Peter Levitan & Co.

The New Business of Advertising

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The Most Fabulous Advertising Agency Website

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Screen Shot 2017-10-19 at 9.05.08 AMI’ve updated this older post about The Most Fabulous Advertising Agency Website because KesselsKrammer does not change their website on a monthly basis anymore. However, they do love their past, their somewhat crazy endeavor, by having this link to their website archives on their current website. Go here to see the old websites.

Why do I love this approach to website design? It’s kinetic. It is (was) unignorable. It has a life. It made me want to go back to the KesselsKrammer website over and over. How many of your advertising agency website visitors are repeat visitors? Sorry, most are not rushing back to read your latest blog post.

Opinionated? Me? I recently (2017) wrote about how to build the Best Advertising Agency Website. One that will act like a 24/7 sales tool. Isn’t that what you want? Check it out.

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My Original Post:

Finally, an ad agency website that delivers a very important message. Just keep refreshing KesselsKrammer’s home page. This is, without question, well, um, a unique (understatement) advertising agency website. Clearly, these Amsterdamians are more stoned that you are.

Take a look… Lots more advertising agencies in the world’s most incredible advertising agency directory.

Does Your Advertising Agency Know Google’s Matt Cutts?

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matt cuttsChances are, and this is the interesting part, if you work in advertising or digital design or mobile marketing there is a good chance that you do not know who Google’s Matt Cutts is. You should because he is one of the most powerful people in global marketing and advertising.

Matt is the head of the webspam team at Goggle. That means that he controls some of the more important methods that Google uses to rank web pages. He and his team can make or break your SEO plans and strategies via updates like Panda and Penguin to Google’s search algorithms (here is some history from SEOMOZ.)  Is this really that important? Is it important that your agency is listed high in a Google search for your keywords (i.e., “advertising agency Atlanta” or “storytelling social media agency”)?

Sorry for this Duh but I want to make a point… Is the SEO work you are doing for your clients well rewarded and wouldn’t be if they were served up on page 4? While I understand that you may leave SEO up to an expert, I think that it’s wise to actually have some understanding about the Google team that decides how Google ranks web pages.

Here is a video from Matt on what is coming up. Yes it is way esoteric. But so are many of the elements of digital marketing.

If you’d like a quick take on Matt’s video pointers, visit The Short Cutts for, well, short cuts.

Since early 2009 Google’s Matt Cutts has recorded a superhuman number of videos to help struggling site owners understand their site in search. While the videos are great, sometimes the guy just needs to get to the point. With that in mind we’ve done the hard work and watched every Matt Cutts video to pull out simple, concise versions of his answers: The Short Cutts!

I may not be a SEO specialist but I have been building websites that rank high and drive organic traffic for 18 years. If you need some high level strategic insights into how to integrate your business development strategy with smart SEO…. well, give me a shout.

 

Mobile Marketing: How to Get Started

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Ad agencies need to go mobile. Most have no clue…. Maybe start here… From Social Media Examiner

Social media marketing podcast 41, in this episode Jamie Turner shares how to start with mobile marketing and why your mobile customers matter.

Read more from the source: socialmediaexaminer.com

2 Must Have Social Media Tools

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“Must have” Social Media Tools… “Must Have”, really? Well, ya know, directive copy like that just may have gotten you to click on this post – so there. OK, on to the meat.

Social media is a very hard working marketing tool. But, authoring social media is time consuming and we need to make sure that we are efficient  Now that’s an understatement. Here are a couple of tools that will make your social media campaigns work harder and look better.

Twylah

Get a free Twitter Brand Assessment Action Plan Twylah

Here is a nice freebie. Go to Twylah and get a free brand assessment of your Twitter activity. I filled out the form and a day later got a very revealing report that told me that I was not creating twitter copy that delivered on my core strategy of letting the world know that I am a master at helping ad and digital agencies grow. Oops. I learned a lot. Here is what Twylah says on their website…

YOUR BRAND ASSESSMENT REVEALS

  • Your true brand identity (it may not be what you think!)
  • Which of your brand topics are resonating with your audience and which are not!
  • The simplest and quickest way possible to create branded content that showcases your unique brand and business value

PicMonkey

PicMonkey_Logo

PicMonkey is an online photo editor that rivals the basics of Photoshop without your needing to go to Photoshop academy. I’ve been using Photoshop for years but know that I probably only use 15% of its features. PicMonkey gives me that 15% and its way easier and faster to use. This is a great tool for editing, and adding copy, to your social media images.

Don’t forget to visit my Pinterest Advertising Agency Directory. Is your agency on it?

5 Things Ad Agency CEO’S Need To Do

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Public Data what is it and how does it affect your business SocialMedia.ie Your Social Media Partner in Ireland

Just 5 Things (To Start)

A few years ago, long after Google’s AdWords started to eat ad dollars, I asked a few ad agency CEO’s if they had ever placed an online Google ad. The unanimous answer was… no.

Two nights ago, I asked a similar group if they had ever used a CMS tool like WordPress. The answer… (OK, getting better) was about 30%. (Um, that might be a bit optimistic).

30% is good but not great. I think that this lack of CEO curiosity and hands-on experience is a significant problem. How can CEO’s talk social media, digital media and advertising disruption if they haven’t used the disrupting technology themselves?

So, what should these CEO’s do? Pick a rainy weekend day and play with the Internet.

Go Forth And Tweet

Open a Twitter account, create a simple profile (look at mine for example @peterlevitan) and seriously post for a couple of weeks. Find out what is involved in creating this real-time marketing tool. It isn’t that difficult and you can even use a publishing system like Buffer or a RSS reader like Feedly.com to automatically Tweet about websites that you find. It couldn’t be easier. Use key words and hash tags to drive views (these are those #’s that can look like #advertising for example if you want to actually target Twitter users that follow advertising.)  If after a couple of weeks you love it, sense that you might want to participate in your agency’s Twitter feed then work on your Twitter plan. If you just wanted to see what Twitter felt like, then close your account and now your can truthfully tell people that you really get Twitter.

Blog On

Ask your blog meister to show you how to create blog posts using your CMS system. CMS stands for content management system, but you already knew that. You’d be surprised how easy posting is. The hard part is doing it with consistency and having an actual agency blog strategy that results in a blog that drives agency business. This process should help you gain insight into the strategic opportunities that an agency blog offers. Ask yourself if your agency blog is targeting prospective clients, your industry, your staff or…. well, given how much time blogging takes, figure just who is the target audience after all?

Place A Google Ad

Ask virtually anyone in the agency to take you through the process of creating and targeting a Google AdWords text ad. Google AdWords was the major source of Google’s $42.5 billion in 2012 ad revenues. You really should understand all about this advertising channel. The only way to really get a handle on it is to place an ad. A suggestion. Pick a prospective client and target them. See what happens.

Try Facebook Or LinkedIn

Both Facebook and LinkedIn have very easy to use self-serve advertising tools. Within minutes you could create and place a targeted an ad for your agency that links back to your Facebook, LinkedIn or agency website. You’ll see what works by using their analytical tools. The dry cleaner down the block does this. You can too – believe me.

Go Geek

Speaking of analytics, I’ll assume that your agency website uses an analytical tool like Google Analytics. There is a lot of learning residing in your traffic data. Take a look who is visiting your website, where they are coming from, if they are using a computer or mobile device (this can be surprising), what keywords they used to find you, how much time they are spending on the website and so much more. Its strangely addictive and very revealing and you’ll be on your way to becoming an SEO genius.

There are more things that you, and I mean you, could be doing. But, just start here and you’ll sound brilliant at lunch with your colleagues or next agency network meeting.

By the way, I can help you figure out your social media strategy. Well, what I mean is help you create a plan that uses social media to actually drive agency new business. Talk to me.

OK, OK… Here Is Oner More

Guest blog on high traffic websites to get your agency and yourself out there much fur=ther than you could on your advertising agency blog.

I did and it got me: more new agency clients; speaking gigs; fame and cash. Here is a post on why guest blogging is for you (even if you use a ghost writer).

The Advertising Resource List…

Hey, go here to see lots of online resources you can use to grow your business and personal brand right here…