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How To Win New Advertising Agency Business

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How To Win New Advertising Agency Business

How To Win New Advertising Agency BusinessMy thoughts on how to win new advertising agency business from those wonderful clients that you want… was one of the first blog post messages I ran for my advertising agency business development consultancy. I started the consultancy in 2013 after I sold my Portland agency. Whoa: About 850 blog posts ago.

It was a great, useful blog post about, yes, how to win new advertising agency business and got the attention of my ad agency market. The idea is still useful.

“Wait a minute, who are you guys?”

That was the question we got from Harrah’s Las Vegas after they received our iTunes gift card. We told them who we were, thanked them again for their help and a relationship was born. Here’s how we got there.

About 10+ years ago, my Portland ad agency Citrus needed a more distinctive brand positioning. As I suspect you know, finding a new brand position for an advertising agency, especially a “full-service” agency like ours, isn’t easy. While full-service is a highly relevant service offer that many clients seek, it isn’t a particularly distinctive sales proposition in a world with thousands of similar ad agencies. The fact is, full-service sounds rather platitudinous.

There are probably 2,000 advertising agencies called full-service.

Here is how we broke out.

To refresh our brand (and get more notice) we initiated a strategic branding process. We employed the account panning skills of Lynette Xanders, one of the Northwest’s best strategists. Lynette helped us gain a better understanding of the agency’s existing positioning, insights into how our staff perceived the current and future agency, an examination of relevant industry shifts, and a deeper view of our goals and dreams. We added in a competitive review to advance our understanding of what clients need and want from an agency.

Next – We Used A Survey As A How To Win New Advertising Agency Business Sales Tool

Our next step was to create an online survey to show a set of alternative positioning statements to marketing decision-makers – our clients and target companies. We wanted to get past our own internal navel-gazing.

We took the branding exercise and added a new business spin.

We used our new business database to select a list of A-level client prospects and used the positioning research as an introduction to Citrus. The program had 6 low-cost elements.

  1. A list of 5 positioning statements were listed in an agency research section on our website. In addition to the survey, this helped us to drive the responders to our larger agency story.
  2. A Survey Monkey online survey.
  3. An email list compiled from our The List Inc. database. Now WINMO.
  4. Three-stage email outreach.The offer of winning a $50 iTunes gift card twas added as an incentive.
  5. The prospect group’s response rate was surprisingly high at about 30%. Sometimes if you ask nicely people will want to respond.

Winning Harrah’s

One of the respondents from our outreach list (wanna-be client types) was a corporate marketing manager at Harrah’s (now Caesars Entertainment.) After the manager answered the survey we sent her a nice note and the gift card. Her response was, “Wait a minute. Who are you guys?”

This question led to more emails, phone calls, and a trip to Las Vegas. The meeting resulted in our working on Harrah’s national Las Vegas Meeting’s By Harrah’s program that sells thousands of room nights per year for Harrah’s 8 Las Vegas casinos. Our work included a new website, a direct marketing program, and a print advertising campaign.

This was a rather decent result from sending out a couple of emails, asking for some help, and the delivery of an iTunes gift card. Remember iTunes?

Oh, in addition to a new client, our research also netted a new agency brand positioning.

The Message – If you want to know How To Win New Advertising Agency Business – please be different. Or as I call it… be Unignorable.

Oh… I have written lots about advertising agency brand positions. Here.

How To Public Relations Advice

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public relations adviceYa Want Some Sweet Public Relations Advice?

I write about company and personal branding in my Kick-Ass book (link below). Public relations plays a major role in getting your brand out there.

Here is a bit of my book’s perspective that transmits the thinking from the very smart PR firm – NATA. Check out their extensive thought leadership on their blog and in their podcast. Here is a good one: “147 – Public Relations – Nobody’s Waiting for Your Press Release.” So true!!!!

OK, let’s go.

Few “inbound” marketing platforms deliver the positive awareness of having your #advertisingagency mentioned in a Campaign Magazine or ADWEEK article, or in the case of your industry expertise – the category’s trade pubs.

So how does an agency or agency leader (or frankly any company) get into the right publication with the right brand-building copy?

Public Relations — PR Advice

The PR firm NATA offers this simple path to quickly get the attention of the busy (as in inundated) press by keeping the messaging straight and to the point. A few words can deliver a big message via being on-point and clutter-free. NATA’s advice:

  • If you run a company or have a job, you almost certainly have to write emails every day. Telling your story should be just as easy as your regular discussions with clients or suppliers.
  • We’ve developed a point-by-point technique at NATA PR that helps us get straight to the point when we’re talking to journalists or influencers. The purpose of this technique is to make information easy to read and maximize the chances of a journalist talking about you.

Practice this technique using these simple questions. Answer them and then remove the questions before sending your email:

What:

• Brand Z is launching a new vitamin C serum.

Why:

  • The vitamin C doesn’t become oxidized and retains all its properties that help reduce skin pigmentation.
  • It’s a completely new patent from company Z and they are the only ones in the world that have it.

When:

• It’ll be launched on X.

Where:

• On Z’s website and in reputable pharmacies.

Contact:

• Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions.

Getting Sweet PR Sounds Simple… Right?

An issue is that PR wanna-get types don’t follow simple rules like these from NATA. Remember that your audience are busy pr professionals. Get to that great point fast.

Want more PR and marketing agency business-building advice? Buy this new marketing book.

 

Top Advertising And Design Awards

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A Lovely List Of The Top Advertising Awards

top advertising and design awardsPut yourself in a marketing client’s shoes. They want to find and select a new advertising, digital or design firm. How to do that? They ask friends; take hours searching the Internet; maybe your agency got its account-based marketing down and the client now knows about the agency; the client hires an agency search consultant or… maybe they look at the top advertising and design awards to find an agency that a third party loves. A third party that gave the agency an award and big kisses. In a world of over 4 trillion ad and digital agencies, a client needs some help.

This list provides a list of the top advertising and design awards plus: deep thoughts on why you should even bother doing the advertising award game. This game is costly and time-consuming.

Across my global and regional advertising career, I’ve won big creative awards like the One Show, EFFIES and regional ad awards. There is a system to winning… Here are my views on advertising awards objectives and strategies. It is mindblowing how many advertising agencies do not know how to enter an award show — to win.

Note: This advertising awards list gets updated. Let me know if I am missing an award.

advertising agency awardsNote #2: I write about advertising awards and other agency and personal branding strategies to make you and your agency more famous in my new book. How To Build A Kick-Ass Advertising Agency

Another note: This is obvious but is worth mentioning. Even if you do not want to send out an award entry, these websites will point you to a great place to steal ‘winning’ ideas.

Advertising Awards Are Good… But, Maybe Start Here: Why Enter Award Shows? Do You Have A Strategy?

Winning the right advertising awards is good for business and agency and client morale. Just make sure you know why you are entering. Too many agencies don’t approach the award process with a plan or objectives beyond the search for ego fulfillment. This can make the whole effort a bit too C R A Z Y. But, you know that. Or, do you? Go here to hear an advertising award judge on his less-than-optimal experience reading agency entries.

I have a memory about the power of awards from my first day at Saatchi & Saatchi London way back in the 1990s. I walked through the creative floor and noticed a tall glass case randomly stuffed with lots of creative trophies. This haphazard display delivered two messages: 1) Saatchi wins lots of awards and 2) they don’t take these too seriously. Of course, the second point was bull shit. Saatchi was always about looking like a winner and the award case proved that point in a cheeky manner. It worked better than the usual and obvious shelf of awards that sit behind the ad agency receptionist’s head.

I have always had mixed feelings about advertising awards. On one hand, they are, like winning an Academy Award, i.e. ridiculous. No one ad, digital program or actor is the “best.” On the other hand (the one with the wallet), they are way expensive. As an agency owner, I often cringed when a creative director came to me with his handout asking us to spend hundreds on award entries.

However money aside, advertising awards have some very big advantages for agencies, clients, and creative-class workers:

The awards celebrate creativity itself. Creative strategies, art, copy and the media platforms that deliver the work.

They help our most talented people get noticed.

They help smart well-designed agencies get noticed by occasionally confused clients who need second party confirmation when selecting an agency. To me, this is a very important point and one that makes writing those increasingly expensive entry checks worth the cost. Awards should be a big part of an agency’s business development program – not just an ego stroker.

To put all of this go-for-it into context, I wrote about the Portland agency Pollinate a few years back that has done very well (!) by hammering Advertising Age’s Small Agency awards show. The blog post, “How To Win The Ad Age Small Agency Award? Twice?” is a demonstration of the value of entering and winning an award that has meaning for prospective clients because it is delivered via an industry-leading publication. Check it out.

Last point before the list. Award judges have told me that around 30% of agencies do not know how to create an entry that is designed to win. Poor copy, poor strategy, even typos. Many agencies rush through the process at the very last minute. Do you? Do you have an annual award plan? Who is in charge?

My Favorite Advertising & Marketing Awards

[Read more…] about Top Advertising And Design Awards

A New Kick-Ass Email Tool

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Here’s a new subject line email tool that will increase opens.

email toolI got an email today from one of my favorite email newsletters – Josh Spector’s For The Interested.  The email pointed me to omnisend’s email subject line tester

The omnisend promise: Boost your email open rates: analyze and improve your subject lines before sending your next campaign.

I used the tool to create this blog post’s subject line. It scored high.

email tool

 

You can see more tools and resources right There’s more! Here in my advertising, marketing agency resources list.