From Olli Siebelt… integrated digital production… Don’t miss *
marketing
Summly, Nick D’Aloisio, Bloomberg, Charlie Rose and Yahoo! (And Advertising)
The press take on Nick D’Aloisio and his sale of the news app Summly to Yahoo! for a reported $30,000,000 made big news because he is 17. He has much more going for him than just his age.
Watch this really inspiring interview with Nick on Charlie Rose. One of Nick’s main points is that he built Summly, which has been pulled off the iTunes store while its moved into Yahoo! land, as a tool to summerize the news (and soon more) for the small screen. Nick zeroed in on the insight that people under 25 are mobile-phone centric. They use their phones as their first screen, not the second and he built Summly for his kinsmen. The idea of phone-as-first-screen is a wonderful disrupter.
And, yes, there is more Nick… Here he is on Bloomberg. This interview is a bit more entertainment oriented.
While you are here, go here to see what I do.
How Advertising Agencies Can Grow Their Twitter Followers
Man, agencies like to be followed. Followed by potential clients, future gifted employees, the trade press, ad bloggers and on Twitter.
How to grow on Twitter followers? Here is a link to an academic study on Twitter usage and popularity from The Georgia Institute of Technology. You will need some spare time for this or just scroll down for the chart.
So, what works?…
- Network overlap. People follow tweets that their friends follow.
- High re-tweet ratio. People love what others love and recommend. Why not ask for the RT?
- Activity as in Tweets per hour. Reasonable Tweets per hour that is. I have some friends that are way too prolific.
- Audience relevance. Lots of pics of your agency dogs might not cut it.
What dosen’t work?
- Negative sentiment.
- Overdoing irrelevance. Those pesky dogs again.
- Interestingly, the over use of hash-tags. No argument here.
Here is the handy chart:
I’ve been building social media traffic since 1995 (when I put newspapers online) — Lets talk about how to build an active social media (I mean strategic social media) program for your agency.
Advertising Agency New Business: Instagram
My earlier post, “From Traditional To Digital To Integrated To Social To Instagram”, on the advertising blog AdPulp took a look at the New York agency The Mobile Media Lab. As I noted in the post, this agency describes themselves as… “The Mobile Media Lab is a creative agency that produces customized visual experiences with brands and their audiences on Instagram and other social media channels.”
Here is an agency that isn’t worried about finding a niche and owning it. They are not trying to be everything to everybody. Their visual marketing specialty has netted them some famous clients including Evian, Puma, Samsung and W Hotels. Accounts most agencies would love to have. Accounts that a “full-service” Boston agency might have some trouble winning.
Clearly, Mobile Media Lab successfully tapped into a growing marketing area where big-name clients want expertise.
When I’ve discussed the visual marketing specialty with agency colleagues, they expressed concerns about The Mobile Media Lab’s narrow focus and limitation of tools like Instagram. I have a different perspective. Yes, visual marketing is a tightly focused approach. But, the use of Instagram and Pinterest is skyrocketing and why couldn’t even a large “full-service” agency build a micro-group around niche visual marketing to get new business interest? Just like The Mobile Media lab, another agency just might get the attention of brands that would have never given them a look. Visual marketing is something that can be pitched and should generate interest from sophisticated clients.
Is there any reason that you couldn’t take a niche play to quickly become an expert in a new marketing category? Advertising agency niche markting could be your ticket into the national marketing arena. I’ll soon write about some of the other niches that can be exploited.
The Top 11 Elements of Advertising Agency Success
As an agency owner my biggest fear was that I might have more billings walking out the back door than walking in the front. This thought kept me up many nights and it forced me to really think through what it takes to be a successful agency. Here is a list of 11 elements that I think are essential for building a sustainable agency.
Note that this list does not include some of the advertising industries more critical decisions like how to design a cool office, figuring out where to place the creative awards, choosing between a ping pong or foosball table, or what kind of holiday card to send out.
Here are my 11 elements or goals for agency success… And a good night’s sleep.
- The absolute bottom line for achieving all of your goals is that you view your agency as a business that is driven by the pursuit of profit. Yes, running an agency is fun. But, it is a business first. A failing business isn’t fun.
- You should end the year with at least a 15% net profit and 4+ months of cash in the bank to cover any unforeseen problems – like losing a big account.
- You will have a clear, competitive agency brand position and efficient marketing program designed to set you apart from your competition and generate incoming leads.
- You will be known for delivering business building creative, strategic thinking, tech savvy and superior account service.
- You will have an ongoing active new business plan to drive agency awareness and to get your sales proposition out 24/7.
- You will get paid what you are worth and will not give away your brains for free. Nothing rankles me, and I suspect you, more than giving away valuable ideas to prove that you are brilliant. Yes, I know about procurement and bending over. But, lets try to get past that evil.
- You will have the right staff, expertise and thought-leadership to stay ahead of the rapidly evolving market. You understand that you may have to cut some dead wood. I’ll admit that I was occasionally slow in building for the future by making necessary cuts.
- Your management team and most important employees will be paid at or higher than industry averages. I continuously studied industry salary stats. I know that my employees did too.
- The best people in the business will call up and ask to work with you.
- Everyone at the agency will have fun and will love to come to work in the morning.
- The desirable clients you want will call up and ask to work with you. These clients will deliver at least two of the following: they pay very well (this means very profitable); they understand and want great work; they are famous brands that beget other famous brands.
Just to pile on, allow me to end with a quote that has influenced my personal business decisions and need for speed.
“If everything seems under control you are just not going fast enough.” – Mario Andretti
–> There are more elements, lets discuss how to grow your agency.