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10 New Year’s Resolutions For Advertising Agencies

Peter · January 4, 2014 · Leave a Comment

New Year’s resolutions work. Well, at least some do. The bottom line: at least give them a chance.

Here are ten 2014 resolutions for advertising agencies that I think your agency should make. I mean… really do if you want to grow your advertising agency and your bottom line.

1. We will strive to create an agency brand position or business model that stands out from our competition. This will be designed to give prospective clients a compelling reason to want to work with us. Let me help you out here.

2. We will write and execute an annual business development plan that uses both inbound and outbound marketing. In fact, we will start by updating our master business plan. Too much has changed in the past twelve months to not revisit all of our assumptions and objectives.

3. We will manage and run our business development program with consistency. We will not start and stop. It is too late to restart a new business program after loosing a large client.

4. We will not pitch every account that comes our way. The pitch process is simply too costly. Before we pitch any account we will work hard to determine if the prospective client is a good fit for the agency based on a set of predetermined criteria. Here is a start. Is the client famous? Do they respect marketing? Do they want us to do brilliant work? Will they pay well? Are they a cultural fit? Hopefully you can say yes to two or three of these.

5. We will establish a recommended agency compensation plan and will share this with current and perspective clients. This plan will include cost-plus, fixed fees and performance-based remuneration based on a client’s performance metrics and an annual agency review. I’d like to se agencies get out in front of this issue.

6. We will ensure that we provide more value to all existing clients than we did in 2013. We will make sure we know how to prove our value.

7. We will give our people the time to fully explore the marketing value of new media or communications technologies. Some savvy agencies jumped on Vine when it was introduced and used it to build agency awareness.

8. We will work to grow our expertise in mobile and video marketing, the two fastest growing segments. To not do this will kill us.

9. We will write the book we want to read. I stole this line from Austin Kleon’s “Steal Like An Artist.” I wrote about why advertising agencies like The Gate Worldwide write books to grow their awareness for the blog Agency Post.

10. Have Big Hairy Audacious Goals. Go for it this year. I firmly believe that without BHAG’s agencies will wither away.

-> Here’s a bonus resolution:

We will call Peter Levitan and take him up on his Vito Corleone offer. We have nothing to lose and so much to gain from his new business insights. No, I don’t think that humility is a business-building attribute.

While you are at it… Don’t miss any of my brilliant (LOL, but I mean it) thoughts on new business.

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8 Vine Ideas For Ad Agency New Business

Peter · June 11, 2013 · Leave a Comment

I’ve written about the opportunity for an ad, digital or PR agency to leverage the growing awareness and use of Twitter’s Vine, its short-form (as in 6 seconds) video service that runs on iOS and Android, as a new business tool.

I suggested that there has to be an ad agency out there that sees the potential of becoming the first 6-Second ad agency. No, you don’t have to shut down your other services. Just create a Vine division. I think that this could take about 2 hours. Hey, your agency’s new business program probably needs something new to talk about.

Well, here is more fuel. Vines are now shared more often that Instagram photos.

From Memeburn: “According to insights from Twitter-certified analytics partner Topsy the number of Vine posts shared on the site passed the number of Instagram posts late last week, just days after the previously iOS-only Vine launched on Android. It’s an interesting trend, considering the fact that Vine has a much smaller user base than Instagram — it has just 13-million registered users against Instagram’s 100-million active users.For all I know, an agency is doing this.But, I bet that there is still room to grab this tool and run with it. Here are a few thought starters.”

So to help you get going, here are:

8 Ideas For Using Vine For Ad Agency Business Development

Write about Vine on your agency Blog.
Write a Vine (and video marketing) white paper and send it to current and prospective clients.
Run a micro-information-oriented Vine Twitter strategy. Do 3 to 5 Tweets a day for a couple of weeks and watch the stats.
Create a Vine Pinterest site. Think “Best of Vine.”
Do some sample Vine “ads” for client types.
Hire a local comedian to do 6-second comedy skits for your agency.
Get your Vine out: do Vine local reviews of anything: products, services, bars, clubs, bands, dogs, cats (people love dogs and cats.)
Do a Vine about everyone in your agency and add it to your website.

I could keep going but… I’ll save more ideas for my agency clients.

Oh, just in case you need a bit more info, here is today’s infographic.

The Six Second Advertising Agency C/O Vine

Peter · April 19, 2013 · Leave a Comment

Advertising agencies ask…. “How can we look / sound / act different that the other 4,000 agencies?” Well, why not become the “Six Second Agency”?

Business Insider reports that “Nissan Says A 6-Second Vine Might Have Been Better Than Its 30-Second Commercial”

Would certain commercials be better if they were condensed into 6-second Vine videos?

In October 2012, Nissan released a TV spot in which a mid-level accounts guy gets mistaken for a high ranking executive after he gives his boss a ride in his Sentra.

Then a consumer edited the 30-second ad down to six.

Nissan then posted on Vine, “Hey @ellencmayfield you’re on to something. Maybe we only needed 6 secs of airtime for the Carpool ad. :)”

I wouldn’t be surprised if the six-second Vine got more attention that the TV commercial. Why?

Vine is still new so any Vine TV spot will get extra attention until advertisers overwhelm us with this type of advertising.
We are collectively way ADD. Six seconds is good.
Advertising effectiveness wasn’t hurt when TV spots went from :60 to :30 to :15’s.

Back To The Six Second Agency Idea

Here is what I’d do if I still had my agency:

Create a micro-department and call it The Six Second Agency.
Create 5 Vine spots.
Build a simple website.
SEO the hell out of it.
Make some noise… go get some PR.

If it works, great. If not, hey you just had some inexpensive fun, your employees will think you are cool and your clients (at least the savvy ones) will smile and be glad that they are working with such a smart agency.

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There is a 78% chance that you loved what you just read. So, go here, read my Corleone offer and call me if you are an agency CEO or want to be someday.