How To Build An Effective, High-ROI Advertising Agency Business Development Program

Start Here. Ask Yourself: How Is Your Marketing, Digital, and Advertising Agency Business Development Program Going?

What do I mean? Are you getting the leads you want? Are these clients high margin? Do they want great thinking, media planning and creativity from you? Might they be long-term? Do they look cool on your client list?

#1: Tough News From the 2024 RSW/US Agency New Business Report

RSW/US asked agencies: “How Difficult Is Obtaining New Business, Compared to Last Year?”

58% of agencies found it harder to obtain new business in 2023, and 38% of ad agencies reported a decrease in new business opportunities in 2023, up from 26% in 2022.

#2: My Second Book On How To Run And Grow A Kick-Ass Advertising Agency Is being bought by your competitor down the street.

If you want to run a kick-ass advertising, digital, or whatever you call your agency business development program that stands out, makes more money, and is happy, then buy my new book. Its 27 chapters cover every aspect of agency management (including staffing issues), business development, and building critical personal branding. Go here: “How To Build A Kick-Ass Advertising Agency.”

Advertising Agency Business Development Strategies and Tactics

This is an update to “How to Build A Winning Advertising Agency New Business Program.” Your competitors have read it over 50,000 times.

Advertising agency business development is a 24/7 operation that requires the right agency positioning, strategies, action, and efficiency. I help my agency clients get there faster by building them a custom, efficient business development plan. A plan that they will run 24/7.

The post’s popularity is due to three key factors:

1. It directly addresses a major marketing pain point: how to build a winning and efficient advertising agency business growth plan.

2. The post is well optimized for search engines, delivers high value, and, therefore…

3. Google loves it. FYI, my number two trafficked post is, “How To Name Your Advertising Agency – Part One” at 30,000 + views. While always rethinking their website, advertising agencies also obsess about their name. By the way, the How to Name post is also a very good cheat sheet on naming that you can steal if a client ever needs a new brand name.

Your Competiton Is Growing – Be Unignorable

Your potential clients have over 4,000 marketing communications ‘agency’ options (other agencies, new consultancies, freelancers, even your ex-creative director…).

Therefore, any form of business development passivity on your part – sucks. If you think you are doing everything right, you probably are not. How can I say this? I never thought that all was well whilst running business development at Saatchi & Saatchi and when I owned my own west coast agency.

A critical message about not being unignorable… Watch this. I built it for my friends at AAR Partners, the leading ad agency search consultant. By the way, I read this thinking about consultants, “34 Advertising Agency Search Consultants“.

OK, Let’s Go… The 24/7 Business Development Plan

I moved from New York to Bend, Oregon, in 2002 to buy a very successful advertising agency (and raise a family 20 minutes from a ski lift).

Citrus grew to add a Portland office and national accounts including Dr. Martens, Harrah’s, Leagalzoom, Nike, Providence Health & Services, the Montana Lottery, and the UN.

I woke up every day as if a client like Nike would walk out the back door along with its revenues. I bet as an ad agency owner or manager you have rough nights too. One of the things I knew I could and should do was to manage this back-door issue was to have an active, I stress active, new business plan in place.

Here are some (I stress some) of the elements of my marketing plan. They helped me grow Saatchi & Saatchi and my agency Citrus. I hope my insights help you grow your agency.

Execution Rules.

When I set out to write this advertising agency new business post I didn’t think that it would be this long – a warning to the ADHD types. However, advertising agencies’ new business planning is complex and becoming more complex every day due to the rapid changes in our industry and technology. That said, the devil in business development, you know what’s coming, is in the detail. Success is all about execution.

For example, running a successful inbound biz dev program that attracts market attention must be based on a sound strategy and smart agency process if you want to run a 24/7 sales program. Staying the course is critical.

OK. OK. Help Me ChatGPT. Here is a quick FAQ that my buddy Chat created to help you understand the core elements of this missive.

What are the key elements of a successful advertising agency new business program?

Strategic Positioning: Define clear business and sales objectives, including your agency’s unique value propositions like media expertise or demographic specializations (e.g., mobile advertising, Gen X marketing).
Proactive Business Development: Employ a dedicated Business Development Director to lead client acquisition efforts, ensuring alignment with agency goals and maintaining regular prospect engagement.
Inbound and Outbound Marketing: Implement a balanced strategy with targeted content marketing (blogs, white papers) and smart use of social media platforms to generate inbound leads. Complement this with aggressive outbound tactics like cold calling, personalized emails, and strategic ad placements.
Client Acquisition and Retention: Focus on acquiring clients through thoughtful qualification of leads, engaging pitches, and effective management of proposals and pitches. Post-acquisition, ensure smooth transitions and high client satisfaction to foster long-term relationships.
Continuous Learning and Adaptation: Regularly update the business development plan to reflect market changes and internal growth goals. Utilize tools like CRM systems to track progress and optimize strategies based on data-driven insights.

How can an agency maintain continuous new business growth?

Consistency in Marketing Efforts: Regular updates and interactions via high-value emails and social media posts ensure continuous engagement with potential clients.
Leveraging Thought Leadership: Establish your agency as a thought leader by narrowing your focus to specific niches or industries, thus standing out from the competition.
Utilizing Advanced Tools and Analytics: Keep track of all marketing and pitch efforts through detailed analytics to understand what strategies work best and adjust accordingly.

What are common mistakes to avoid in agency new business development?

Overextending Without Focus: Avoid trying to be everything to everyone. Specialize in certain areas to differentiate your agency from others.
Neglecting Business Development Culture: Ensure that business development is ingrained in the agency’s culture, with all team members actively participating in growth activities.
Inefficient Use of Resources: Focus on quality over quantity in marketing efforts to avoid wasting resources on unqualified leads or ineffective strategies.

Back To Me: The Advertising Agency Business Development Plan. First Things First.

I have never been able to construct an effective business development program without first having an agency business plan.

The business plan should include (at least):

Your agency’s business and business development objectives
An assessment of your current strengths and weakness (I have all of my clients do an internal SWOT analysis)
A competitive agency positioning (specialization is a good thing)
An analysis of your space in the world – as in, why would a client hire you?
Clear target market objectives and target market personas
A service plan (it might mean adding new services)
Your inbound and outbound (think Account-Based Marketing) plan
The very important objective of running unignorable messaging
A dedication to being consistent and efficient – as in having a process

Your business plan should also help you plan for your future in the evolving world of marketing communications. I think that client confusion with the evolving state of advertising and marketing – this includes big and small clients – makes today a great time to be an agency. Winning agencies are resolving their business challenges, crafting the right services and guidance, and, importantly, are willing to modify their business model to avoid disruption to achieve success.

It is also imperative that you develop a roadmap for how to grow your current agency to become the agency of the future. The market, communication platforms, and client expectations are changing rapidly. Assess your current strengths, weaknesses, and how your agency expertise and personnel are going to stay ahead of change (do an annual SWOT analysis).

Change can be very profitable. What if you could restart your agency using a blank sheet of paper? Would you build a replica of your current agency or would it look dramatically different? If you think that change is in order, you better get started. Here is a powerful mantra from General Eric Shinseki.

“If you dislike change, you’re going to dislike irrelevance even more.”

The Agency New Business Program – Join The 34%

Armed with your business plan you can get ahead of your competitors by having a comprehensive new business plan. Most agencies do not have a plan. Get this industry research…

66% Of Advertising Agencies Report That They Do Not Have a Business Development Plan. This Is Lunacy!

Your plan should include most, if not all of the following: [Read more…] about How to Build A Winning Advertising Agency Business Development Program

The Ad Agency Business Development Director: How To Get Past Wishful Thinking

The awful “Death of a Salesman” image at the left means two things: The salesman is dying and his company’s sales program is probably heading towards a death spiral as well. Advertising agencies should not want to go in this direction. However, many agency sales programs are spiraling — or, are at best just static.

The way out is to have a very smart business development plan (crazy fact coming: most agencies do not have one) and, in many cases, a well-focused sales professional leading the way. Here is a path to get there.

First: The Business Development Plan

Start here.

You cannot win at new business if you do not have a business development plan. I’ve written about how to develop a business development plan here – “How to Build A Winning Advertising Agency New Business Program.” Warning… it is over 2,000 words. Another warning, as of today, it has been read over 6,350 times and there is a decent chance that one of your agency competitors has read it.

Next: The Business Development Director

I am asked a few times a month about how to establish and manage the role of the ad agency business development director. I was one (at Saatchi & Saatchi New York and London) and had them working for me at my own agency and two Internet start-ups.

Most agency leaders hope and pray that they will find the right sales leader and then sit back and watch the right leads role in. Sorry, it simply isn’t that easy. Sales management is hard work.

I wrote about biz dev director position and interviewed Brooks Gilley of 52LTD (a leading creative and agency staffing firm) here – “Is Your Advertising Agency Business Development Director Doomed?”

Doomed? Why was I so down… Well, most ad agency business development directors fail. Most!

They fail for a couple of key reasons.

Your agency does not have a business development plan.
If you have a plan, you do not make running it an agency priority (you’ll wait until you lose that large client to get to it.)
You do not have a sales-oriented sales compensation plan (see below.)

And, from my “doomed” blog post:

Yes, wouldn’t it be nice to have a business development director that brought in more business for your advertising agency than you can handle. But is your business development director doomed from the start?

He could be if you do not have agency objectives, a competitive agency brand positioning, something to sell beyond, “Hey we are a full-service / digital / social media agency”, a list of clients and categories you want to nail, an active up-to-date CRM system and you are not in a state of panic because you just lost your largest client and are freaked out.

Next: The Business Development Director Compensation Plan

The Business Development Director offer letter below – which is essentially a ‘sales map’ – was used by my Oregon advertising agency Citrus from 2002 through 2009. It worked, we had a solid business devopment program that helped us grow regionally and nationally. After selling the agency and becoming a new business consultant, I have shared the offer letter with my advertising agency and corporate clients. It is an excellent template that you can modify to meet your specific needs.

To win, a Business Development Director and the sales staff, for that matter, must be guided by a commission plan that creates a win-win scenario for the sales team and company. If the plan does not direct the sales person and align with your corporate sales objectives, the chances are mighty fine that your team will not find their way to the sales goals you are looking for.

This sounds obvious, right? However, most agencies do not have clear quantifiable objectives and incentives. Agencies are not alone. I recently discussed the role of sales with sales people from two major San Francisco SaaS software companies. I was surprised to find out that that these folks were a bit unsure of how their goals meshed with that of their company. Frankly, this has to be crystal clear. The offer letter is a great way to start to deliver this alignment from Day One… and it makes it very clear what SUCCESS means to your agency and… your sales team. Frankly, for many agencies this as critical a goal as it gets.

Here you go. Use it as a blueprint. Modify it to meet your agency’s goals, culture and our ever-changing ad, design and digital agency universe.

The Advertising Agency Business Development Director Agreement (A Sample For Your Agency) [Read more…] about How To Aim Your Ad Agency Business Development Director