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2016 Winners and Losers

Peter · December 22, 2016 · Leave a Comment

My 2016 Winners and Losers

Well, not just mine. Here is a video from L2 and its CEO Scott Galloway on his 2016 predictions. Galloway is one of the more entertaining folks out there and his take on what is working and not in marketing and the digital space is always worth a watch. He is well viewed so if you haven’t yet, you’d better because I suspect your smartest clients watch him. A key takeaway? Your agency needs to understand the world of messaging.

The massive world of messaging has been one of my big winners too. Especially messaging plus chatbots – a perfect new marketing space for agencies and their inherent skills. Here are a bunch of articles on the subject.

A Loser?

Advertising, PR, digital, content, experiential agencies that sit on their business development haunches and hope that their telephone or email chimes with incoming clients. No, just sitting on your ass and playing the ‘word-of-mouth-referal-game’ won’t win new clients. I wrote about the need for relentless sales ENERGY right here: Your Advertising Agency must Kick Ass in 2017.

A Winner — Vaynerchuck

But, but, wait, wait, there’s more. Below is one of this year’s smartest keynote addresses. In this case… from the effervescent Gary Vaynerchuck of online wine and Vayner Media fame. This talk (rant) is his 2016 Inbound keynote care of HubSpot. I love HubSpot. They publish my stuff. By the way, I tell all of my agency clients to guest post for broad awareness, message reach, and fame. Here are some of mine…. I walk my talk.

This keynote is long. Break it up into thirds and watch it hard. I don’t care who you are. You will get more than one inspiring moment. Gary walks the talk too. Vayner Media just might be the fastest growing agency today. Why? They do not sit on their ass waiting for the phone to ring.

Your Advertising Agency Must Kick Ass In 2017

Peter · December 21, 2016 · Leave a Comment

Dear Advertising Agency: Kick Ass In 2017

As you will see below, times are tough and getting tougher for advertising agency business development. Clients are confused; are (massive understatement coming…) a bit uneducated in all of the new advertising options; worried about their budgets; worried about ROI; worried about data overload; find it hard to work with a range of specialists from PPC to video to mobile to chatbots and on.

Oh, and if you are an advertising, digital, PR, SEO, PPC, experiential and on and on agency… you have like (massive understatement coming…) 4,000 agency competitors ranging from multinationals to single really smart dudes (as The Donald says) who are working from their bed in New Jersey.

Daunting?

Sounds daunting, right?

Sure, sales is daunting. But, the only people that will win new business in 2017 are the people that kill it. Sleeping through your business development program (or lack thereof) is, well, sleepy. From a sales perspective, given how tough business development has become, being sleepy is not gonna work. Your agency will fail.

The only advertising, digital, PR, SEO, PPC, experiential agencies that will grow in 2017 are the ones that realize that EXECUTION rules. Having a business development / sales plan is nice (and most agencies do not have one.) But, having that plan and not kicking ass with it, as in executing, is a losing proposition.

It’s Tough Out There

eMarketer’s advertising agency new business article, “Agencies Face Tougher New Business Environment” was in my inbox last week. The article references RSW/US’s (always smart) industry research. In this case, RSW/US reports that…

“In an October 2016 survey of ad agency professionals by business development group RSW/US, 43% of respondents said that obtaining new business had gotten either “harder” or “a lot harder” this year.”

Surprised? I’m not. Sales isn’t easy.

OK, So It Has Gotten Harder

What is your advertising agency going to do about it? Here are some of my thoughts and advice from working with dozens of agencies on their sales plans.

But first, back to my rant. Everything I am about to say is smart and actionable. However, if you do not actually do it, as in run it, 24/7 you will fail.

The 2017 Advertising Agency New Business Sucess List

This is the must do list. Once you agree to this list, the hard part is doing it. Yes, I am repeating myself. The single biggest issue confronting advertising agency sales is not running the plan. And. I do know all of your excuses for not running your plan with any consistency.

Can the excuses.

Have a business plan that outlines how your agency is going to make money.

Build your agency to deliver on the promises in your business plan.

Do not be one of the 17% of agencies that actually admits that they “Can’t make the investment in a new business program.” WHAT 17%? Are you kidding me? I bet that 17% is probably more like 30%. If 30% of advertising agencies do not invest then you must.

Have a business development plan that is based on what the market needs.

Make sure you treat your business development program with the same care and attention you deliver to a client. Put sales on your daily production list.

Know exactly who you want as a client. Have a set of criteria that makes sense for your agency.

Position your agency for success. What does that mean? It means that you cannot be everything to everyone. Know if you are a skill set specialist; a client category specialist; a regional or global specialist; a demographic specialist. “Specialist”… get it? If you want to “break through to prospects” (see the RSW/US research), give them a single-minded sales proposition.

Build brand messaging that clearly supports and amplifies your positioning.

Tell the market that you are the leader. Be bold.

Please… have a website that is more than a brochure; that does not look like your competitor’s WordPress site; that is designed to sell; that creates some agency to client chemistry and then asks for the clnet to make contact. Make them an offer they cannot refuse.

Have an inbound marketing strategy. An attraction strategy. One that makes sure that you can be found by that client that wants to meet you.

Go outbound to talk directly to the prospective clients that you have on your master list. Use the tools that will get their attention. I mean everything from direct mail 9yes, paper) to facebook ads to email to Instagram. Whatever makes sense for the category you are pursuing.

Be a thought leader. I mean an INSIGHT leader. Have things to say that cannot be ignored.

Busy? Use design, copy, sales, research or whatever outsourcing to help you run the plan.

Be an unignorable agency.

Write RFP’s that follow instructions to a ‘T’ then find a way to kick some ass to stand out.

OK, Last Point

You have a business plan. You’ve run a smart sales program. You got that RFP. You nailed it. You’ve been invited to pitch the business. Now, do not look and sound like every other agency.

Pitch smarter than the other agencies. Buy my book. Win more pitches.

More Advertising Agency Christmas

Peter · December 9, 2016 · 1 Comment

An Advertising Agency Christmas Video That…

…Is actually entertaining. In this case, no surprise, it’s from Toronto’s Zulo Alpha Kilo.

“The holidays are a time for forgiveness. And what better way to ask for forgiveness than with Dmitri the Apology Dog from Zulu Alpha Kilo.”

Hard to go wrong with a talking dog.

My Wednesday Photograph

Peter · December 6, 2016 · Leave a Comment

The Wednesday Photograph

A funny thing happens when you run a blog. You find out that you have to feed it as if it was a pet. No food, no life. In the blog’s case, no content (copy, videos, photographs), no Google love.

Google love is my primary business development tool. Most of my ad agency clients tell me that they found me on Google (usually on page one for a related search.) So, in honor of my need to feed the Google beast and the fact that my weekly round-up newsletter will go out tomorrow and… the fact that I have not written a new blog post this week (too busy with client work – a very lame excuse), I am starting a new series called My Wednesday Photograph to ensure that I have at least one post per week. By the way, that’s me on the left in the mining town Minerale de Pozos.

I’ll get into my photography in greater detail in the future. But, as a fast start… I started shooting when I was a teen in New York. Got my BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. Ran Levitan & Feinstein Photography in SF for 4 years and then moved to New York where I decidedIi did not want to shoot commercial work. I then started my advertising career. That said, I’ve been shooting for myself since then. For gear heads… I shoot a Widelux, a 1960’s wide angle film camera made famous by Jeff Bridges, and Fuji’s X-T1 and X100T.

Mexico Lindo. Or, Beautiful Mexico.

I moved to Mexico last July. You can read about the move here. In the past few weeks, I’ve been going out in the streets of San Miguel de Allende and nearby small towns with two assistants and a large white background to photograph Mexicans. One of my goals is to show Americans how wonderful these folks are in a time when many Mexican are demonized by xenophobic Americans. So, here you go with the portrait on the left and two Apache dancers I shot last week in San Miguel Viejo – a town of 336.

More to come.

Ad Agency Business Development Trick

Peter · November 21, 2016 · Leave a Comment

My Business Development Trick Interview

I have a business development trick I use when working with my ad agency clients. It’s my easiest and yet most beneficial trick. After some highly intelligent blabbing, I point “my” agencies to a set of benchmark agencies that are directly relevant to my customized business development plan recommendations. These benchmark agencies are perfect examples of how to fine-tune an agency positioning, how to enunciate the positioning, how to do thought leadership, how to be concise, how to actually run a ‘sales’ program that delivers new clients and how to build a website that gets read… as in, not quickly passed by.

One of those benchmark agencies has been London’s LONDON Advertising.

I’ll play the trick for you if you chat me up… and hire me. In the meantime, here is an interview I did with Michael Mosynski the CEO of LONDON Advertising that’s inside my book on winning more ad agency pitches… The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches.

I suspect that there will be some ideas in here, Michael will help you create an agency story (note his simple sales pitch) that drives interest, how to beat mega agencies to win big accounts, how to build interpersonal chemistry and how to win the pitch. Oh, and how to create a simple agency website that sells the agency. Maybe one of the greatest tricks of all.

The LONDON Advertising Interview

Michael Mosynski is CEO of LONDON Advertising. He launched the agency seven years ago as a global agency built for today’s marketplace. The agency’s clients include Boots No7, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, Ketel One, W&O Travel, and Wegwood.

Prior to starting LONDON, Michael was the CEO of M&C Saatchi Hong Kong, Middle East, and London’s IS. Prior to joining M&C Saatchi, he held a range of senior positions at Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Worldwide. We worked together in London.

PL: LONDON Advertising is positioned as an international, yet very nimble one-office agency that that delivers “One Brilliant Idea that can work in any media, anywhere in the world.” Why does this positioning generate interest from multinational clients? [Read more…] about Ad Agency Business Development Trick