ad agency

Advertising Websites Only Get 8 Seconds

Peter · April 18, 2014 · 1 Comment

Let’s start this post with an admission… I don’t have informational graphics on every page of my site (some, but not a lot.) But.. stay tuned cause I have ten cartoons coming from my friend Steve and his The Cartoon Agency that will support my new book’s discussion of the top ten pitch-killing mistakes that even super smart advertising agencies (that’s you amigos) make when they pitch.

8 Seconds, Only

One of the most important discussions I have with my advertising agency clients is about gauging the marketing power of their websites. I start the talk by telling them that I know that critiquing their website is like discussing their kid’s soccer moves. That said, the agencies are paying me to be honest, so I am.

I begin the review process by telling them that their visitors only give them 7 seconds of examination before they stay to learn more or move on. Agencies… you better hook ’em in 7 seconds. I just found out that I am wrong. According to the smart Neil Patel its 8 seconds (more on him later):

“How long do you think your attention span is? Maybe a minute or even two, right? Sadly, your attention span is 8 seconds. That’s one second shorter than that of a goldfish.”

What does that mean for your advertising agency websites? It means that you better pay lots of attention to attention deficit clients that may be looking at ten, twenty or more agency websites before they land on a few to contact. 8 seconds. Keep this in mind and make getting to a point an objective when you build or rebuild your websites. If you want to see how some agencies get this job done, or not, take a look at my set of San Francisco agencies and how they handle their 8 seconds.

Here is how Neil helps us visualize visualization by using his “This Is Your Brain On Visualization” infographic. There is a lot of information here for you and your clients.

Back To Niel Patel

I dig Neil because he provides great insights and is a serial self-promoter worth watching. His stuff works works. His Quicksprout website has a page rank of 5 and he has 1110,000+ Twitter Followers. From Neil’s bio:

Neil Patel is the co-founder of Crazy Egg, Hello Bar and KISSmetrics. He helps companies like Amazon, NBC, GM, HP and Viacom grow their revenue. The Wall Street Journal calls him a top influencer on the web, Forbes says he is one of the top 10 online marketers, and Entrepreneur Magazine says he created one of the 100 most brilliant companies in the world. He was recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President Obama and one of the top 100 entrepreneurs under the age of 35 by the United Nations.

Yeah, this is a bit crazy for a 29 year-old. But, he is surly working it. Check out his outrageously unrelenting promotions. Yes, a bit too many popups and forms for most advertising agency websites, but these is a lot of benchmark sales learning in there.

Last point. He walks his talk. See his visual bio.

Do Advertising Agencies Have Business Plans?

Peter · April 16, 2014 · Leave a Comment

This post is is based on my personal SEO experience and is meant to be instructive for all small, medium and large advertising agencies that want high search results for their websites. That’s you, right?

I am in Mexico working. Just for the hell of it, I took a look at where my site ranks in the Google results for “advertising agency business plan.” Since my business is helping advertising (and design and digital) agencies position and market themselves for growth (and actually write a smart / active new business plan), I figured I’d see where I rank on this particular search. Well, I come in on page 1 (that’s sweetly good) – but, only at position number 8.

Now, considering that I am preceded by some famous and huge names…

Bplans / Fuel Lines / Wiki How / Inc. / Forbes and Entrepreneur, I am not feeling too bad.

However, I have over 250 blog posts related to this subject and I think that I should rank higher. Note: my competitor Fuel Lines started his industry blog in 2008 (wow!) and I didn’t start blogging about new business until January 2012… I shouldn’t be feeing too bad.

An important fact: I only have four blog posts with “business plan” in the headline. Lame… well, five including this new post.

So, here is what I am going to do about growing my Google position:

I will write more posts like this that have the keywords “advertising” and “business plans” in the headline and of course, include these keywords (but not too many) in the body copy.

I am also linking from this page to 3 past posts with these words in the headline. Note: most of this website is about new business after all. Here you go:

Your Advertising Agency New Business Plan

How To Write An Ad Agency Business Plan

Why Don’t Advertising And Digital Agencies Have A Business Plan?

Another factoid that answers the question… do agencies have business plans?

After talking with dozens of agencies, I figure, at best, 20% have up-to-date business plans and about 50% (I am being kind) have well-thought-out business development plans. Given that there are over 4,000 advertising agencies around the world, my market opportunity is huge / and so is yours if you have a plan.

Finally, I am going to ask you to contact me. I get about 3 qualified incoming inquiries from agencies a week. I’ll tell you how this happens. It isn’t magic and there is absolutely no reason that you can’t get lots-o incoming as well.

By the way, sign up below for my weekly newsletter.

1 Reason To Pitch French Advertising Clients

Peter · April 13, 2014 · Leave a Comment

One of the better weekly newsletters I get is from the long-time-insight-rich-website Six Pixels of Separation. As the website says:

TWIST IMAGE PRESIDENT, MITCH JOEL, BRINGS YOU DIGITAL MARKETING AND MEDIA HACKING INSIGHTS AND PROVOCATIONS FROM HIS ALWAYS ON/ALWAYS CONNECTED WORLD.

Twist Image is a digital agency with offices in Montreal and Toronto that kicks most digital agency’s marketing butt and, as you can see, has a blog that adds value and drives agency awareness. Interesting fact… the agency website does a location lookup to personalize the home page. In my case, it knows that I am in Mexico right now. Nice touch.

OK, Back To Pitching French Clients

The blog has a guest feature called: Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention. This week it points to the news that the French government has dictated that management can’t email employees after work hours. In France that means after 6PM. Here is the post along with a link to the CNET News article.

French say ‘non’ to work email after 6 p.m. – cNet. “Ahh, who doesn’t want to spend their entire childhood and teenage years studying in an old school education institution that is making young people miserable, feeling inadequate and, ultimately, forcing them into a regiment of memorization of things they should never need to remember? I see this often when you look at more traditional European countries and their non-progressive school curriculums The good news? You get to graduate and become a ‘fonctionnaires,’ (if you live in France). A place that makes insane rules like this. I have a better idea: why stop at email? Just shut down the electricity for all fonctionnaires so nobody has to do anything? Alternately, you could just say, ‘hey, what if we let these adults make their own rules and attempt to find their own balance? Wow, what decade are we living in? How stupid do we think that people are?” (Mitch for Hugh).

My take…

France is fucked up. I am not a small government guy but please… can’t people run their own lives? Are the French babies that need coddling?
Recent press has discussed France’s issue of losing talented digital / programming / entrepreneur / creative class types to countries where they can do their thing in a pro-business environment.
It must be a sign of the times when management (this means some of you) has to be told to let people live their lives. I never emailed my staff after 6PM. I am a really good, understanding, caring pro family guy. I didn’t need laws to be act like a decent person. 🙂

If French agencies are going to work at say 80% of capacity then go and get business from the French clients that need 100% agencies. Hello Peugeot. That said, you will need to have a French language website like Twist Image (it helps that they are in Quebec where the government dictates that they need a bilingual website.) Hmm… is there something about French speakers?

Bon chance!

12 Ad Agency Presentation Mistakes – Why?

Peter · April 2, 2014 · Leave a Comment

I interviewed Tony Mikes, Founder/Managing Director of the 800 strong agency network Second Wind today (my agency used to be a happy member.) The interview will be one of ten expert interviews that will be included in my book on ad agency pitching. You can see the title I slaved over at the very bottom of this email.

The interview confirmed the sad truth that many agencies are making serious presentation mistakes when they pitch for new business. I already knew this because I’ve talked with many agency owners, agency search consultants, presentation experts and… clients that have sat through mistake ridden presentations. Tony reconfirmed it.

I can’t wait to publish Tony’s insightful comments. They come from firsthand experience when he recently sat on the client side of the table during the RFP and finalist process. The pitch was for the National Aquarium account and the interview with Tony is (pick your word): revealing, sad, unnerving and any other word that you can come up with that describes the lunacy of avoidable agency failure.

Tony hit on the almost all of my twelve ad agency presentation mistakes. Each of these will be discussed at length in the book.

Immediately bore the audience
Don’t have a distinctive message
Don’t have a logical flow
Load up the room with agency people
Bring poor presenters
Don’t deliver any WOW’s
Bring tons of ideas – make many of them irrelevant
Spend too much time talking about YOU not THEM
Don’t rehearse
Misuse PowerPoint
Don’t stage manage
Run out of time

Yikes. As I said, sad but true. By the way, if you search my site for other articles on pitching you will find ones like this: Half of Advertising Agency Staff Hates Pitching. This research was the genesis of my book’s reason for being.

Oh, the title…. The Levitan Pitch: Buy This Book. Win More Pitches.

Now, please sign up for my email newsletter below to make sure that your competitor down the street doesn’t read my book before you read it. I want you to win more pitches, not the other agency.

Advertising Pitch Book Update

Peter · March 18, 2014 · Leave a Comment

I hit 41,000 words this weekend. That’s 41,000 words on how advertising, digital, design and PR agencies can better manage the process they employ to build new business winning presentations. 41,000 means I am getting close to finishing the book.

Why am I repeating myself? Good question. Here is a short segment from the book on the art of repetition.

Think Flow.

“We can learn a lot from Nancy Duarte’s sparklines analysis of Steve Jobs. However, I suspect that you might be thinking that channeling a new Apple product launch with the dramatic reveal of the first iPhone might not directly relate to an agency pitch about advertising the essence of Widgets. An advertising agency new business pitch most likely does not have an earth-moving climax. But, lets get past that. For another path to channel, consider Aristotle.

Aristotle, apparently one of the earlier presentation coaches, is credited with developing the three act structure and advising people to, “Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them.”

Tell them what you are going to tell them. Tell them what you want to say and what they want to hear form you. This will set up your major points and will let the client know that you have your act together.

Tell them. In this section you’ll tell them that you understand their needs, that you have the experience to meet these needs and that you have proof that you can deliver. Think of this as the content section.

Tell them what you told them. I consider this the support section. You will reiterate your major points, support these points with clear rationale and you will nail your pitch with conviction and enthusiasm.”

Experts.

The book includes interviews with experts from the world of agency search consultants, major advertiser organizations, procurement specialists, IP lawyers and the world’s smartest presentation consultant and author. What is a word they all use to describe what it takes to win the heart and mind of a new client?

Chemistry.

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