marketing

How To Build A Client Prospect list

Peter · May 6, 2016 · Leave a Comment

The Ad Agency Client Prospect List

Update 28 March 2019: I am adding ContactOut to my list of tools that can help you find the work email address and phone numbers of your prospects. You know, the prospects that are on your very focussed short list of clients that want to work with you but do not know you exist. Some smart product language from ContactOut:

ContactOut is a simple browser extension that helps you find email addresses and phone numbers of anyone on LinkedIn. We’ve been around for just over three years and already have thousands of users from a third of the Fortune 500 (like Microsoft, PwC, and Symantec). ContactOut finds emails from 75% of Linkedin users (2x better than the next closest competitor) at a 97% accuracy rate. It’s earned us multiple mentions on the ahrefs blog as one of the best freemium email outreach tools available.

Inbound Marketing Is Nice, But…

I am a card-carrying inbound marketer. Most of my advertising agency clients come to me via my inbound efforts that include some decent SEO, hundreds of informative blog posts and SMM (Social Media Manipulation – take that S&M). This is most likely how you found this website.

However, if your marketing an advertising agency that knows what clients it should have based on its brand position, category experience, and skills, inbound alone won’t do the trick. You will need to employ one or more outbound marketing techniques to directly reach those clients and their decision makers. You’ll do this by creating a list. Yes, a duh. But, a critical duh. I do not agree with the idea that B2B direct marketing is dead. Only DM programs that can and should be ignored are dead.

I loved building client prospect lists for my ad agency. The act of list building focused our business development objectives and strategies and provided a very clear trajectory for our outbound and inbound marketing programs. I view the art and science of database building to be a critical element of business development.

I recommend that my advertising agency clients develop a top 25 to 50 company/owner/marketing director business development ‘A’ list. These are those special clients that will be directly and personally targeted via a customized thought-leadership sales program. You will have to go well past cold calling to warm calling to entice these marketers to listen to your message.

At the same time, build a longer list (250 – 1,000) for less intensive outreach via somewhat automated marketing tools like your email program. This list is designed to keep you top-of-mind within a much broader set. Note: My regional agency Citrus had a monthly mailing list of well over 1,500. One of the key values of this large list was that we knew that we needed to stay top-of-mind within a very large group of people who know people. Any of these might wake up needing a new agency. Be active, not too passive.

Prospect List Building Criteria – From Macro To Micro

Establish your ‘A’ list using strategic and realistic client prospect criteria. In the past, I have used the following criteria to build lists for my agency. Of course, your criteria might be different.

First, include any prospects that you already know or you know you from existing lists including your email list (a key reason to have an active blog); past events (like what you should do with all of those collected business cards) and your very own LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook Followers.

Secondly, make a list of all of the clients in your target categories (specific business categories to geographic fit) that currently use competitive agencies. Obvious? Sure. But, you’d be surprised at how few agencies keep this client opportunity list fresh.

Decision-Making Criteria – You Want to get to “Yes.”

Here is a list of primary criteria questions for that ‘A’ list. If the answer is a big ‘no’ you might not want to waste your time with this client. [Read more…] about How To Build A Client Prospect list

Resources: Top 10 Twitter Tools For Ad Agencies

Peter · March 28, 2016 · Leave a Comment

Top 10 Twitter Tools And Tips For Ad Agencies (OK, Everyone)

I know from working with a wide range of advertising and digital agencies that Twitter can work very hard for B2B ad agency new business marketing.

However, trying to run a 24/7 Twitter program that uses best practices to achieve an agency’s goals can be daunting. Marketing communications companies that do not have dedicated staff to run a demanding social media program can get a bit overwhelmed. Good news, there are tools that can make using Twitter as an inbound and outbound platform much easier.

In addition to watching how the smartest agencies use Twitter, I base the following list on my own success in having well over 2,000 direct links per year from Twitter to my very narrowly defined website. In addition (thinking like a networker) I have had many valuable inter-Twitter direct communications in the past 12 months.

I divide this list into Twitter tools that make creating and posting Tweets much easier and tools that help me use Twitter as a marketing platform — including using Twitter as competitive and direct marketing platform.

Twitter Advertising

While we are all worshiping the Gods of inbound, actually using Twitter as an outbound advertising platform is worth the effort and cost. I know for a fact that, Twitter ads work. Go forth and test them.

Social Media Examiner. A primer on some of your advertising / Follower builder options.

Twitter Advertising. See if Twitter ‘s advertising website whets your outbound appetite.

Twitter Production And Scheduling Tools

Bit.ly. With a 140 character limit, you have to shorten any URL’s posted to Twitter. Bit.ly does a bit more cool stuff. But shortening alone means you need to have this built into your browser.

Buffer. Buffer is my number one easy to use scheduling system, it is connected to my WordPress blog to automatically send my blog post URL’s and a snippt to Twitter (and LikedIn and Facebook). Importantly because I need to save time, it also allows me to schedule a set of Tweets into the future.

Canva. According to the Gods of social media, having a graphic will increase your clicks and retweets by something like over 1 million. or, some crazy number like that. Canva is a very easy to use web-based graphics tool that edits images and can even be used by your CEO.

Hootsuite. Hootsuite is a social media dashboard that allows you to work on and monitor Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, WordPress from one place. It goes deeper so head over if you are looking for a ‘total’ solution.

HubSpot. HubSpot is a very big boy. Its inbound software will help your agency attract visitors, convert leads, and close customers. And, you can use it to woo new clients with your supreme inbound marketing expertise. As in, using HubSpot will make your agency a social media expert that actually has tools it can resell.

Klear. Klear (formerly Twtrland) delivers social monitoring, influencer marketing and competitive intelligence. Try it out for free. The full plate is a bit expensive. But, it works as a smart business development tool. You gotta spend money to make money.

Social Quant. Social Quant says, “Social Quant increases the size and quality of your Twitter account rapidly.” OK, how can you beat that? Try the 14-day trial and then splurge and pay them $50 bucks per month.

Twitonomy. Use Twitter as a competitive wrench. As Twitonomy says, “Get detailed and visual analytics on anyone’s tweets, retweets, replies, mentions, hashtags… Browse, search, filter and get insights on the people you follow and those who follow you.” Damn, go forth and use your competitor’s data ~~against them~~, um, for you!

Last Sweet Tweet…

Use “@” if you want to get someone’s attention. As in @peterlevitan.

More & More Online Resources

Just one more element of my Big Advertising Agency Resource List. Let me know if I am missing anything.

More and more resources are coming every weeek. Stay tuned.

Forbes Tries To Stop My Use Of AdBlock

Peter · February 14, 2016 · Leave a Comment

Forbes Does Not Want Me To ‘Continue’ Or… Let The AdBlock War Begin

Interesting find in what I think is the most intriguing thing going on in the world of advertising (OK, one of them.)

Ta Da…. Ad Blocking. Some data from PageFair’s 2015 report on ad blocking.

Ad blocking estimated to cost publishers nearly $22 billion during 2015.
There are now 198 million active adblock users around the world.
Ad blocking grew by 41% globally in the last 12 months.
US ad blocking grew by 48% to reach 45 million active users in 12 months up to June 2015.
UK ad blocking grew by 82% to reach 12 million active users in 12 months up to June 2015.

Forbes Tries Anti Adblck

I tried to go to the Forbes website and got the message below.Yes, I admit it, I use AdBlock. Interesting. I guess we’ll see:

If people are willing to turn AdBlock off.
If people want to bother going the extra clicks to read Forbes.
If the use of the words… “continue into Forbes ad-light experience” helps. Ad-light – now that’s a new one.
If other websites follow Forbes down this path.

Frankly, I don’t like barriers to entry. Too many content options out there. As I said, we’ll see where this goes. It is definitely going to be interesting.

See the Forbes message below.

But first, here is what Elon Musk is working on as we speak:

Is The Stock Market Freaking Out Your Advertising Agency?

Peter · February 10, 2016 · Leave a Comment

As In… Are We Heading Towards Another Recession??

I’ve been doing this advertising agency thing for a long time. Started in the 1980’s and have gone through 5 recessions. Each time, clients got nervous. Many pulled their advertising back but some (the ones we loved) actually added to their budgets to gain market share when their competitors pulled back.

Here is a chart of the recessions. Of course, the most recent recession was a major killer coming just as digital media hit. Traditional agencies really got smacked down.

Our 2016 401K Freakout

Advertising Age and The Future Of Advertising

Peter · January 25, 2016 · Leave a Comment

The Future of Advertising

Advertising Age recently ran two very interesting and insightful articles about the current and future state of advertising. It’s that time of the year.

In Part One, I offer my take on what I think are the most salient points in The Industry Speaks: 2016’s Top Priorities that delivered a range of industry leader perspectives on issues and opportunities. I’ve edited the original copy and briefly discuss what it means for you Ms. Advertising Agency CEO.

Part Two comes later this week. I’m feeling too cluttered right now.

One big takeaway… clutter. Advertising clutter, technology clutter, social clutter, content clutter, SEM clutter, even personal blog clutter and on.

Article 1: The Industry Speaks: 2016’s Top Priorities

“What’s the No. 1 issue that the overall marketing and advertising industry needs to deal with in 2016? Advertising Age surveyed executives from throughout the business, and heard a surprising range of answers.

Jeff Charney, CMO, Progressive

Everyone’s so concerned about ad blocking and time shifting, but we see a very different threat. Everybody is flooding the web with their own content, hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute. We’re not just competing with our top competitors, or even other brands outside of our category, we’re competing with people’s friends, mothers and self-made celebrities on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. And it’s just getting started.

PL: Yes!!! So much stuff. So much competition for your eyeball and ear. I am currently advising an L.A. based fashion agency and have been digging into fashion and luxury marketing trends. The fashion and cosmetics marketing world has shifted. For example, Revlon’s mindshare competition is now coming from personal tastemaker sites like The Blonde Salad — not L’Oreal and it’s Vogue ads. That was Revlon’s old school competition. But, cosmetics buyers attention is now whipped snapped by dozens of new eyeball options.

Martin Sorrell, CEO, WPP

So number one on the agenda is encouraging companies to take a longer-term, less risk-averse view of the world, predicated on the fundamental truth that marketing is an investment not a cost.

It’s clear from BrandZ analysis that investing in brands works. In the last 10 years, a measurement of the strongest brands from the BrandZ Top 100 as a stock portfolio shows their share price has risen over three times more than the MSCI World Index and almost two thirds more than the S&P500.

PL: Ah, the old argument. Advertising spend is a long term “investment.” OK, yeah, we’ve heard this before. But, Sir Martin backs it up with some facts.

Lori Senecal, global CEO, CP&B

Convention won’t challenge itself. As an industry, we need to help marketers really take control of the technology solutions that unlock opportunities to offer consumers truly inventive, additive, and welcome experiences. But clients, agencies, and consumers will only benefit – and our industry will only thrive – if together with CMOs we can control the necessary technology from start to finish.

PL: A nice wish. Will agencies control the technology food chain? No. Will some savvy agencies build their own technology? Sure. but, the agency world will not be in control.

Maurice Levy, chairman and CEO, Publicis Groupe

Mobile and data.