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11 Must Have Ad Agency Business Development Tools

Peter · June 8, 2019 · 1 Comment

11 Must-Have Ad Agency Business Development Tools (Updated From 2014).

NOTE: I first wrote this 11 Must-Have Ad Agency Business Development Tools blog post at the very end of 2014 and a few minutes ago the website checker app Checkbot pointed out that this post has a couple of dead links. (4.5 years later and it is interesting to see what tools have survivied). So, I thought that I’d repost and make things work. I suspect a reason for the broken links is that some of these tools are history. Here is what I found.

Back to 2014 – it is still worth the read… Blog post Consistency, actually the lack of it, is one of the most pressing issues that reduces the effectiveness of most advertising agency new business programs. So… Here are some ad agency business development tools that I recommend to keep your agency’s new business and content development program on track. (Tweet this.)

These tools (and there is a big world of tools out there these days) will help your efficiency and, more importantly, make you look like a subject matter expert because you are on that ball. Even better, as you use these tools for your own business development efforts, you will be gaining social media expertise that will dazzle your client prospects.

Clients (the ones you do not have yet) need your help according to this research from Ascend2.

Almost half of the clients surveyed have significant social media obstacles to overcome. You can help them by helping yourself.

This list of 11 tools is my first set of recommended online social media management tools. There will be more coming. [Read more…] about 11 Must Have Ad Agency Business Development Tools

Google Will Screw Your Ad Agency

Peter · May 14, 2019 · 2 Comments

Google is going to screw your ad agency.

Or, better said, they are going to mess with your organic listing. Which means, that your ad agency will be harder to find. And, therefore screwed.

Many of the ad, digital, etc. agencies I talk with tell me that their SEO is not delivering the power that it once did. Between ads taking top positions, Google’s desire to answer your inquiry right on page one in a snippet (like Google’s answering what the tallest tree is in a two-sentence snippet so you do not even have to go to the expert tree website).

Google is changing, again.

I urge you to go to Neil Patel’s How Google’s New Layout Predicts the Future of SEO to read an in-depth review of what Google is doing/considering. Believe me, this is not good news for you or me since I get the majority of my leads from a Google search.

From Neil: The big trend is that the organic search results have been drastically pushed down below the fold. Roughly by 3.3X.

How does that look? Pretty bad folks. One example… who is ever going to see that blog that you spend hours crafting?

What To Do?

First of all, the benefits of a Google search will not go away. Sure your ad agency might be on page two or three but I am going to imagine that people will scroll down a bit more to see the organic lists. OK, maybe. What can your ad agency do? [Read more…] about Google Will Screw Your Ad Agency

Advertising and Ageism

Peter · May 7, 2019 · 3 Comments

Advertising and Ageism = Insanity

I am going to discuss two forms of advertising and ageism. First, as it relates to agency staffing and second about the insanity of not marketing to the richest consumer market.

Start Here: There are few areas of the advertising industrial complex that baffles more than rampant ageism. Here is a World Health Organization definition of the master issue…

Ageism is the stereotyping and discrimination against individuals or groups on the basis of their age; ageism can take many forms, including prejudicial attitudes, discriminatory practices, or institutional policies and practices that perpetuate stereotypical beliefs.

I see two areas where ageism lives in advertising.

Oh, oh… before I start. I was going to use Jeff Goodby of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners (that’s him in the photo) as an example of an ‘older’ guy who still works in advertising. But, and I find this kinda humorous, it is virtually impossible to find out how old Jeff is. I suspect that he has erased age from his bio.

First: Ageism and Advertising Agency Staffing

There is no question that the advertising industry is about young people and the not over 45 employee. According to AdAge:

In 2017, the majority, or 63 percent, of workers in advertising, public relations and related services were under 45 years of age, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The median age in the category was 39.2—roughly the same as a decade earlier. (By comparison, the median age in accounting, including tax prep, bookkeeping and payroll services, was 45.)

Though I find advertising agency employee-based ageism unnerving, I understand this bias from a business perspective. As an ex-agency owner, I know the need to keep staff costs down. In what is becoming a lower and lower margin industry, cost efficiency, especially when it relates to salaries and healthcare costs is critical. My over 50 employees cost a lot more than my under 40.

Another reason that agencies go “young” is that there is the perception that older workers do not “get” new digital marketing platforms. Really? Are we really thinking that one has to have been born after 1990 to understand how digital marketing works? I am twice the age of the average agency employee. Yet, I was one of the ‘inventors’ of digital news in 1995, launched the first natural language marketing interface in 2000 (think bots) and ran an Oregon agency that specialized in digital marketing. Do you think that I am the only older person that gets it? I mean frankly, how much of a fucking genius do you have to be to understand Instagram video?

I think that the idea that anyone over 45 does not get it is simply an excuse to keep costs down by reducing the number of more expensive employees.

Second: Ageism and Advertising’s Missing Demographic

Imagine a marketer waking up and not wanting to market to a huge segment of the population? Well, that is how advertising works today.

Despite being a massive market, only about 5% of U.S. advertising is even aimed at people over 50 according to Havas Group. There are many reasons for this. But I think that ageism plays a part (like you are 27 and like why would I want to spend my client’s budget on people like my parents?) I mean, they don’t use Snapchat. They don’t play Minecraft. They don’t binge drink.

When you staff up an agency with 27-year-olds, you are going to miss having a bunch of people with broader life experiences. The kind of life experience (and no, I am not suggesting that agencies need in-house 70-year-olds) that helps your agency sell more stuff.

Isn’t an advertising agency in the business of selling more stuff? To like, whomever?

Possibly, not selling more stuff is a reason that advertising agencies are not perceived as being essential as they used to be to driving client sales.

OK, time for my milk and cookies.

Want more? Read this from Fast Company: Why marketing to seniors is so terrible.

10 Ways To Advertise Your Advertising Agency

Peter · March 27, 2019 · Leave a Comment

Do you advertise your advertising agency?

Based on my industry experience, most do not. This means that agencies are not aiming and tailoring their primary sales messages to their target audiences.

This post offers 10 ways to advertise your advertising agency as well as the why you should to it, like, yesterday.

Caveat: You should seriously consider advertising your advertising agency. However, you should first run a smart, consistent account-based marketing program to directly drive agency awareness to your best prospects.

Advertising – A Definition

Just for the heck of it, and to get us all on the same page, here is a definition of advertising. I use ‘advertising’ as a universal term for marketing communications companies.

Advertising is a means of communication with the users (or, non-users) of a product or service. Advertisements are messages paid for by those who send them and are intended to inform or influence people who receive them, as defined by the Advertising Association of the UK.

Why An Advertising Agency Should Advertise

There are four reasons an agency should advertise.

You want to be where prospective clients look for agencies.
You want to put your agency right in front of the right prospects (and even busy agency search consultants like Laura Bajkowski) 24/7.
You want to borrow the interest that on and offline publications can deliver.
You want to prove that you believe in advertising and that you are super creative.

10 Advertising Platforms Your Agency Should Consider

WARNING: Most likely, your agency cannot create and run efforts on all of these platforms. Roll them out based on your marketing plan.

TEST: Test everything. Do more of what works and less of what does not. Yeah, I’m being very obvious. But, testing is the mantra. Your clients want ROI. You do too and running your own programs may make you a better judge of how to judge success across advertising channels.

In addition to listing the ad platforms, I am also giving some, not all, of the reasons that a local/regional agency and an expert agency (example, lead gen B2B agency) should choose the platform. This is meant as food for thought. There are too many types of agencies for me to give every iteration. But, you get it.

Update: It is five hours after I wrote this. I now have number 11. It’s at the bottom of the list.

1. Google AdWords.

Every client in need of a new agency searches on Google. If you are not on page one for the search, buy the position.

Do keyword research and buy the keywords that meet your reach objectives.

Local/regional agency. It would be insane to not try to be on Google’s page one for your location. Example: if you are based in Seattle, buy ‘Seattle advertising agency’ or ‘Seattle SEO agency.’

Expert. Buy ‘Lead generation agency’ or ‘high tech leads agency.’ Do you want Purina as a client? Think about what their marketing team searches on.

2. YouTube.

I have an agency client that produces an interview with marketing leaders every month. They blast them out in emails, on their blog and… yup, leverage the power of the number two search engine to aim their videos at their audience. The agency also retargets. Since there are fewer results on YouTube than on Google, the agency gets more attention (and, yup, these videos also turn high up in Google searches.)

It would real easy for a local agency, most are, to ‘own’ their town’s video world. How about a weekly where to eat in Kansas City series shot on an iPhone?

Need inspiration? Here is john st.’s rather viral video (as of writing it has 2,447,266 views) about the power of Catvertising. Frankly, has any other agency ever had over 2 million views?

3. Advertising Agency Directories.

This is a serious no-brainer that many agencies do not take advantage of. In many cases, an agency directory is on Google’s page one and lists your competitors.

Make sure you are every relevant agency directory and spend the cash if it nets you a higher position or allows you to deliver more information (i.e. your work) and, especially, a link back to your website. [Read more…] about 10 Ways To Advertise Your Advertising Agency

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