Peter Levitan & Co.

The New Business of Advertising

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Inbound Marketing Works

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Inbound Marketing Delivers Inbound New Business

inbound-marketing-graphicOK, not big news here: inbound marketing works. But, in the interest of sharing, I’d just like to say it works for me big time and how it does that.

A couple of weeks ago I sensed that the number of high-octane inbound inquiries was falling off. I usually get at least a couple of qualified new business leads from interested advertising agencies a week. Noting the decline, I did the following…

  • I increased the number of new blog posts. I make sure these are very SEO friendly.
  • I boosted a Facebook post on my ‘corporate’ Facebook page (note, not a page I update on a frequent basis, at least not as much as my blog). $50 helped me get this post on advertising agency search consultants read by 1,275 well-targeted advertising leaders.
  • I upped my use of Buffer to get high traffic past posts scheduled in increased frequency on LinkedIn and Twitter. I scheduled these at different times across the day and night since my business is global.
  • I increased posting relevant blog posts in advertising and industry-related LinkedIn Groups.

Did it work?

Yes. I now have four ‘hot’ leads – from the USA, South America, and Europe. Was this a direct result of my upping my inbound efforts? I can’t directly attribute all of the leads to this effort  since not all agencies ever remember how they heard of me*. However, I have seen a 300% increase in the type of leads I want.

This makes me happy.

So…. I will just do more. Why not? My increased efforts just cost me some time and $50 bucks.

*Interestingly, it is often a long-term / repeat exposure to my brand. They see me via SEO on Google, read the blog, see guest posts, read me on LinkedIn and have bought my book on pitching.

 

 

Advertising Agency Business Development Timing

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Is Your Advertising Agency Good At Timing?

screen-shot-2016-11-06-at-5-35-01-pmThis might be the most important advertising agency business development blog post you will ever read. It is all about timing. And, it discusses an oh so simple solution.

Why? Because if there is any one thing that advertising agencies of all sizes do not do when it comes to business development it’s… a paucity of planning and follow-through.

Note: My research with agency clients indicates that only 40% of agencies use and are slavish to their business development calendar.

I don’t care if you are small or huge. Failure to run your plan, once you have one (and, yes, this is a whole notha story), could be your primary failure. You know it and I do. We even have an oft and way over-used metaphor to describe the issue… the cobbler who does not have the time to make shoes for his own children. I am tired of hearing this parable and so should you. It is a shitty poor and very lame excuse.

You want clients like Nike and Audi and that huge healthcare client and that global e-commerce website job, right? Well, do you think that these marketers sit around and talk about how they do not have the time to plan and run their sales program? That they are too busy working with their current customers to go find new ones?

If Your Agency Is Shoeless… Read On

Look, I get it. I ran business development at the world’s largest agency and at my own digital and advertising agency companies. Hey, I even do sales right here at my consulting company. Sales requires dedication and on-going activity. It is time-consuming. It takes you away from servicing your current clients. It can be a real pain. But, if you do not do it with a high degree of consistency, you will fail and will go under. You certainly won’t make enough moolah to buy that Porsche 911 or the Cadillac of mini-vans for your kids.

The Solution: The Business Development Calendar

[Read more…] about Advertising Agency Business Development Timing

eMarketer and Digital Advertising Growth

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eMarketer and Digital Advertising Growth

download-eDouglas Clarke, eMarketer’s PR Manager – North America (dclark@emarketer.com) shared some information on the digital advertising market ahead of the large Advertising Week conference.

US Advertising Revenue

  • In 2016, total media ad spending will reach $195.76 billion, an increase of 6.9% over last year.  
  • This year in the US, digital ad spending will reach $72.09 billion, a jump of 20.5% over last year.  
  • Digital will represent 36.8% of total media spending in the US.
  • Mobile internet ad spending in the US will grow 45.3% this year to $45.66 billion.  
  • Mobile represents an increasing share of total digital ad spending – this year growing to 63.3%.
  • US display ad spending will grow 28.4% this year to $34.56 billion.
  • US search ad spending will grow 15.4% this year to $33.28 billion.
  • Digital video ad spending will reach $10.30 billion this year, a jump of 34.1% over last year.
  • TV ad spending will grow 3.5% this year to $71.29 billion.
  • Social network ad spending in the US will grow 41.3% this year to $15.36 billion. It will represent 21.3% of total digital ad spending.

These growth numbers (!!!) are rather aggressive. Or, let’s face it, if you are in the advertising / digital industry — they are very impressive. If I still owned my agency I’d sure be going strong into mobile and video desktop and its relationship to Social and SEO. 

I Know You Like Charts

emarketer_us_digital_ad_spending_by_device_and_format_2015-2020_2158741

 

Must Watch Internet Trends Via Mary Meeker

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Share This With Your Team: Mary Meeker’s 2016 Internet Trends Report & Its Impact On Advertising

meeker-trends1_featuredA must read: The annual Mary Meeker peek at what’s happening in the Internet universe.

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner Mary Meeker delivers her annual internet trends report. She says “easy growth is behind us” as the newest internet users are coming from less developed and less affluent countries. Meeker also delves into artificial intelligence, Snapchat brand integrations, changes to live sports viewing habits, car industry innovation and the rise of millennial consumers, and on.

Better Advertising Please

Read this and process before your client’s do. Especially the thinking on why we need better ads — the effect of the growth of ad blocking.

-> Why aren’t more advertising agency blogs discussing this major issue?

How To Build A Client Prospect list

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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