I am talking about VaynerMedia’s website.
The reason is in this guest post I wrote for Agency Post.
branding
10 New Year’s Resolutions For Advertising Agencies
New Year’s resolutions work. Well, at least some do. The bottom line: at least give them a chance.
Here are ten 2014 resolutions for advertising agencies that I think your agency should make. I mean… really do if you want to grow your advertising agency and your bottom line.
1. We will strive to create an agency brand position or business model that stands out from our competition. This will be designed to give prospective clients a compelling reason to want to work with us. Let me help you out here.
2. We will write and execute an annual business development plan that uses both inbound and outbound marketing. In fact, we will start by updating our master business plan. Too much has changed in the past twelve months to not revisit all of our assumptions and objectives.
3. We will manage and run our business development program with consistency. We will not start and stop. It is too late to restart a new business program after loosing a large client.
4. We will not pitch every account that comes our way. The pitch process is simply too costly. Before we pitch any account we will work hard to determine if the prospective client is a good fit for the agency based on a set of predetermined criteria. Here is a start. Is the client famous? Do they respect marketing? Do they want us to do brilliant work? Will they pay well? Are they a cultural fit? Hopefully you can say yes to two or three of these.
5. We will establish a recommended agency compensation plan and will share this with current and perspective clients. This plan will include cost-plus, fixed fees and performance-based remuneration based on a client’s performance metrics and an annual agency review. I’d like to se agencies get out in front of this issue.
6. We will ensure that we provide more value to all existing clients than we did in 2013. We will make sure we know how to prove our value.
7. We will give our people the time to fully explore the marketing value of new media or communications technologies. Some savvy agencies jumped on Vine when it was introduced and used it to build agency awareness.
8. We will work to grow our expertise in mobile and video marketing, the two fastest growing segments. To not do this will kill us.
9. We will write the book we want to read. I stole this line from Austin Kleon’s “Steal Like An Artist.” I wrote about why advertising agencies like The Gate Worldwide write books to grow their awareness for the blog Agency Post.
10. Have Big Hairy Audacious Goals. Go for it this year. I firmly believe that without BHAG’s agencies will wither away.
-> Here’s a bonus resolution:
We will call Peter Levitan and take him up on his Vito Corleone offer. We have nothing to lose and so much to gain from his new business insights. No, I don’t think that humility is a business-building attribute.
While you are at it… Don’t miss any of my brilliant (LOL, but I mean it) thoughts on new business.
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LinkedIn For Ad Agency New Business
I’ll keep it simple and just shoot you over to this smart infographic (larger version.) I like that it provides a daily guide to how to use LinkedIn to drive new business engagement.
By the way, is your ad agency missing from the Pinterest Advertising Agency Directory? Let me know. I am starting to get some substantial traffic to the directory. I’d have to assume that prospective clients as well as ad agency types are using it.
Banksy Rocks Twitter: Effortlessly
The artist known as Banksy — @banksyNY — just might have the coolest ratio of Tweets to Following to Followers in Twitter HISTORY. He’s gotta be laughing.
Check out Banksy’s numbers…
Only 22 Tweets. Like Tweet only when you have something incredibly vuuaable to say.
Only (like really only) 1 Following. Like, why are we bothering to read other people’s Tweets anyway, right? Check out the one “person” he’s following.
Only big numbers (no surprise here): 43,000 and growing Followers. Like, people clearly dig Banksy’s Banksyness.
Advertising Clients & Deadlines
Client deadlines.
Ok, some are real. Like when my clients including Northwest Airlines (remember them before Delta ate them?) had to get a low fare retail ad in tomorrow’s newspaper (remember them?) Or when Nike needed to get an ad that included last minute winning college teams into the on the press Bowl Champion Series (BCS) game day magazine. But, often, the deadlines were, at best, a bit more shall we say, loose.
Now, I like deadlines. It forces all of us in advertising to get the job done. But, sometimes deadlines also force us to deliver work that isn’t what we’d call our best. You know, your best idea will come in tomorrow’s shower. Or the image could use even more photoshoping. Or, maybe that logo could be even smaller. In these cases, deadlines can be debilitating.
Here’s a post on deadlines from my friends at James and Matthew + Company, an agency in Massachusetts. Matt writes about doing the RIGHT thing, an often tough thing, by telling a client with a deadline that the agency just needs a bit more time. Here is the outcome from James’s blog post.
Regarding my fears above, here was the result:
We all got so inspired by my unwillingness to compromise that what we came up with was lightyears ahead of what we had originally developed.
My client was able to come around to understanding and I think I might have gained a little more respect in them knowing that I will not compromise on the work I produce for them. The project is on the right track and everyone is behind it with a new sense of vigor.
My take away… being true to excellence and taking a little bit more time to get things right is a good thing and the good clients will get this and love you even more. But, don’t tell retailers that you’ll get them that perfect ad the day after Black Friday.