Peter Levitan & Co.

The New Business of Advertising

marketing

How To Grow With Linkedin

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Get Heavy With Linkedin

I am looking at Linkedin over the past couple of days and I see a very smart Australian sales/ marketing buddy posting with heavy frequency on LinkedIn. I am like: “What’s Up?”

Here is our quick but valuable discussion.

(SHHH… the secret is Reach & Frequency)

Peter:

Damn. You are cranking out content on Linkedin. Does it work?

Mystery Marketer:

Yes, it does

Was posting three times a day and got little traction

Then increased to six times a day and got more traction.

Now 12 times a day and 24 hours a day and getting a lot of traction.

Big insight is most people on average only check LinkedIn once every 17 days and for no more than 30 minutes.

Therefore while you and I may sit on it every day the audience I want could be coming online at any time so I always have to be there.

12 times a day and 364 days a year (I take Christmas Day off)

And, no piece of content is shared more than three times. 2/3 of the content shared is relevant content from the industry and 1/3 is our own content.

Peter:

Thanks for the info. Agree… action begets leads, interest. Heavy, active marketers can get lost in the thought that their audience is as enthralled with marketing platforms (i.e. Linkedin) as they are.
In my head, it always comes down to the old idea of reach and frequency. This worked for P&G, why not your advertising agency?
And, the idea of running an active business development program fits in with yesterday’s post.

More Linkedin To Come

There are lots of articles about how to use Linkedin but not too many on how to use it to specifically grow your advertising agency. I am going to write more on this subject — and use my own experiences as examples.

Advertising Agency Strategic Planning And Insights

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How Your Advertising Agency Can Leverage The Value Of Strategic Planning And Insights For Growth

I am sitting next to a 1.5-inch three-ring binder from Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Worldwide called “Saatchi Insight. Strategic Planning Tool Kit”. This book was our advertising agency strategic planning and insights bible.

 I took this tome with me when I left Saatchi in 1995. At that time, I was running business development across North America and, sadly, this was the last year that Maurice and Charles Saatchi ran the company. No, don’t be too sad. The brothers went on to build the smarter M&C Saatchi and I moved into digital marketing and publishing. I believe, as do many, that 1995 was the end of the great Saatchi & Saatchi reign.

The “Saatchi Insight. Strategic Planning Tool Kit”.

This toolkit includes 15 sections with strategic process brand names like MASTERBRAND, BRAND Detonator, The Saatchi Temple, The Consumer Connector, Funneling, The Media Monitor and Scenario Planning (at a time when this term was rarely used outside of Saatchi). The brand names helped position us as super smart in our new business pitches and, of course, with resolving existing client issues.

I’ll be hitting up insights from this book in a few blog posts because I think that advertising agency marketing-oriented strategic planning is an underutilized agency specialty. I strongly believe that having a clear and compelling strategic program can be a differentiator for today’s look-alike advertising agencies. [Read more…] about Advertising Agency Strategic Planning And Insights

Cures For Poor Advertising Agency Profits

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Cures For Poor Advertising Agency Profits

I work to provide cures for low advertising agency profits. That is my specialty. I do not get many calls from super successful, as in high-margin agencies unless they are very very hungry to expand.  I LOVE those call from the relentless.

Here Is A Key Question

Within the range of the business questions that I use at the start of an agency business development assignment, there is one simple, but revealing question:

Why do you run your advertising, PR, digital agency?

This question generally yields a somewhat standard answer…

The marketing communications industry (advertising, digital marketing, PR) is fun.

No surprise here. Marketing hits many sweet spots including working with a wide array of clients and their issues (great for advertising people with ADHD); delivering marketing that drives sales is fulfilling; the daily use unique skills; being paid for creative thinking; working with fun people; it beats owning a dry cleaner shop. I don’t usually get told that people make a pant load of money. For most ad shops, those days are (unfortunately) over.

Super high-profit days are in the past due to the move to fee-based compensation; absurdly competitive price cutting; the art of giving services away for free; incessant cost-cutting; increasing workload; increasing advertising platforms; staffing issues; the commoditization of services; claiming the impossible to own “we are creative”; not zeroing in on the most important client need of all… business results.

OK, OK, Enough!

Elemental Cures To Grow Advertising Agency Profits

[Read more…] about Cures For Poor Advertising Agency Profits

Does Your Advertising Agency Do Content Marketing Right?

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Is Your Advertising Agency A Savvy Content Marketer?

I’ve read acres of advertising agency content (blogs, white papers, videos, on LinkedIn, etc.). Some rock and some suck. Many agencies, once they have stellar content, do not put in the effort to spread the wealth. As in, they do not amplify their brilliant thinking across a range of social media and traditional marketing platforms. This is a missed efficiency driver. Here’s a how to maximize your hard content building work.

To be clear, ‘content’ means the stuff that agency’s use to deliver their insightful thought leadership programs which are designed to sell the agency’s brains, expertise and to drive inbound visits and interest. Just for the hell of it, here is the definition of content from Google…

A type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts) that does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services.

Here is another well-crafted definition from the Content Marketing Institute…

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.

Great Content: Part One

One of the best content marketing companies I’ve visited/read is TrinityP3 an Australian-based global marketing management consultancy with offices on four continents. TrinityP3 is a primary thought leader in the advertising client and agency space.

Darren Woolley, founder and Global CEO, along with Mike Morgan, are the driving force behind TrinityP3. To date, they have hundreds of blog posts covering a wide range of subjects including agency management, agency search, compensation, media buying, procurement, and scope of work and, even infographics. I’m talking lots of content.  [Read more…] about Does Your Advertising Agency Do Content Marketing Right?

How Do Clients Find Your Advertising Agency?

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How Do Clients Find Your Advertising Agency?

Let’s start with some defining and extremely important questions that you should be asking at least twice a year. OK, every month. In this case, I am aiming these questions at your advertising agency website.

  • How do potential clients find you? What was the path?
  • When they found your website, what did they look at?
  • What percentage of your visitors contacted you?
  • What percentage made some other actions like signing up for a newsletter or downloading a white paper?
  • Are you happy? Are the right clients making contact? Need to make adjustments? What’s your success metric?

Let’s break these down a bit.

How do potential clients find you?

First, let’s get referrals out of the way. Advertising agency business development research has indicated that referrals can account for over 80% of agency new client inquiries. While I love referrals and have written about the importance of having a documented active referral strategy, there is no question that referrals have become the default new business attractor because most agencies are not doing a stellar in or outbound sales job. Referrals then must drive the majority of leads. Not that there is anything wrong with referrals. They work. But, they can be a bit random.

The easiest way to determine how prospects found you is to ask them. Of course, many people will have forgotten their first intro to your world. They simply forgot or they used multiple ways in including a search, your LinkedIn page, that conference you spoke at, your tennis buddy, etc. But always ask this question – quickly before you get lost in sales speak.

Second, in respect to your website, use your Google or WordPress analytics to see where they came from. On Wednesday, 30 April, my individual visitors came to me via Google 116; direct 47 (where a user probably entered the URL); LinkedIn 5 and Bing 1 and other 9.

These numbers suggest that my content-oriented inbound sales strategy is working. Most people find me on Google because I have dedicated the past five years to writing over six hundred blog posts on the specific subject of advertising agency new business.

What did they look at? Did you help them get to the good stuff? Do you have a funneling plan?

Using Google and WordPress analytics, I know exactly what people are looking at on this website. Obviously, since my blog is so focused on one subject, my visitors are looking at my posts about ad agency business development. I mix this up occasionally by promoting edgier posts, like Gary Vaynerchuck Is Full Of Shit. But, the bottom line is that I am slavish to one subject. Frankly, most agencies have some trouble with being this focused and keyword conscious. It would also help if they had a focused positioning. Here are some thoughts on that rather important goal.

The typical advertising and communications agency website has a defining Home Page; an About page; Our Work; News or a Blog and a contact page. Is there a flow you want the visitor to take? A place you want them to end up? Are you funneling them towards an action? If they get lost or bail, are you tracking your exit pages?

If you are a B2B marketer, and that folks, is what an ad agency business development program is, you need to funnel the visitor to your contact page. Or, at least, have them ask for something like that brilliant white paper on a subject that supports your agency positioning and sales proposition. I build my mailing list via an offer of this paper: “22 Ways To Run A Highly Profitable Agency”. I admit that it comes to you via an ugly home page pop up. But, again, hey, it works.

What percentage contacted you and what’s your success metric?

Do the basic math. How well do you convert your visitors into sales prospects? Frankly, when I look at the number of visitors I get every day, I could get worried that I am not converting as many as I should. However, here is what I know:

First, I give a lot of information and insights away for free. Many agencies tell me that they often get all they can eat just by reading my stuff. This drives good vibes.

Second, I know that my sales cycle takes a long time. Many of my clients tell me that they have been reading my stuff for over a year. It takes most advertising agencies a long time to admit that they need business development advice.

Third, I am meeting my personal sales goals. Sure, I could dial up my website. But, it works. I am a lone ranger consultant. Given your agency’s overhead, you should be way focused on delivering a website experience that drives a high volume of the right leads.

What is your success metric? Without a metric, you will never know that your website is working.

So, give me a shout. Maybe its time for you to get some outside expert advice.