take time? Yes. But I’d rather be intelligently pro-active than 24/7 passive. [Read more…] about Advertising Agency Business Development & Cold Calling

Is Your Advertising Agency Underpaid?

Peter · March 2, 2019 · Leave a Comment

This post is about the underpaid advertising agency. As in, your advertising agency is probably underpaid – or under managed. Or both. Believe me, they are connected.

To be cute, this post is about the three P’s…

Profit, Process and Podcast.

Don’t forget to scroll down and listen to the podcast. In the meantime…

I recently had the opportunity to meet with Michael Farmer, author of Madison Avenue Manslaughter. Michael’s is a disturbing must-read book on the business of advertising agencies. Michael covers the reasons for the advertising industry going from high profit to low profit. From being paid almost too well (as in the 15% commission on media) to underpaid for its value (as in cost-plus or fixed fees). Mega-point, agencies do not know how to manage SOW — scope of work. I urge you to read the book.

To further one of Michael’s major points, I recently got an email newsletter from him where he discusses the “agency of the future” – a subject I have written about. Michael points out, and titles his email, “The First Step for The Agency of the Future: Become a Well-Run Business”. His point:

Much has been written about the “Agency of the Future.” It is integrated, digital, efficient, agile, analytical, creative and effective. It is adaptive and reflective of clients’ needs. It is completely transformed. It walks on water. However, the Agency of the Future cannot be created unless it first becomes a well-run business that generates the necessary financial resources.

So, Is Your Advertising Agency Underpaid & Undermanaged?

You are undoubtedly underpaid. I am not going to belabor this unfortunate point. However, other than charging correctly for your work (a yikes if I ever heard one), I suggest that many agencies are simply undermanaged.

Or, poorly managed. Or, without a sound process. A process that goes from the master business plan to execution. [Read more…] about Is Your Advertising Agency Underpaid?

Your Advertising Agency Will Get Fired

Peter · February 16, 2019 · Leave a Comment

One of the tenets of my business development system is the understanding that your advertising agency will get fired by virtually every one of your project work and AOR clients. This means that you better be out there finding your next set of clients because your current clients will sooner or later walk out the back door.

To get even more painful, we all need to get over the disastrous track record of agencies that wait till they get fired to get fired up about running a new business/sales program. The standard, awful, message is that the agency was too busy working on its current clients to run a solid business development program. You know, the horrible saying… “we are like the shoemaker who can’t make shoes for his kids.”

I’ve written in the past about why advertising agencies get fired – right here. This post expands on that review. But first, here is a key finding I wrote about a couple of years ago:

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.”

Why You Will Be Fired & How To Stop It

There has been a bunch of research about the primary reasons that clients fire agencies. While getting fired is somewhat inevitable, I think that agency management must be very cognizant of the reasons and manage their agency and staff accordingly.

The smartest, most aware agencies get fired less frequently.

Let’s walk through the reasons you will get fired. I’ll be brief because I believe that most of these can be managed down without a huge effort.

It’s Much About KPI’s and Return On Investment

I counsel all of my agency clients that return on investment, the client’s investment in their marketing programs must yield a positive and calculated sales return on every dollar they spend. Obvious, right? That said, it is amazing to see how many advertising agencies cannot calculate ROI based on a client’s KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators). Some agencies do not even ask about key performance metrics. [Read more…] about Your Advertising Agency Will Get Fired

See How Advertising Agency Humor Can Sell You

Peter · January 29, 2019 · Leave a Comment

When I owned my Portland advertising agency I was always looking for a way to really grab the attention of a business development prospect the second they hit our home page.

I mean grab them. Excite them. Hold them. Sell them.

An approach that I considered over and over was to have a stand-up comedian do one or more video sets about advertising issues, the issues that our agency would solve plus toss in some self-deprecating agency humor. The key here was to immediately capture home page attention, look different and find a way to deliver our sales pitch via laughs. For some reason, I never made the decision to go this route and I kinda regret at least testing it.

A new liquor company looking for marketing help approached me last week. As I was starting to think through their objectives, product line and target market opportunities, I began a search for what is currently considered smart liquor advertising. One of my advertising agency clients pointed me to the Deadpool actor Ryan Reynold’s Aviation Gin. I’ll get back to him in a minute. [Read more…] about See How Advertising Agency Humor Can Sell You