May « 2010 « FUEL LINES Fueling Ad Agency New Business Through Social Media

How Can I Make FUEL LINES More Useful for You?

May 27, 2010

FUEL LINES was started to help small-to midsize ad agencies, interactive agencies and PR firms with their new business practices. New Business tips, tools, tactics and trends that help give them a differentiating strategy, a competitive advantage, a higher-profile reputation, and an improved ability to attract and win the kind of clients they really want.

Following the writing of my 500th post and closing in on my third anniversary for FUEL LINES, I ask for your input on how I can make this blog more useful to you?

Here are some areas you might like to comment on that I might improve upon:

Topics – are there topics (specific or general) you’d like covered in the coming months? What are the main new business issues that your agency is facing this year?
Types of Posts - reader questions, tutorials, case studies, short tips, guest posts, tool reviews…. have your say about what you’d like most/least
Posting Frequency – too many posts, not enough, just right?
Design – before initiating a redesign – your comments and ideas would be helpful at this point
Blog Features – what would make your reader experience better?
Community – do you feel you connect well with other readers? Are there features that you’d like added to help connect more?
Services and Tools – what could I offer you to help you improve your agency’s new business?
What Frustrates You about FUEL LINES? What is Best about it?
Other Ideas and Feedback – anything goes, big or little.

The ‘Rules’ – Any feedback, suggestions or ideas that you have are welcome. I make a commitment to you to read anything you have to say.

All that I ask in return is that you be honest, courteous and constructive with your feedback.

FUEL LINES is a project that I pour a lot of time and effort into – as a result sometimes criticism can be a little difficult to hear – however I think it’s vital to take it all on board if this is to continue to be a valuable resource for agencies wanting to improve acquiring new business.

So it’s over to you. Feel free to either leave your feedback in comments below or to share them privately with me via my Contact Page. Your input is very much appreciated.

Leave a Comment » | Agency Blogs, Agency Leadership, Fuel for Thought | Tagged: Advertising, Blogs I Recommend, FUEL LINES, interactive agencies, pr firms, readership survey, Social Media | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Ad Agency New Business is Driven to Distraction

May 26, 2010

If you want to EXPAND your agency, NARROW your FOCUS.

Most small to mid-size ad agencies seem to be suffering from ADHD. They have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder when it comes to new business. There may be lots of hyperactivity but most of that activity is unfocused.

In turbulent times … the natural response is to try and “be everything to everybody.” To appeal to more clients seems like common sense, but it’s exactly the wrong growth strategy. If you try and appeal to everyone, you will appeal to no one. The more profitable agencies by far will be the ones who have a strong FOCUS.

There are clear advantages for agencies that have and can maintain FOCUS when it comes to their new business program. Here’s my top 10 list:

Acquire new business with the least amount of wasted agency energy and resources
A broader — not narrower — geographical market area
A stronger win ratio for new business, because your agency is playing to its strengths
A clear differentiation from its your competitors
Become an expert and a recognized leader in your field
Develop a well-defined set of criteria for identifying the clients who want your agency for what it does best
More easily build awareness among the best prospects for your agency
A stronger win ratio in new business, because the agency is playing to its strengths
Fewer competitors, because there will be fewer agencies who do what you do
Better margins, because specialists command premium pricing

How to keep your agency FOCUSED on new business:

First, have someone who is responsible for new business. If everyone is charged with new business no one is responsible.

Secondly, for a new business program to be successful, it has to be consistent. The measure for whether it is maintainable should be … what can is sustainable when our agency is at its busiest?

Third, to be consistent, the person charged with new business is empowered to set and maintains FOCUS for the entire agency. There will be constant readjustments needed to keep your agency headed in the right direction and pointed toward your best prospective client audience.

“As a general rule ad agencies try to be all things to all clients for fear of losing potential business. We were no different. But narrowing our focus on a particular target audience gives us a much better focus for new business and has led to more opportunities than we could have imagined.”

Stephanie Holland, President/Creative Director Holland + Holland Advertising, author of the blog She-conomy, A Guys Guide to Marketing to Women. She-conomy in the news: ‘She-conomy’ teaches marketers how to capture the biggest consumer demographic: Women

The graphic illustration used in this post is from the Optical Illusion’s website. Check out their collection of illusions.

Additional articles that may be of interest:

10 Comments | Agency Leadership, Best Practices, New Business Tips | Tagged: advertising agencies, Blogs I Recommend, focus, Michael Gass | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Inbound Marketing vs Outbound Marketing for Ad Agency New Business

May 25, 2010

I believe there has been a paradigm shift that has had permanent impact upon ad agency new business.

My epiphany came in January of 2008 when I was reading a CMO Study that stated, 80% of CMOs surveyed found their vendors not the other way around. That stat impressed upon me the shifting importance from chasing new business to “getting found” by your target audience. People are much more in control of what information they receive and how they receive it.

Most small to mid-size ad agencies tend to spend 90% of the new business efforts on “Outbound Marketing” tactics such as direct mail, cold calling, email blasts, efforts pushing their message out. But rather than push their message out to a wide, diverse prospective client audience, already inundated with over 2000 interruptions per day and becoming better at blocking them out, it is much more effective and efficient to follow the paradigm shift.

I recommend that an agency do the reverse and focus 90% of their new business efforts on “Inbound Marketing” techniques, to be found by their best prospects who are actively looking for an agency and ready for business.

To do this effectively, the most successful Inbound Marketing programs will have three key parts:

Content – Content is the fuel for this new business engine. It is what attracts potential clients to your site.
Search Engine Optimization – 90% of new business begins with online search.
Social Media – will amplify the impact of your content.

An agency blog, done the right way, becomes the hub, the central platform for your efforts. It is the the “gateway” to your agency, that will attract prospects on a daily basis, optimized for search, integrated and repurposing content through social media sites and complimented by educational email efforts that are a resource and valued by your audience.

Inbound Marketing techniques can be jumped-started to produce new business leads as quickly as “Outbound Techniques.” It doesn’t have to take six months to start generating leads.

One of the leaders of Inbound Marketing is Hubspot. This online lead generation company provides so many great services and tools that will help your agency to generate, promote and optimize your content to capture, manage and nurture leads to win more new business. I highly recommend their services.

I encourage you to read the inspiration for this post, the article, “Inbound Marketing & the Next Phase of Marketing on the Web”

Additional articles that may be of interest:

7 Comments | Agency Blogs, Agency Leadership, Social Media | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Outlook Report 2010: The Great Recession and Ad Agency New Business

May 24, 2010

Advertising and PR agencies have lost 65,000 jobs, or about 14 percent of the pre-recession total. Moody’s Analytics estimates our industrywill lose even more within five years.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke calls it “the worst financial crisis in modern history.” His predecessor, Alan Greenspan, says it was “the most virulent global financial crisis ever.” The resulting recession was longer and deeper than any the U.S. has suffered since World War II.

On hopefully the heels of The Great Recession, my good friend, David Deal sent me the new sixth annual Razorfish Outlook Report 2010, it suggests the economic recession is subsiding.

“For this year’s report, we examined the data differently to acknowledge the new realities the Great Recession presented our clients and us,” said Jeremy Lockhorn, VP of emerging media. “We analyzed how our clients adapted to the challenging environment, what media proved effective, what didn’t deliver as expected, and how this information can be used to direct successful strategy moving forward.”

The report explores the effect last year’s down economy had on media consumption and client spending. The report predicts mobile and social media marketing will become key parts of clients’ media budgets. Among the findings:

There was a recovery in spending in 2009 over 2008, albeit a small one. The average client media spend increased 4% in 2009, as opposed to decreasing 13% in 2008.
Contrary to popular belief, not every brand shifted its advertising focus to direct response as a result of reduced consumer spending. In fact, 60% of clients who did switch the approach of their ads actually moved to a more brand-focused message.
Clients continued to experiment with new media. Digital out-of-home in particular experienced significant growth, along with ad exchanges, data brokers and social media.
Social media, which has exploded in popularity over the past few years, still only garners 4% of average client media spend. However, much of the cost of social media comes in the form of labor, not ad space – an important distinction when analyzing and planning media budgets.

This report also highlights other media trends, which are currently not getting as much attention as mobile and social, but will still have an impact in 2010, this year’s Razorfish Outlook Report can be viewed in its entirety online at http://razorfishoutlook.razorfish.com

Quick Ad Agency TwtPoll: Is your agency’s business up, down or about the same from 2009? Click Here

Additional articles that may be of interest:

Leave a Comment » | Agency Leadership, New Business Trends, Research | Tagged: Advertising, agency new business, Digital, Razorfish | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

10 Twitter Networking Tips for Ad Agency New Business

May 24, 2010

Get more out of Twitter and generate inbound leads for your agency’s new business by creating a personal network of prospective clients.

I didn’t quite know what to do with Twitter in the beginning until I read an article from Angela Maiers, educator, author, blogger who now leads Maier Educational Services. Angela developed a simple Twitter Engagement Formula that provides purpose and direction for her participation. She calls it the 70-20-10 Formula. My formula for using Twitter has evolved differently from hers but it provided a great example on how to get started.

What I’ve discovered with Twitter is that it is great tool for creating awareness and traffic for my blog but is equally effective and efficient as a networking tool. Just remember to retain your offline personal networking skills while online.

Here are my ten tips on creating personal networks with Twitter:

Make a commitment to spend enough time on Twitter to understand how it works. Think of it as just another communications channel. When you’ve paid your dues in the beginning you will be able to better utilize a number of Twitter 3rd party tools to make your time management extremely efficient. Edward Boches, CCO, Mullen, What Twitter Can Do For You – Adweek.
One of the most important lessons I can share is that you remember to Help Others. Zig Ziglar, one of the most successful sales trainers in the world says “if you help enough people get what they want in life, you will get what you want in life”.
Grow targeted Twitter followers. Mashable’s searchable Twitter List Directory is a great place to start. The more traffic that you can generate, from among your target audience, the more inbound new business leads that will follow.
Teach/Don’t Sell. But the best way to close a sale is by building a relationship, Todd Knutson, CEO, The List.
Sustained focused effort. Twitter is more of a broadcast channel than many realize. The majority of users never post anything … but they are definitely reading and clicking. Twitter Usage in America: 2010 – Complete Report.
Gather “real-time” market intelligence and feedback. Social media recognizance could provide a significant advantage to your agency’s new business initiatives. Twitter, along with blogs, blog comments, and other social networks, is abundant with conversations that can give your agency a boost over your competition. Read how JetBlue tested the social media credibility of ad agencies vying for its account and how participating agencies got a leg-up on their competitors.
Take the time to create conversations and get to know those who rise up to help make your content viral by retweeting it through their personal networks. Remember to be genuine. Everybody can tell when someone is schmoozing them.
Give Attention to Your Twitter Profile. Allow your agency to remain in the background. Make your profile relevant to the interests/benefits of your target audience. Here are a few good examples: @bradjhanna, @johnsonnhalter, @parkhowell.
If you are out of sight, you will be out of mind. There are ways to easily maintain a consistent presence on Twitter within the time constraints of your busy day. Tweedeck, CoTweet, Bit.ly or Social Oomph are some good 3rd party Twitter programs that will be of help.
Point to resources other than your own. Become a repository of great info for your audience that extends beyond your original content. Link to other helpful resources. May will repay you in kind.

Additional Twitter articles, specifically for ad agencies that can help you take advantage of Twitter’s growth for new business:

5 Comments | Social Media, Twitter | Tagged: Ad Agencies, adweek, bit.ly, Edward Boches, inbound leads, Michael Gass, new business, park howell, Social Oomph, Twitter | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Ad Agency CEOs: Social Media Philosophy and Tips for New Business

May 19, 2010

These are my personal observations, opinions, philosophy and tips from my experience working with social media honed and refined through my personal use and my work with over 50 ad agencies, PR firms, interactive and design shops over the past three years.

My work with social media, from the beginning, has been from a new business perspective to grow inbound lead generation and personal networks.

I’ve tried to develop the kind of practical new businesses processes, incorporating social media, that make sense within the environments of small to mid-sized agencies to overcome a commonality of problems such as:

No primary target audience
No point of differentiation
No strong appeal
No time left to create a “consistent” new business pipeline

My philosophy and personal opinions for using social media for ad agency new business:

Social media “teaches” agencies to promote themselves the way they should have been doing new business all along; to lead with benefits instead of agency capabilities and credentials.
Agencies need a differentiated and appealing position to a particular target audience (and no, great creative, proprietary processes and big ideas are not differentiators).
By enlarging the agency’s online footprint so it can be found by their best prospective clients that match up with the core strengths of the agency. 85% of CMOs found their vendors, not the other way around according to a CMO Study that was done in 2008.
Through social media, you build relationships, trust and a position of expertise. People always prefer to work with people that they know, trust and like. Social media is like working on steroids when it comes to enhancing your personal networking capabilities.
Even though social media is very time intensive in the beginning as you get up to speed, it becomes an extremely efficient use of time. Prospects have an opportunity to check under the hood, kick the tires, examine the upholstery within their own timetable. When the need arises and they are ready to do business, they will even initiate the call and that first conversation is going to be much further down the road than if you had made a cold call. You skip the dating process and move on to the engagement, they are usually ready to do business.
The central platform for developing new business through social media is an agency blog. As important as it was for your agency to have a website it is becoming essential that your agency have a blog. Your agency’s website is becoming more like an online static brochure. A blog provides better SEO, fresh content rich content, is more personable, easier to update, provides a reason for your prospective clients to visit often. Content marketing can become the fuel for your agency’s new business program.

The following 10 tips are my suggestions for creating an ad agency new blog with the objective of building your social media capabilities, credibility as well as generating new business:

1. I recommend that you do not incorporate your blog into your agency’s website

Most agency blogs look to corporate and less personal. If it is tied into your agency’s website and branding, it is immediately constricted and has no room to breathe and grow. It’s okay for your agency’s Website to show its diversity of clients but a blog has to have a specific target audience.

The Website is your online brochure, the place where capabilities, credentials and the work reside. The blog will compel you to focus your agency more narrowly without the risk. You wont be throwing the baby out with the bath water. You will still generate a diversity of clients the way you’ve done it in the past, through personal referrals and recommendations. But the blog allows you to go fishing for the fish that is the best fit for your agency.

You can fish for a particular fish, by using an appealing bait and you fish away from the boat so that you don’t scare the fish away!

2. The agency’s blog should be reflective of its principals

You have to remember that social media is about people, not an entity. Don’t hide behind the vail of the agency, be the face for the agency. Again, people want to work with people they know, trust and like.

Your agency needs a face and for most small to mid-sized agencies, that face needs to be the agency principal(s).

From my experience working with prospective clients of, small to mid-sized agencies, they always are interested in the chemistry with and oversight of the agency owners. You are the visionary of the agency. The only way you are going to “get” social media is to participate. If it isn’t a priority for you it wont be for your agency.

Also, keep in mind that the agency principals are the least likely to leave the agency. If you lose a staff member who you’ve allowed to be the face of the agency through social media, you lose your equity and a significant portion of your audience.

3. Keep the design simple

The more people you involve in this process the more chance you will have a bottle neck that slows and most probably stops the process. I had one agency that took 5 months just to create the blog header. Another instance we couldn’t get a password from an IT guy because he didn’t want to email it and wasn’t available to talk by phone for 3 days!

Keep the people involved to a minimum. Remember that content is king. It is the fuel for the engine and don’t let anything inhibit generating the content.

I would suggest to start out utilizing WordPress, TypePad, Blogger blog platforms. My favorite is WordPress. You can create a blog in minutes rather than days, weeks or months. It will be a constantly evolving process and its important that you keep the process moving.

You can easily add pages, navigation, graphics without help from your IT department or much assistance from the creative staff. You should be able to have your blog up and running in a matter of minutes not hours, days, weeks or months. Keep the design clean, simple and easy to navigate. Stay focused on delivering the beneficial content.

The site needs to be more personal and less corporate. Let it reflect your personality. Keep from including your agencies logo. The agency should reside in the background. A great example of this philosophy, Edward Boches’s blog, creativity_unbound.

A side note: be sure that you own your domain. Instead of www.fuelingnewbusiness.wordpress.com I own the domain www.fuelingnewbusiness.com. That way I can change platforms without losing my traffic.

4. Make your target audience crystal clear

I write specifically to small to mid-size ad agency principals. She-conomy’s audience is male advertisers who should be marketing to women, Blue Collar Branding has a focus on marketers of manufacturers who want to reach blue collar workers. For your blog to be successful, keep you target audience in mind. You don’t want traffic for traffics sake, you want targeted traffic. This not only will help your SEO but also when you repurpose content through Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

5. Before you begin to write learn to listen

Please remember this: reading fuels your writing. A great time saver for your reading is to use an RSS Reader. My suggestion would be to sign up for Google Reader. The key is to find sources for great content and have that content flow to you instead of you constantly having to search for it. Google Reader allows you to easily organize all of your online reading. It is very efficient.

Learn about social media etiquette, understand the importance of transparency and motive when using this emerging media but remember this one rule, there are no rules when it comes to social media. It is still evolving and we are pioneers within the space when it comes to marketing and advertising within this channel.

Chris Brogan was a huge help to me when I first started blogging. Here are a few of his articles that will be of help to you too: 10 Best Resource Articles for Ad Agency Blogs.

Watch your blogs analytics, it will help to fine tune the appeal for your writing. Always look to your readers, what they care about and respond to.

I’m 53 and if I can do this so can you. It’s my experience that is much easier taking a baby boomer through this process who has advertising and marketing experience rather than someone much younger who understands the new communications tools better. You can get up to speed overall much quicker.

Just don’t forget to bring your marketing mind and personal networking skills into this space. It’s just another communication channel.

6. Write Concisely

People read online differently than they do print. They usually don’t read word-for-word, they scan.

Nielsen Norman Group ’s research found that 79 percent of their test users always scanned any new page they came across; only 16 percent read word-by-word.

This makes it a tough transition for copywriters who tend to be clever and fluff up the copy. Make your posts scannable by:

Being brief, give your readers the Readers Digest version, the executive summary. Do the work on their behalf
Dividing up copy into shorter paragraphs
Using bullet points or numbered lists
Using compelling subheads, quotations, bold, italics, etc, so readers can scan for the information they need

Follow Hemingway’s example:

“I write one page of masterpiece to ninety-one pages of shit,” Hemingway confided to F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1934. “I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.”

These are a couple of additional articles to help with your online writing:

7. Jump start traffic to your blog to accelerate lead generation

“Build it and they will come,” is not the answer to generate traffic to your agency’s blog. You must employ proactive tactics to create awareness and interest among prospective clients. The more traffic that you can generate, from among your target audience, the more inbound new business leads that will follow.

The strategic use of Twitter and eNewsletters can significantly bump up targeted traffic to your blog in a short period of time. I have consistently repurposed my blog’s content through Twitter and my eNewsletter.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking, if I’ve written it everyone must have read it.

Twitter has been the leading traffic generator to my blog for over 2 years. I have a schedule for repurposing my blog 500 + posts into two different Twitter accounts that regenerate this content 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to 35,000 + followers.

My eNewsletter is sent out every other week to a data base of over 10,000 email addresses. The copy for the eNewsletter comes from my blog posts. It takes literally 10 to 15 minutes to create and send. That allows it to be maintainable even when I’m at my busiest.

Through these two tactics alone I can get 100% return on my time investment from writing my posts.

Here are some quick tips to help generate traffic to your blog:

Publish posts frequently. I would encourage you to post at least 3 times and preferably 5 times per week.
Write evergreen for your posts to have a long shelf life and a good return for your time investment.
Syndicate your new posts to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Add your blog link to your email signature.
Use a program like Social Oomph to repurpose your blogs older content through Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Add a Share Button at the bottom of your posts to allow them to be easily promoted by others to through their personal networks.
Provide subscription options for your blog such as through email or an RSS Feed such a Feedburner.
Identify key words you want to dominate in Google search and consistently use them in your posts titles.
One thing to not do that will impact traffic. Don’t sell! The moment you start to sell on your blog is when you will most likely LOSE your audience.
Don’t forget SEO. Identify the key words you want to dominate and consistently use them in your posts titles to accelerate your rankings in search engines such as Google.

8. Create resources for blog post ideas

Because I know who my target audience is, I have identified the categories that I’m going to write to, coming up with blog posts ideas is not difficult. From my experience, the narrower your focus the easier it is to find things to write about.

As I mentioned earlier, reading fuels writing. When I’m reading in the mornings, using Google Reader and scanning through hundreds of posts and articles I have filtered directly to me, I find a few that catch my eye. So that I don’t become distracted while reading, I use a tool called Press This, that will place the interesting posts/article title, URL link and synopsis into a draft posts in WordPress. When I write, I can go to my draft posts and work from there. The last time I checked I had over 240 draft posts that will eventually be published.

I also keep a Word document on my laptop’s desktop with a running list of ideas. Checking through the list I have over 100 possible topics, subjects, examples, tools, tips, current trends, resources, etc.

9. Be focused and consistent

It is as simple as planning the work and following the plan. I start out each day knowing who is my target audience. I write consistently to the stated purpose of my blog which is, “fueling ad agency new business through social media.” I make irrelevant material relevant to my readers. I do the work on their behalf. I’m consistent with my timing and religiously follow a regular posting schedule of 5 posts per week.

I follow a daily ritual to keep me on track and consistent. I start every day with my strategic reading. My homepage in FireFox is my Google Reader. I open it before I will dare to open my first email because if I open the first email, my day is done.

I also enjoy getting a leg-up for the week by having 2 to 3 posts finished by Sunday afternoon of most weekends. These are preset to publish on different days of the week and I’ll write the other two posts before the week is up. My readers can be assured of finding fresh content.

That doesn’t mean that you are providing all original content for each post that you write. I usually recommend that one post per week be original content, other blog post are highlighting other information, resources, research that will be of help to your target audience.

10. To keep up you must have the right mindset

We will experience more change in our industry in the next five years than we have in the previous 50.

“How do you keep up?” That is one of the most common questions I’m asked from agency CEOs and executives when I conduct “New Business Through Social Media” workshops around the country.

One of the main reasons agency principals haven’t been as inclined to participate in social media is that they are already over extended with little time for anything additional in their professional or personal lives.

When they make time to participate and understand social, is when they’ve finally relented, it isn’t going to go away. What will make the social media pill easier to swallow is the understanding the multiplicity of benefits it provides.

Social media only becomes a priority when you understand the multiplicity of benefits generated from it to you and your agency.

Before you brush off participation, understand the multiplicity of benefits for your efforts through writing an agency blog:

I’ve helped to create over 50 agency blogs and have found it to be a great agency branding tool. A lot of agencies are in a perpetual state of branding their agency. A blog helps them to answer the tough questions and provides a way to be more narrowly focused without throwing the baby out with the bath water.
A blog is worth doing if only for this one big benefit, professional enrichment. It provides a system for you to stay ahead of the learning curve in communications technologies and in front of where your clients and prospective clients. A position of leadership. Thought leadership.
The interaction with your prospects is priceless. If you really want to know what your prospective clients obstacles are and become a thought leader, then write a blog.
The old saying is true, “you don’t know what you know until you write it down.” Writing a blog will help you become a much better communicator.
For every prospective client you reach you will have 10 brand advocates who will promote you and your agency through their own personal networks.
Learn to create a strong appeal for your agency. A blog will help you to stop using agency speak and speak in a language that resonance with your target audience. It will teach you how to generate an appealing message.

These are some examples of relatively new ad agency blogs that are following this philosophy:

I have to agree with business guru, Tom Peters, “nothing in the last decade of my professional life has positively impacted me more than blogging.” I can confidently say that it can do the same for you and your agency.

This post is dedicated to Jim Breitinger, Salt Lake City Utah, for his encouragement and insight. Very much appreciated Jim.

17 Comments | Agency Blogs, Agency Branding, Agency Leadership, Best Practices, New Business Trends, Social Media, Twitter | Tagged: advertising agencies, blogging, blogs, business development, CEO, Jim Breitinger, Michael Gass, Social Media, Tom Peters | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Ad Agency Blog of the Month: JaneNation.com

May 16, 2010

Out of a a group of 38 ad agencies blogs Jane Nation, was selected as Fuel Lines’s Blog of the Month Month for April capturing 42% of the votes casts.

Ninety-one percent of women feel misunderstood by advertisers, yet they influence 85 percent of all purchasing decisions.

Jane Nation was built to tap into the minds of females and includes blogs, forums, quizzes, polls, and other micro communities called sisterhoods. It was cleverly launched and is powered by St. John & Partners, a full-service, privately held advertising agency based in Jacksonville, Florida.

The site has created some national buzz and will no doubt provide some great new business opportunities for this MAGNET Global Agency.

This social networking site is led by some key members of the St John & Partners’s staff:

Lisa Beatty (the Chief Jane) Vice President, Cultural Strategist
Elizabeth Brown Project Manager, Research and Community
Stephanie Webb, Public Relations Senior Account Manager
Jennifer Ross, Senior Art Director
Kristen Bankert, Copywriter

“We know women are tired of brands that don’t get them or give them what they need, and Jane Nation is working to change that,” said Lisa Beatty, cultural strategist and Chief Jane. “We’re providing an easy way for women to share their opinions and ideas on everything from automobiles to health insurance. But what makes Jane Nation different is the action. We’re making a commitment to be a champion for those voices by reaching out directly to companies and service providers in order to effect real change.”

Through a deeper understanding of the culture of women, listening to their needs to provide direction for better products and services, St. John & Partners will be positioned as experts in reaching them.

How is your agency using a blog for your new business? Submit it for May’s blog of the month.

Ad agencies all need an integrated social media strategy if they are ever going to see the payoff from their participation in social media. An agency blog should be the central component. The place you can drive targeted online traffic through SEO, Twitter, email newsletters, Facebook and LinkedIn.

The blog becomes the “gateway” to your agency and the“face” of your agency. As important as it was to have an agency website, it is now equally important to have an agency blog.

But … having a blog isn’t something you check off your list of social media “to do list.” Nor is it a place to lead with agency capabilities and credentials. It must be of benefit to your audience.

Here is a collection of agency blogging resources:

2 Comments | Agency Blogs, Agency Leadership, New Business Tactics, Social Media | Tagged: Ad Agency Blogs, Elizabeth Brown, Jane Nation, Jennifer Ross, Kristen Bankert, Lisa Beatty, MAGNET Agency, St. John & Partners, Stephanie Webb | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Copyblogger: Content Marketing for Ad Agency New Business

May 11, 2010

Blogging has become a smart strategy to be found by your agency’s best prospects. Everyone has a desire to work with others that they know, like and trust. A blog provides a great way to network and generate new business leads, by plain written words designed to focus on the needs of your readers.

One of my favorite resources that has helped hone my online writing skills is Copyblogger. This blog writing resource was founded in January of 2006 by Brian Clark.

Copyblogger has over 100,000 subscribers and more than 240,000 unique monthly site visitors.
Advertising Age ranks Copyblogger as a top blog about marketing.
Copyblogger founder Brian Clark was ranked #3 of the 100 Most Influential Online Marketers of 2009.
The Guardian named Copyblogger one of the world’s 50 most powerful blogs.
Technorati says Copyblogger is one of the most popular blogs in the world.

Copyblogger is all about helping you with content strategies and copywriting skills that get traffic, attract links, gain subscribers and sell your agency’s services.

“Copywriting is one of the most essential elements of effective online marketing. The art and science of copywriting involves strategically writing words that promote a person, product, business, opinion, or idea, with the ultimate intention of having the reader take some form of action.” Brian Clark

I hope you find this resource as helpful as I have. These are my favorite 10 Copyblogger articles:

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13 Comments | Agency Blogs, Creating Content, Social Media | Tagged: advertising agencies, blogging, Brian Clark, content marketing, Copyblogger, new business development, Social Media | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Twitter Usage In America: 2010 Study and Ad Agency New Business

May 10, 2010

Twitter is one of the social media tools that can be used as tool for your agency’s social media marketing strategy to generate online traffic and a pipeline for new business leads. Over the past 3 years the leading traffic generator to my blog has been Twitter.

Twitter Usage In America: 2010 is a new report derived from the Edison Research/Arbitron Internet and Multimedia Series. This report is derived from three years of tracking data on Twitter usage in the United States. It is filled with rich information that can help guide the use of Twitter for your agency and its clients.

Twitter is more of a broadcast channel than many realize. The majority of users never post anything … but they are definitely reading and clicking.

Here are some highlights from this comprehensive study and its untapped potential for marketing, advertising and your agency’s new business:

Awareness of Twitter has exploded over the past twelve months. The percentage of Americans who are familiar with Twitter has surged from 5% in 2008 to 87% in 2010. Twitter is a natural “companion medium” to other media channels – in particular, as an accompaniment to live TV.
Despite equal awareness, Twitter trails Facebook significantly in usage: 7% of Americans (17 million persons) actively use Twitter, while 41% maintain a profile page on Facebook.
Nearly two-thirds of active Twitter users access social networking sites using a mobile phone.
Twitter Users Split Between Habitual “Tweeters” and Those Who Access Occasionally. The majority of Twitter users are “lurkers,” passively following and reading the updates of others without contributing updates of their own but they are listening, reading and clicking.
Twitter users are far more likely to follow Brands/ Companies than social networkers in general. Twitter users frequently exchange information about products and services.
51% of active Twitter users follow companies, brands or products on social networks.
Most (70%) regular Twitter users do post status updates to some social networking service (likely Facebook. Twitter appears to be functioning as more of a broadcast medium compared to Facebook and many other social networking sites and services.
Marketing and Business use cases for Twitter far exceed similar usage for social networking Web sites in general.

The full 49-page study, full of interesting graphs and data is available for download: Twitter Usage in America: 2010 – Complete Report

Here are 20+ additional Twitter articles, specifically for ad agencies that can help you take advantage of Twitter’s growth for new business:

2 Comments | Social Media, Twitter | Tagged: advertising agencies, business development, Edison Research/Arbitron Internet and Multimedia Series, Michael Gass, Social Media, Twitter, Twitter Usage in America 2010 | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

JetBlue tests the social media credibility of ad agencies vying for its account

May 7, 2010

Social media recognizance could provide a significant advantage to your agency’s new business initiatives. Twitter, along with blogs, blog comments, and other social networks, is abundant with conversations that can give your agency a boost over your competition.

JetBlue Airways tested the social media credibility of ad agencies vying for the airline’s marketing account by tweeting. Ad Age’s Kunur Patel recently reported, in his article JetBlue Marketer to Agencies: Find Me on Twitter, wrote,

“One basic way agencies can demonstrate digital chops to a potential client? Find him or her on Twitter.

That’s the lesson to be learned from JetBlue’s senior VP-marketing and commercial, Marty St. George, who earlier today decided to test agencies currently vying for the airline’s marketing account with this tweet: “We’re pitching our advertising AOR. Curious on digital savvy … first test is how many of the agencies will find me on Twitter.”

As of the timing of Patel’s article only two agencies, Mullen and New York-based Ludvik & Partners, were following Marty St. George (@martysg). Boston based Mullen was named as JetBlue’s new agency following a five-month review process.

I’m sure Mullen did its homework and was gathering as much intel as possible. Knowing that JetBlue’s marketing strategy leans heavily on digital channels and social media the past few years. That the company has 1.6 million followers on Twitter and that Mr. St. George also had his own Twitter account and was posting about the agency review process.

Mullen has been “walking the walk” creating a strong track record within the digital space and the social media arena, that has been producing new business results such as their recent win of the Zappos account.

Unsurprisingly, the Ad Age article raised quite a few comments. Many comments from those within the ad industry were negative toward Marty St. George’s tactics:

If you ask me, JetBlue isn’t setting the bar very high with this little exercise. There are much better way to find a digital savvy agency.
I’m not sure if this is absurd, egotistical, misguided or all of the above.
Unfortunately this is an example of how not to start an agency review.
By analogy, I wouldn’t find my future wife by asking her to find me on twitter.
Hey, St. George, get over yourself. do you want top talent or not? stop with the rank “talent search” moves.
Face it: its a hack move pure and simple (with the emphasis on SIMPLE).

My opinion, from a new business perspective, while many agencies whine about these type of tactics the smart agencies will seize the opportunities. What’s your opinion?

Additional articles that may be of interest:

21 Comments | Agency Leadership, Digital, Social Media, Twitter | Tagged: business development, JetBlue, Kunur Patel, recognizance Michael Gass, Social Media, Twitter | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

38 Advertising Agency Blogs. Vote for your favorite for the month of April

May 6, 2010

Examples of ad agency blogs. Review and decide which of them really “gets it” when it comes to social media. Pick-up ideas for your own blog.

The following 38 advertising agency blogs have been submitted to Fuel Lines. Vote for the best agency blog for the month of April. The winner will be featured on Fuel Lines throughout the month and included in the voting for ad agency blog of the year.

Cast your VOTE by Clicking Here

These are the ad agency blogs submitted for the month of March

Blog-a-Rhythm, Rhythm Interactive, Irvine, CA
brainwoo, Thompson & Company, Memphis, TN
Content to Commerce, Big Fuel, Manhattan, NY
Energy Efficiency Marketing, Kelliher Samets Volk, New York, NY
brandSTOKE, CONRAD | PHILLIPS | VUTECH, Columbus, OH
Engaging Trends, Pixel Farm Interactive, Minneapolis, MN
Fifth Gear Analytics, Sigma Marketing Group, Rochester, NY
Going Social Now, Razorfish, New York, NY
Healthy Conversations, Trajectory, Morristown, NJ
Jane Nation, St John & Partners, Jacksonville, FL
Marketing Home Products, Kleber Kleber & Associates, Atlanta, GA
Marketing Thoughts by Domus, Inc., Domus, Inc., Philadelphia, PA
Never Be Forgotten, Palio, Saratoga Springs, NY
New FoundNation, The Communications Group, Little Rock, AR
Off the Shelf, BARKLEY US, Kansas City, MO
onmessage Blog, OnMessage, Dallas, TX
Park Howell, Sustainable Storyteller, Park&Co, Phoenix, AZ
Patients Please, CJRW, Little Rock, AR
Peak Seven blog, Peak Seven Advertising, Deerfield Beach, FL
Relate with Us, GS&F, Nashville, TN
RIESTER BLOG, RIESTER Advertising, Phoenix, AZ, Salt Lake City, UT, El Segundo, CA
Root & Madison Blog, Root & Madison, LLC, Dallas, TX and Denver, CO
Share, bcad Group, Toronto, Canada
Sheconomy, Holland + Holland, Birmingham, AL
Spyder Trap Blog, Spyder Trap Online Marketing, Minneapolis, MN
Tangent, Sharpe Partners, NY
The Ad Contrarian, Hoffman/Lewis, San Francisco
The Assurance Blog, Assurance Advertising, Orange County, CA and Las Vegas, NV
The Idea Drawer, ABC Creative Group, Syracuse, NY
The Main Artery, Kuhn Whittenborn, Kansas City, MO
The Nebo Blog, NeboWeb, Atlanta, GA
The Point, Spear Marketing Group, Walnut Creek, CA
Through the Ears of an Entrepreneur, Small Army, Boston, MA
TV is Not Dead, Ad Partners, Tampa, FL
Up Your Ups, Wheeler Advertising, Arlington, TX
Why Moms Rule, BOHAN, Nashville, TN
Wired to the Real World, Smiley Hanchulak, Akron, OH
Wright -to -Know, Dimension X, Jeannette, PA

Fuel Lines Agency Blog of the Month for March: CS2 Live, CS2 Advertising, Memphis, TN

Walker Sands: Voted Top Ad Agency Blog of the Year for 2009

Submit an agency blog for May’s blog of the month.

1 Comment | Agency Blogs | Tagged: advertising agencies, blogs, Michael Gass, Twitter | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Blogs Can Convert Visitors into Leads for Ad Agency New Business

May 3, 2010

The chief benefit to your agency from using social networking is “getting new business leads.” Creating a community of followers through Twitter and a regularly updated stream of content on a blog builds engagement, can boost your agency’s presence on Google and ultimately bring in more prospective clients.

Don’t just take my word for it.

Inbound online marketing platform HubSpot’s The State of Inbound Marketing report that inbound marketing can double average monthly leads for small and medium-sized businesses. It can also generate leads for less money inbound marketing bring leads for less money.

“This report is designed to help businesses and marketers understand the current usage and results of inbound marketing. Inbound marketing is a set of marketing strategies and techniques focused on pulling relevant prospects and customers towards a business and its products.

Inbound marketing is becoming widely accepted because it complements the way buyers make purchasing decisions today — using the Internet and related media to learn about the products and services that best meet their needs.” – Hubspot

Three key takeaways from this report:

Businesses are generating real customers with social media and blogs. The use of social media and company blogs as marketing tools gets your company better brand exposure, but it also generates leads that result in real customer acquisition. 41% of companies who use Twitter for marketing have acquired a customer from a Twitter generated lead. 41% of companies using LinkedIn for marketing have acquired a customer from that lead generation source. 43% of companies using Facebook have acquired a customer and 46% of those using company blogs have acquired a customer from a blog generated lead.
Inbound Marketing channels continue to deliver dramatically lower cost per lead than Outbound Channels do. Respondents who spend more than 50% of their lead generation budget on inbound marketing channels report a significantly lower cost per sales lead than those who spend 50% or more their budgets on outbound marketing channels.
Inbound marketing budgets are increasing while outbound marketing budgets are decreasing. As a percentage of the overall lead generation budget, inbound marketing expanded slightly from 2009 to 2010 and outbound marketing contracted. The net effect is that the gap widened from inbound marketing having a 9% greater share of the overall marketing budget in 2009 to a 15% greater share in 2010.

An additional report highlight that I thought was interesting: Customer acquisition through blogs is directly related to frequency of posts.

The report concludes that, “Traditional outbound marketing techniques – including direct mail, print advertising and telemarketing – are becoming less effective. Buyers are not only finding ways to tune these messages out, but more importantly they now have the capability to evaluate the products and services they need on their own.

Click here for a downloadable copy of this report. There’s also a free Webinar On Demand: The 2010 State Of Inbound Marketing

Here are five things that you need to incorporate into your blog to have success: