Peter Levitan & Co.
The New Business of Advertising
Too many advertising agencies are afraid to say “sales”.
Here’s my take on getting it ‘getting it on’ on LinkedIn.
Visit Ogilvy’s quick take… But, don’t blink!
Thinking about that very special someone? You know, your agency’s CEO? What to give them for Xmas??? How to make them smile for just a few quid? Here you go:
My HubSpot Inbound Conference Video: “The Advertising Agency Book – From Idea To Publication in 6 Months”Here is a video of the talk I gave at HubSpot’s Inbound 2014 conference. Watch my presentation to find out how to write an advertising agency book by mid 2015. Yes, you can do it.
The video will show you how to get a good head start on adding this special arrow to your new business quiver. I discuss the multiple benefits of writing a book; that it can be done relatively quickly (I wrote my 65,000 word The Levitan Pitch, Buy This Book. Win More Pitches. in less than 6 months); how the book will drive your thought-leadership program and how your agency is particularly well set up and well endowed to get a great business-building book out the door.
As I’ve written before: I got the speaking gig at Inbound 2014 because I write for HubSpot’s Agency Post. Using thought leadership to gain broad awareness of your agency is, well, its a very good thing. Here’s my earlier post on the value of guest posting: “Why I Guest post On Agency Post.”
Here is my dedicated post on writing an advertising agency book and how it can be used for new business outreach. The post includes the PowerPoint presentation I used in the following video.
To help you find the gems in the 30 minute talk, I’ve put some highlights below.
This are approximate…
If you read the book you will pitch better than your competition.
Here’s more:
Buy multiple copies of the book as Christmas / Hanukah gifts right here: Amazon
Buy the “How Not To Win A Pitch” poster here: Society6
Take a read of the SoDA Report below which includes an expert opinion on the subject of why clients fire their agencies and other subjects that will help you keep your clients happy and make you smarter than the agency next door.
Oh, 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.”
Darren is also one of the most valuable contributors to my book on pitching… You can read one of my two interviews with him on the client mind-set and how to win more pitches in an earlier post right here. [Read more…] about Why Clients Fire Advertising Agencies
A post on today’s Agency Post blog got me thinking about the value of guest posting for ad agency new business. In fact, I’ve written on this subject before.
Here: 2 New Levitan Guest Posts on Agency Post and Advertising Week
And, here: Thanks To HubSpot, Ad Contrarian & Advertising Week
Once again, my relationship with Agency Post nets me awareness via my posts to their large and growing audience. Here is a post from Agency Post that includes a quote and shoutout from them about me. This one is about why I think that advertising agencies should write books. Here’s the paragraph:
“Advertising agencies should seriously consider writing books for four reasons: the credibility factor, to stand out because their competition isn’t, the physical nature of books (yes, physical objects are a good thing), and agencies have all of the elements to make it happen –something to say, writers, art directors, and the digital marketing chops to drive awareness,” said Peter Levitan, the author of The Levitan Pitch who spoke at the 2014 INBOUND conference on how agencies can write a book in six months.
The post provides a sweet list of ad agency books.
Note that one of the best agency books is inadvertently missing from the list. I heartedly recommend that you read Mitch Joel’s Ctrl Alt Delete: Reboot Your Business. Reboot Your Life. Your Future Depends on It. Mitch is President of Canada’s ad agency Twist Image and one the all time leaders in leveraging social media for the agency’s awareness and thought leadership via his blog, podcast and books. This is one prolific dude.
OK, one more guest post: Here is my take on writing advertising agency books via an interview with Beau Fraser, president of the agency The Gate Worldwide. Should Your Advertising Agency Write A Book? (FYI: Beau’s book is mentioned in today’s Agency Post article.)
Agencies that put themselves out in the social universe drive agency awareness and targeted inbound traffic to their messaging.
My advice that I give to all of my agency clients is to write strategic blogs (blogs written for their target markets and not other agencies) / post on other blogs for awareness / post on Twitter / publish on LinkedIn / play with Facebook / consider Pinterest and Instagram (if you are up for that) / write books (or zines if you want to get out fast) / put your thoughts up on SlideShare / speak at conferences and use the world of social media tools to learn about your potential clients and what your agency competition is doing in the social space.
All it takes is a smart business development and social media plan and a bias for action. Oh, and my help to get this done in early 2015. How? Take me up on my Vito Corleone offer.
The following blog post on when not to pitch for a new account is from my book, The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches. I suggest that you buy the book if you want to (do I need to say this?) win more pitches.
Buy the book – > Here.
Virtually all of the advertising search consultants that I interviewed for the book said that advertising agencies pitch too often. Many agencies seem to pitch almost any account that knocks.
They are inclined to pitch most incoming because (pick one or more): they are feeling the pinch of lower margins; they just lost their big account; they are generally nervous and don’t know the next time they will be invited to a dance; don’t have a serious new business plan that attracts the right clients; haven’t actually identified the types of clients they really want to work with, etc. This pitch anything that breathes mentality really reared its head big time during the recession, but it has become omnipresent in our new world of projects vs. AOR searches.
From the book….
Before you embark on a new pitch, you should be asking yourself one extremely important question…
Should we be pitching this account?
I know what you are thinking… Levitan’s kidding, right? We’ve made it through the RFI and RFP stages, and now he wants us to ask if we should even be going to the finals?
It’s still ok to say “no”, and now is the time to take a deep breath and review a go-no-go decision. You are about to spend a great deal of time and money. Are you sure that you should go through the next step? Are your colleague’s groans getting louder? Looking in any way ambivalent about the pitch will not help your pitch team feel good about charging into it. Passionless pitches don’t win.
Pitch or not is usually one of the most difficult decisions agency manage- ment has to make. There is a good chance that you think that you’ve already answered this question if you participated in an RFP that led to your selection as a short list candidate. I believe that even if you’ve performed a sound decision making process, now is the time to stop to determine if this potentially expensive pitch is worth the time, effort, and human and cash cost.
[Read more…] about Advertising Agency: Do Not Pitch That Account!