Ad Agency Websites: An Important Tool for New Business

Research shows websites influence 97% of clients’ purchasing decisions.

Your agency’s website is your online brochure, the place to present credentials, capabilities and most importantly your agency’s creative work.  Not only is it the place prospects and clients go to learn more about your agency and its services, but it has a huge impact on their ultimate purchase decision.

For professional services firms, “74% of buyers report the service provider’s website holds at least “some influence” over their ultimate decision to buy services from the provider.” – Raintoday.com

An agency’s website provides the opportunity for your prospective clients to look under-the-hood, kick the tires and check out the upholstery on their own timetable.

With well-designed websites prospects should be able to:

  • Establish capabilities and professional credentials: through professional design, writing, and arrangement of content.
  • Establish that your agency is worthy of consideration: through an overview of your services, client list, biographies of staff, case studies that show how you’ve helped clients and a sampling of your creative work.
  • Establish your agency as an authority: through a clear point of differentiation and expertise, essential elements for creating an appeal and a necessity of winning new clients beyond your local market.

Your agency’s website is the place for:

  • Press releases – Announcements about new hires, new client acquisitions, awards and other agency news.
  • Current clients and work experience.
  • Staff profiles.
  • Highlight case studies, testimonials, advertising and marketing campaigns.
  • Resources such as articles, white papers, research findings and presentations.
  • Agency services. Provide a clear understanding of what services your agency provides.
  • Show casing your agency’s creative capabilities.
  • Job postings, staff recruitment highlighting your agency’s culture.
  • Highlight your agency’s associations such as with the 4As, MAGNET, TAAN or other agency affiliations.
  • Links to your agency’s social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
  • Facts about your agency. Provide a link to an easy to print, downloadable PDF Agency Fact Sheet on your agency.
  • A call-to-action. Provide a path to engagement for your visitors. Include information about first steps for a prospect, such as a brand or market audit.
  • Contact information. Make sure that prospects know who to contact for new business other than info@.

Remember also that usability is a critical success factor for websites. If yours isn’t easy to use it is a very poor reflection of your agency and prospects will simply leave it. Users are highly goal-driven on the Web. The ultimate failure of a website is to fail to provide the information users are looking for.

A final tip that I hope you find helpful: Businesses that blog get 55% more website traffic than those that don’t.

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Filed Under: Agency Leadership, Digital Marketing, New Business Tips, SEO Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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.