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Where Ad Agency CEO’s Go To Die

Peter · June 3, 2013 · 1 Comment

I just got off the phone with an agency friend who is thinking of selling his ad agency. I asked, “what will you do, where will you live?”  This is the standard question I got after selling my agency. Me? I am in Portland writing this.

malaysiaHe told me that he is thinking of moving out of the U.S. – at least for a test-year.  I get it. To me, it’s a combination of why not and hey, lets go experience the rest of the world. Maybe it should be called the Re-GAP Year? Why do only the latest generation of American college kids get to live overseas without a care?

This conversation got me thinking about my own next steps so I did a bit of exploring and found the best places to live chart  (its further on down this post) on the wbsite International Living. From the chart and cited copy, Malaysia looks like a decent place to start. FYI, I have travelled throughout Asia and particularly like south east Asia for its beaches, cities, peaceful lifestyle (unless you are in Bangkok or Ho Chi Minh City) and food. Here is what a International Living corespondent has to say about his life in Malaysia followed by the master “where to live” chart. By the way, you don’t have to wait for retirement to live overseas. Just figure out that dream Internet-based business and work wherever you have WiFi. Penang here I come.

Malaysia: Asia’s Most Desirable Destination

By Keith Hockton

“Go back to New York to live? Never!” says 65-year-old Lorna Taylor. “We moved to Malaysia because of the weather, the golf and the low prices; our costs are now a third to a quarter of what they were in the U.S. We even have a maid come in and clean four times a week. We couldn’t do that in New York. No, we’ll never leave Penang.”

I’m 30 years younger than Lorna and her husband John, and yet they still manage to beat my wife Lisa and me convincingly at tennis. They have a coach who comes twice a week, and for $10 a lesson I can see his efforts are clearly paying off.

I also completely understand and agree with their view about Malaysia. It has everything. Its weather is a tropical 82 F all year round and its beaches, islands and jungles are pristine. It has some of the region’s best street food, great restaurants, bars, shopping malls and movie theaters—and it’s all affordable.

Lisa and I rent a sea-view apartment for $1,000 a month—it comes with a shared  pool and gym. We eat out five nights a week, keep a small sailboat, and our total budget is $1,719 a month. Two people can have a three-course meal here for $10. A bagful of fresh fruit costs around $4. We also have a maid that comes once a week for four hours at a cost of $12.

The country is home to an active and international mix of expats.Malaysia’s an easy place to make friends and integrate as English is the unofficial first language. Lots of expats live in Kuala Lumpur and Penang and numerous organizations here can help you get settled and integrated. For example, the International Women’s Association (formally The American Woman’s Association) has just over 500 members who organize activities on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. On Mondays there are jungle walks, Tuesdays mah-jong (a type of card game), Wednesdays sewing. They sponsor trivia night once a week at a local pub and put on a ball once a year.

Penang and Kuala Lumpur are also medical centers of excellence and every day two planeloads of medical tourists arrive in Malaysia for various treatments. Not only is the health care amazing but it’s among the world’s cheapest. And prescriptions here cost a fifth of what you pay at home.

The last time I was at the dentist I got a filling and a cleaning, which cost $22.50. In the U.S. this would set me back around $180. We can also buy property, land, and houses and condominiums freehold—something you can’t do elsewhere in Asia.

Here is the chart. It makes for easy daydreaming…

The World s Best Retirement Havens

5 Things Ad Agency CEO’S Need To Do

Peter · May 13, 2013 · Leave a Comment

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…

 

How Advertising Agency Partners Can Become Billionaires

Peter · May 3, 2013 · Leave a Comment

from-poor-to-rich-billionare-infographic

Ad Agency CEO’s: 1 Facebook Reason To Pay Attention To Mobile

Peter · May 2, 2013 · Leave a Comment

I’ve written about how ad agencies, and digital agencies for that matter, need to move into mobile much faster.

A Wall Street Journal article on Facebook’s growth,  “Facebook’s Hard Desk Job”, reported that Facebook is seeing phenomenal growth in mobile advertising (from $0 to $374 million in the 1st quarter — this kinda amazing factoid hammers last year’s fear that Facebook was missing the mobile parade.)

But, the point that really is the wake up call for agencies is that Facebook U.S. saw a decline from 153 million unique traditional computer visitors to 142 million during the same time period. Think about it… Facebook saw a DECLINE in uniques from the desktop.

What to do Ms. Agency CEO? If I were running an agency I’d be dialing up my mobile chops. Get this… we’ve moved from worrying about Internet advertising killing traditional to mobile killing everything in a blink.

Need more info… From Comscore:

comscore-mobile-users-desktop-users-2014

2 Pieces Of Advice For Ad Agency CEO’s

Peter · April 29, 2013 · Leave a Comment

The big idea is that your agency should be making things — for yourselves (and your clients.) It is simply too easy and you have the brains, talent and energy. What’s more, you will walk the design talk. One idea is futuristic and the other is simply something you should be doing anyway.

Here are two ideas.

1. Learn 3D Printing

Buy a 3D printer, experiment and be much smarter and on the ball than all the other agencies in your town.

printer-3My suggestion is buy the the soon to be released Form 1 from Formlabs. As Formlabs says,Form 1 is…”An end-to-end package. Printer, software, and post-processing kit that just works. Right out of the box.” Check out their video.

$3,300 puts you right in the middle of the 3D printer explosion. And, its so damned beautiful. Put it on that expensive front desk that really does zero for your agency’s street cred. Go here if you need to geek out on this big idea.

Make Some Tee Shirts

It’s summer. Need I say more?

I have a few more ideas. Most are about how you can make more money. Now, that’s a cool thing for an advertising agency to make.

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