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Smart Advertising Agency Lead Generation

Peter · October 14, 2023 · Leave a Comment

Unignorable Marketing Program Delivers A Smart Advertising Agency Lead Generation System

This is a thought starter for how to deliver on and support the promise that your advertising agency can make a client, its services, or its products unignorable. Deliver an unignorable message to develop a smart advertising agency lead generation system.

To prove your point and demonstrate your unignorable belief system your advertising agency will need to think about how to express its own marketing messaging in an unignorable way. Your advertising agency will need to tailor its promise based on its own skills and history.

You have to walk the talk.

Now, consider this…

“My brain is full.”

It is common knowledge that we are bombarded by 24/7 news, social media content, incoming alerts, messaging and emails, digital notifications, and multiple forms of advertising every day. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people and brands and sales messages want our attention.

“My brain forgets”

Even worse than message bombardment is the fact that we can hardly even remember the messages that we want to remember. Neuroscientists tell us that, at best, 90% of what we hear and see will be forgotten. These scientists have even invented the Forgetting Curve chart to help us to visualize how much does not sink in.

Marketing clients understand the high cost of this cognitive problem and are looking for marketing techniques, systems, platforms, and efficient solutions that help deliver sales messages that get noticed and are memorable. These clients are looking for marketing communications agencies that can offer marketing that cannot be ignored.

I call it getting to being Unignorable.

Unignorable delivers smart advertising agency lead generation.

What is the definition of Unignorable? The online dictionary Merriam–Webster defines “Unignorable” as being – unable to be ignored: not ignorable.

According to me, the opposite of being Unignorable is to be ignored. Being ignored is a marketing disaster. A waste of everyone’s time and money.

Your Advertising Agency’s Must-Do Approach to Delivering Unignorable Marketing.

OK. How to express your advertising agency’s solution to current and future clients? [Read more…] about Smart Advertising Agency Lead Generation

Improve Your LinkedIn Profile Fast (2023)

Peter · September 27, 2023 · 2 Comments

Go To My LinkedIn Profile To See How To Seriously Improve Your LinkedIn Profile In Four Minutes

I’ve added a video and audio to my Wowzer LinkedIn profile here. Go click on the photo and the little speaker.

You can have one of your own little powerful videos instead of just your photo and your voice / audio message care of those baby speakers in your LinkedIn profile. Both of these active audio and video assets are a better way to tell the world what you do or who you are. Plus, you can change these out whenever you want.

How To Maximize Your LinkedIn Profile

To add the video, click on your photo and follow the instructions.

For the audio, go to your profile and hit “the pencil” to edit your section. You will see “Your Audio Recording” and then edit “name pronunciation”. Use it to add your fabulous audio message.

Why Improve Your LinkedIn Profile?

Allow me to be obvious: Tell your story, sell yourself, sell your company, and entice people to click onward. This is your opportunity to make your personal brand shine and STAND OUT!

2 More Things.

Pass this newsletter on. I need more subs. Please. Pretty.
2. Buy my new book: “How To Build A Kick-Ass Advertising Agency”

Best AI Directories For Marketers

Peter · July 28, 2023 · 1 Comment

A Short But Sweet List of The Best AI Directories For Marketers

We are all a bit (understatement) overwhelmed with the barrage of new AI tools. To help sort this overload, here is a list of what I think are today’s easiest-to-use AI directories for marketers. Note, this is a short list.

Futurepedia – From Google Bard: “This directory is one of the largest and most comprehensive, with over 3,000 AI tools and resources listed. It’s a great place to find AI tools for a variety of tasks, including machine learning, natural language processing, and computer vision.” Just today… 18 new tools. Yikes.

Zain Kahn’s Superhuman – The world’s biggest AI newsletter with 350k+ readers.

iLib – AI websites listed by popularity.

Product Hunt – As they say: “Product Hunt surfaces the best new products, every day. It’s a place for product-loving enthusiasts to share and geek out about the latest mobile apps, websites, hardware projects, and tech creations.”

Crunchbase – A comprehensive list of AI startups. Wowzer, this is a hot venture universe. Go find your new marketing agency client here.

GPTE – Just in case you need MORE!

More directory stuff? Head over to my Resources list.

Just For The Hell Of It…

Here is a QUICK video I made with Opus Clip. It’s about predictions.

Why Be A Thought Leader

Peter · June 21, 2023 · Leave a Comment

The marketing term thought leadership has become a bit overused. Well, what marketing term is not a bit overused? I mean, do I really want to hear the word disruption again and again?

However, if we step back a bit and ask ourselves if we’d like to be perceived as an insightful, strategic, and problem-solving creative thinker—um… a thought leader—well, I’ll take the words thought leader.

Thought leadership takes time and brain power. Why bother?

Thought leaders deliver actionable…

• Information

• Insights

• Strong opinions

• Solutions to big problems

• Inspiration

• Creativity

• Innovation

• Even piece of mind

Since I started my marketing agency consultancy, I have produced more than 850 blog posts; videos using impressionists to talk me up (think Trump and Gandhi); have been a host and a guest on dozens of podcasts; and have spoken at conferences and produced white papers. I’ve recently launched a LinkedIn newsletter. Oh, this is it.

I wrote my book on pitching, The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches. and my new book How To Build A Kick-Ass Advertising Agency to build my brand by offering business-building advice. These books generate interest and proof of expertise.

My thought leadership, which is 100% dedicated to advertising agency management and business development, works. Specialization works. People pay attention. My books drive leads.

The benefits of thought leadership are clear: It demonstrates expertise and authority.

It delivers compelling, relevant business-building information and insights. Value!
It excites
It generates peer-to-peer conversations and builds relationships over time
It generates marketing-qualified leads
It can be amplified and repurposed for efficiency. One thought can be modified and spread over a range of distribution platforms
Kick-ass problem-solving thought leadership is unignorable

I need to repeat this: Kick-ass thought leadership is unignorable.

The Unignorable Insight

Your expert positioning (yes, be an expert) will drive your thought leadership. The power word is authority. Market-building insights are created and delivered via your knowledge, experience, and creative approach to problem-solving. In this case, it is OK to be authoritarian.

Just to be clear, what is an insight? From the Planning Dirty Academy’s Julian Cole:

“Insight unlocks the way around a problem. It reveals a new path.”

Thought leaders reveal that new path. Just look at the people who are quickly building their own personal brands by becoming AI experts. Example: Sam Suzchan and his 122,000 LinkedIn followers.

I’m A Thought Leader Right Here.

In my brand new book… How To Build A Kick-Ass Advertising Agency

Top Advertising And Design Awards

Peter · June 19, 2023 · 46 Comments

A Lovely List Of The Top Advertising Awards

Put yourself in a marketing client’s shoes. They want to find and select a new advertising, digital or design firm. How to do that? They ask friends; take hours searching the Internet; maybe your agency got its account-based marketing down and the client now knows about the agency; the client hires an agency search consultant or… maybe they look at the top advertising and design awards to find an agency that a third party loves. A third party that gave the agency an award and big kisses. In a world of over 4 trillion ad and digital agencies, a client needs some help.

This list provides a list of the top advertising and design awards plus: deep thoughts on why you should even bother doing the advertising award game. This game is costly and time-consuming.

Across my global and regional advertising career, I’ve won big creative awards like the One Show, EFFIES and regional ad awards. There is a system to winning… Here are my views on advertising awards objectives and strategies. It is mindblowing how many advertising agencies do not know how to enter an award show — to win.

Note: This advertising awards list gets updated. Let me know if I am missing an award.

Note #2: I write about advertising awards and other agency and personal branding strategies to make you and your agency more famous in my new book. How To Build A Kick-Ass Advertising Agency

Another note: This is obvious but is worth mentioning. Even if you do not want to send out an award entry, these websites will point you to a great place to steal ‘winning’ ideas.

Advertising Awards Are Good… But, Maybe Start Here: Why Enter Award Shows? Do You Have A Strategy?

Winning the right advertising awards is good for business and agency and client morale. Just make sure you know why you are entering. Too many agencies don’t approach the award process with a plan or objectives beyond the search for ego fulfillment. This can make the whole effort a bit too C R A Z Y. But, you know that. Or, do you? Go here to hear an advertising award judge on his less-than-optimal experience reading agency entries.

I have a memory about the power of awards from my first day at Saatchi & Saatchi London way back in the 1990s. I walked through the creative floor and noticed a tall glass case randomly stuffed with lots of creative trophies. This haphazard display delivered two messages: 1) Saatchi wins lots of awards and 2) they don’t take these too seriously. Of course, the second point was bull shit. Saatchi was always about looking like a winner and the award case proved that point in a cheeky manner. It worked better than the usual and obvious shelf of awards that sit behind the ad agency receptionist’s head.

I have always had mixed feelings about advertising awards. On one hand, they are, like winning an Academy Award, i.e. ridiculous. No one ad, digital program or actor is the “best.” On the other hand (the one with the wallet), they are way expensive. As an agency owner, I often cringed when a creative director came to me with his handout asking us to spend hundreds on award entries.

However money aside, advertising awards have some very big advantages for agencies, clients, and creative-class workers:

The awards celebrate creativity itself. Creative strategies, art, copy and the media platforms that deliver the work.

They help our most talented people get noticed.

They help smart well-designed agencies get noticed by occasionally confused clients who need second party confirmation when selecting an agency. To me, this is a very important point and one that makes writing those increasingly expensive entry checks worth the cost. Awards should be a big part of an agency’s business development program – not just an ego stroker.

To put all of this go-for-it into context, I wrote about the Portland agency Pollinate a few years back that has done very well (!) by hammering Advertising Age’s Small Agency awards show. The blog post, “How To Win The Ad Age Small Agency Award? Twice?” is a demonstration of the value of entering and winning an award that has meaning for prospective clients because it is delivered via an industry-leading publication. Check it out.

Last point before the list. Award judges have told me that around 30% of agencies do not know how to create an entry that is designed to win. Poor copy, poor strategy, even typos. Many agencies rush through the process at the very last minute. Do you? Do you have an annual award plan? Who is in charge?