Top 5 Benefits for Having an Ad Agency Blog

the number 5

As important as it was for your ad agency to have a website, it is now as important to have an agency blog.

Your ad agency’s blog is one of the most important new business tools in your arsenal. It can quickly become the “gateway” to your agency. The ad agency website is becoming more like the agency brochure. That isn’t a bad thing.

Here are my Top 5 Benefits to Having an Ad Agency Blog:

Benefit 1: Fresh Content

From my experience working with agencies, anything you try to do for your agency tends to be a very slow process. Typically, because of overcreating, agency politics, agency turf wars, too busy doing clients work, it takes agencies a great amount of time and effort to update their website. Even more painful and slow is an agency website redesign.  Most agencies website designs are not condusive to easy content management and difficult to update. Agencies also also tend to be too self critical of their own work. It is always harder for them to do work for themselves than it is for their clients.

Blogs on the other hand are much easier to keep updated with fresh content, highlighting work and are designed for repeat traffic.

Benefit 2: Generate More Traffic

Your blog has more potential to create more web traffic than your agency’s website ever could. Your blog can attract a high volume of quality traffic from the pool of prospective clients you are trying to reach.

Blogs develop more visitors through:

  • Search visibility – blogs are organized to be search engine friendly. Plus the more content you have (well-linked) the more chances there are of attracting search traffic.
  • Click-through traffic – through posting interesting articles a blog gives a reason for other people to link to you.
  • Repeat traffic – regularly updated content and comments bring visitors back … and back … and back. Most agency websites are not condusive to repeat traffic, particularly if your website hasn’t been updated in 5 years.
  • Personality – create a blog around your agency’s culture and let your personality shine through. People will be attracted to you. People like to associate with people they like. It’s hard to make friends with a business but easy to warm to an individual with a welcoming personality.
  • Viral effects – you create something cool and visitors tell their friends, who tell their friends … and so on.
  • Authority/credibility – blogging allows you to become an expert in the minds of your prospective clients.

Benefit 3: Easy to Use

Setting up a blog isn’t like setting up a Web site. A blog is simple to set up even for the technologically challenged. No HTML coding experience is necessary.

If you are new to blogging, you will find there are a number of free blogging services that can easily get you started. You can literally be up and running in a few minutes. Blogger, is a great place to start. It is very simple to use. However, you’ll probably want to transition to WordPress eventually. Be sure to secure your own domain for your blog so that changing services wont be an issue for you down the road.

Benefit 4: Inexpensive

The only word more popular than “easy” to ad agency CEOs is “inexpensive.” There is virtually no hard cost is involved. Only your time. You will greatly return you cost on investment of time by reusing your blog content in ezine articles, emails, enewsletters, white papers and in traditional publications.

Benefit 5: A Great New Business Tool

In a recent survey of business technology marketing executives by the research firm MarketingSherpa, blogs were voted the No. 4 tool for generating sales leads. Ultimately, a blog can be highly effective and the most powerful and low-cost new business marketing tool your agency will ever use. Provided you know your target audience, have the right positioning, messaging and rich content that is of benefit to those you are trying to reach.

Blogging will take time and effort but the reward will be great. Just remember, be consistent. Provide a blog post at least several times a week and don’t sell. Instead use your blog to establish and build relationships. This new business tool is superior to any other tool that I’ve used in building relationships for new business. People enjoy working with those they know, trust and like.

Agencies have difficulty articulating who they are, why they are different, what they offer and how they do what they do. As you research and write your blog posts, an added benefit will be clarity. The old adage is true, “you don’t know what you know, until you write it down.”

photo credit: Terry McCombs via photopin cc

About Michael Gass

Consultant | Trainer | Author | Speaker

Since 2007, he has been pioneering the use of social media, inbound and content marketing strategies specifically for agency new business.

He is the founder of Fuel Lines Business Development, LLC, a firm which provides business development training and consulting services to advertising, digital, media and PR agencies.

%d bloggers like this: