When an agency rebrands a client, they know exactly what needs to be done and how to make it happen expeditiously. Most have their branding process down-pat. But the same agencies struggle with their own rebranding efforts. It is a painful, time consuming process and not many are successful. But it can and should be done. Is it time to rebrand your agency?
Phinney Bischoff Design House Seattle, Washington, recently went through their own rebranding process. I thought you might enjoy reading their story and the result from their efforts.
What is it About the Cobbler’s Kids?
Last August, after 14 years, a brand design firm, Phinney Bischoff Design House, decided they needed to update their own brand. Realizing they would need to give the same attention to their brand as they would with any client, their next new client was their own agency. Read their story…
In the 2008 Reardon Smith Whittaker Agency Outlook Report, according to the majority of agency principals surveyed, the type of agency that will be the most successful this year will be ad agencies with a specialized focus or service.
Particularly for small to midsize agencies, a specialized category or process focus can help differentiate them from competitors and position them as experts.
The Chief Marketing Officer Council’s recently released annual forecast survey predicts that, in 2008, many marketers will be changing their advertising agencies. This process comes as many marketers are changing their strategies to focus more on online activity.
A few of the survey’s key findings:
The survey found that 45 percent of marketers intend to change at least one of their advertising agencies this year.
Biggest complaints: lack of innovation, no value-added thinking, poor creative and/or poor quality.
The web is becoming a bigger area of focus. It is the top priority in terms of brand, customer engagement and insight.
The CMO survey found that half of the 825 respondents plan to increase overall spending, 37 percent expect spending to remain the same as last year and 13 percent expect their budgets to decrease.
Marketing 2.0 is rising in response to the backlash (and growing ineffectiveness) of traditional marketing techniques.
To download the Marketing Outlook 2008 Executive Summary (click)
To generate inbound new business leads you have to generate targeted online traffic.
Jeff Johnson’s web sites provide common sense, step-by-step social marketing tactics. This is an excellent resource for your agency’s blog and increasing blog traffic.
I was in a prospective client meeting this morning that originated from a cold-call that was made two weeks ago. The prospect told me that they had an agency of record, but in the same breath, said they were looking for a fresh approach, some different thinking. The meeting ended with their suggestion of giving the agency a project to see how we work. You couldn’t ask for much better from a first face-to-face meeting. A great opportunity.
In the past I have found that economic downturns are actually a good time for agency new business. Companies are often taking a second look at their advertising agency. If business isn’t doing well they immediately think it must be the advertising. With a unique point of difference, you can to turn that doubt into opportunity.
During an economic downturn remember as well that you are at a greater risk of losing current clients. So take special care of them. It’s always cheaper to keep the clients you have than having to replace them. But, don’t forget, an economic downturn is also a great opportunity for new business, an increase in market share, if your agency is proactive in its new business efforts.
“Optimizing Email Newsletters for Small/Medium Businesses” released byBredin Business Information, Inc., according to the study of over 300 executives …
email newsletters rank highly as sources of information, beating out websites and blogs, and matching print media for importance.
… but an important key to their success for new business is consistency.
Social media is hot but the agency newsletter is still a great promotional tool for agency new business. But as with any communications tool, consistency is the key ingredient to its success. To be consistent keep the process simple.
Here are 6 tips that will simplify your newsletter and keep it consistent, even when your agency is at its busiest times:
Have one person who is responsible for overseeing the newsletter to keep the process on time and within budget.
Purchase a mailing list from a list company such as Dunn & Bradstreet. I would suggest a two year, multi-use. Most ad agencies are not equipped to maintain their own databases. If you don’t have someone regularly calling and updating information is soon out of date.
Create a list of those who will be contributing to the newsletter. It may be even better to have one person write it, gathering the necessary info from others within the agency.
Limit the persons who are to approve the newsletter. A large number of people to sign off on the newsletter is going to dramatically slow the process down.
Use a mail service. I made this suggestion to an agency and they doubled their mailing from 4,000 to 8,000. There was a great cost savings received by outsourcing the mailing, labeling, sorting, postage as well as design recommendations from the mail service. They were able to double the mailing from 4,000 to 8,000 pieces and it cost them $75 less. That doesn’t include the savings in support staff time that had been previously devoted to getting the newsletter out the door. The agency CEO said that this should be the lead story in their next newsletter.
Set a realistic timeline and stick to it as you would with any of your agency’s clients. I would suggest a quarterly newsletter supplemented with a monthly 6×9 postcard and complimented with and a eNewsletter. The best results comes from an integrated approach.
For new business larger ad agencies are going to tout their “BIGNESS” as an advantage over the smaller agencies.
If small agencies don’t position themselves in the marketplace the larger agencies will do it for them. They will position smaller agencies as being a design shop, able only to handle project work and smaller accounts. They will say smaller agencies are lacking in strategic thinking and are creatively inferior.
But with a small ad agency, clients still receive big ideas and great creative. What they wont get is a big price tag, big egos and big bureaucracies. With the bigger agencies they often wont get the speed of service, account efficiencies and peace of mind that senior level persons are actually doing the work on their account.
Nashville’s Locomotion Creative, a creative boutique with some 14 employees, demonstrated that a small agency can be competitive with the big boys. At the 2008 Nashville ADDY Awards, they won the Best of Show, the Judges Choice Award, 3 Gold and 6 Silver ADDYs. Their President, S.A. Habib was honored with the ADDY’s Silver Medal Award and Art Director, Amy Ware, was named Art Director of the Year.
This is just one illustration of the many small agencies out there that can equal the larger agencies in the creative excellence they provide for their clients. So big isn’t necessarily better, but if you don’t have a position for your agency, your “larger” competitors have one for you.
Just because you have an agency eNewsletter opt-in form on your website doesn’t mean people are going to automatically sign-up. You might need to incentivize your online audience to subscribe.
RedPepper, a fast growing ad agency in Nashville, offers an opportunity to win an iPod for those who subscribe to their Enewsletter The Seed.
The main point is that you will probably need some sort of incentive to get your visitors to give you their email addresses.
You can offer any number of free items as incentives to your visitor to opt in. You can offer free ebooks, free newsletters, free articles, free white paper download, a subscription to a free tips list, free reports, free trial offers, free information, a free ecourse or any other item that has a high perceived value but a low cost to yourself. You really can get creative when thinking on opt in incentives.
With the rise of e-commerce and online marketing, article marketing has developed into a great new business tool for ad agencies. Short articles that relate and are of benefit to your target audience, position you as an expert. Once written you make these articles available for distribution and publication. There are a number of sources for online distribution. Well written content has potential of gaining you and your agency credibility with your target audience.
Below are a few tips for your agency’s article marketing:
TITLE. The title of the article affects how many readers will choose to read it and thus is of utmost importance. You better reach your readers at “hello.”
LENGTH. The length of the article is very important to the reader as well. I would also suggest your article stay within 350 to 600 words. If you feel you have great content, break turn your article into a series of articles.
STRUCTURE. The way that you structure your article aversely affects readership. While it is okay to write long paragraphs in a book or print magazine, it doesn’t work for online articles. People tend to scan the internet. The want quick, easy to read information. Use bullet points and lists. Tell and interesting story. Make your article as enticing and yet as easy to read as possible.
EDUCATE. The reader is concerned with one thing, “what can you do for me?” They wont read your article if you are trying to sell your agency’s services. They will read your article if you teach them something or entertain. Write for the benefit and needs of your target audience.
AUTHOR’S BOX. Each article you write for distribution will have a ‘bio box’ which you can use to share information about you and your agency. The bio box should be brief. You can also provide a link back to your agency’s website or blog. I would also suggest a call to action, ie “for a free guide,” “click on the link below for a free booklet,” “subscribe to our monthly marketing tips.” The Author’s Box is the trade off your readers are willing to accept in exchange for the value your article has given them.
YOUR SITES URL. You should always try to leave links to your website in the Resource Box and not in the body of the article. Your site URL is expected to be seen in your Resource Box. That is where it belongs.
SEO. It is important that you write your articles for the best search engine optimization. You will be able to optimize your article by defining the best keywords, knowing what keywords your target audience would be looking for. Once you’ve found the best keyword for the article make it as a basis when writing. Optimizing through the keywords will help with your rankings in the search engines as the crawlers can read the press releases and articles. Thee title of the article, not just the keywords, also count in optimization.
CONSISTENCY IS THE KEY. As with any new business tool I recommend, consistency is the key to success. A single article wont have a lot of pulling power. Develop a writing schedule whether it is one article a month or one a week. The more articles you have circulating on the web with links to your website the greater your audience will be.
“Trust” is the most important factor that people will use in their decision making process when they are considering whether or not to use your agency. Article marketing is a great tool to build trust with the target audience your agency is trying to reach.
The hardest challenge for most ad agencies is their own brand development.
Advertising agencies are their own worst client. They lose all marketing sensibility when it comes to doing for themselves what they often brilliantly do for their clients.
Ad Age’s Jeremy Mullman wrote an article about an ad agency that outsourced their branding, Why One Ad Agency Hired an Ad Agency. The Campbell-Mithun agency in Minneapolis had been developing clients brands since the 1930s. Their client roster includes Burger King, Dish Network, Wal-Mart, Breyers, The Hartford and Wells Fargo to name a few. They didn’t exactly hire another ad agency. The did employ the services of a brand design company, Cue, also of Minneapolis, to help.
“It’s a bit like heart surgery,” said Campbell-Mithun CEO Jack Rooney. “You can’t operate on yourself.”
At the completion of the brand development process, Jack Rooney exclaimed, “Cue got it. The work they created was built from our undeniable essence. And that means that the people who show up every day really believe in it, and when we pitch our story it comes from the heart.”
I totally agree and applaud Mr. Rooney for having the courage to admit his agency needed an outside perspective to refresh Campbell-Mithun’s brand. More agencies should do the same.
Ad agencies need positioning because prospective clients have lots of choices—and if you don’t stand out, you are going to struggle with new business.
In a recession your competition steps up their new business activities. Small-to midsize agencies are out trolling for more business. Larger agencies are willing to accept smaller accounts when business is tight.
Positioning is what differentiates a brand in the customer’s mind. It is how you go to market. To win the positioning game, brand coach, Josh Levine, says to answer this simple question: “What makes you the “only”?
Josh, developed the simple slide above to begin conversations about what makes a company the best to be considered. Use it in discussions regarding your own agency’s positioning and you’ll be surprised how quickly you start talking about the things that really matter.
Josh says, “if you can’t say why your brand is both different and compelling in a few words, don’t fix your statement, fix your company (agency).”
The problem is, answering such a simple question isn’t that easy. One way to approach it is to think about why your agency brand matters to your primary target audience. I’ve taken a number of agencies through a series of steps to discover what makes them the only. It is a discovery process that is a journey to the core of their business. Remember, you can’t promote your way to being the one and only —you have to start with it.
Without a point of differentiation you will find it difficult to effectively market and promote your agency and you will struggle to succinctly define your agency and what it does.
Seven things that a clear positioning will provide your agency:
An increase in your agency’s relevance
A direction for how your agency spends its time, money and resources
An understanding on the types of persons to hire
A better new business win ratio
A strong appeal to a select group of prospects
Prospects that line up with your agency’s core strengths, what you do best
A broader market area
It is possible to have prospects who seek you out when they know who you are and what you stand for. Trying to appeal to everyone appeals to no one.
Here’s a reminder for those charged with ad agency new business … You have to periodically step back and smell the roses or you will easily burn out.
My wife insisted that we take a break. So we’re spending a long weekend here in Panama City, Florida. I could get into working full time from the beach!
When it comes to ad agency new business, don’t forget to get to periodically recharge your batteries. Those charged with new business find that it is a tedious task with few accolades.I’m thankful for some fun in the sun and a change of pace to re-energize and re-focus.
I have a great new business idea for you. Why don’t you write your own book?
A friend of mine, who is the CEO of a highly respected regional ad agency, was fuming. He had to sit through a branding workshop because one of his clients insisted on his presence. Plus, he knew he needed to hear what his client was hearing so he wouldn’t be caught off guard by some enthusiastic idea generated by the workshop speaker.
What he and his client heard was nothing new. No great revelations on branding. Certainly nothing that he had not been telling the client what needed to be done.
The only difference was the person leading the workshop had written a book on branding! The book positioned the speaker as being an expert in the mind of the client. You’ve probably had a similar experience.
Think about the benefits of writing a book. Authoring a book could positively position you and your agency in the minds of your target audience as being an expert in your field. Not to mention the speaking and additional writing opportunities that also puts you in front of prospective clients.
Linda Kaplan Thayer, the CEO of Kaplan Thayler Group, wrote a book, The Power of Nice, that put her agency, on the map. Linda has been featured on The Martha Stewart Show, Nightline, The Today Show, Inside Edition and Fox News to name just a few. There is also the Power of Nice website and Nice Blog.
THE POWER OF NICE
Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval have moved to the top of the advertising industry by following a simple but powerful philosophy: It pays to be nice.
Not bad a bad way to promote your ad agency is it.
Why not kill two birds with one stone. Outline a book and then use it to write your agency’s blog. Not only will you have a book at the end of the process but as you write, you will have material to use for your agency’s blog posts, EzineArticles and Enewsletters. Reusing this material will take only minutes to use in other online and offline forms of communication.
Below is the information for a simple way to write your book that will pay immediate dividens for your agency.
WordPress.com provides an easy way to transform a blog site into a book. Instead of writing blog posts you can actually have the book cover, index of contents and chapters. Blogs are normally written in reverse chronological order but through WordPress you can set your blog up so that you can write by chapters.
Blogs, email, if they are not relevant and delivering consistent value to those reading them, then what’s the point?
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Welcome to my blog, FUEL LINES: The best business development tips, tactics, practices and trends to help ad agencies, PR firms and digital shops create a more clearly defined focus and differentiating business strategy.
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Phinney Bischoff Design House Seattle, Washington, recently went through their own rebranding process. I thought you might enjoy reading their story and the result from their efforts.
Posted by Michael Gass 
