Use Social Media to Build Relationships Before the Pitch for Ad Agency New Business

Social media allows you to achieve a high level of familiarity and validation before your agency’s next new business pitch.

Prospective clients are looking for chemistry and likability in their ad agency partners as part of the pitch process. Chemistry doesn’t have to be a crap shoot.

One of the great things about the internet is that you can develop relationships with people without ever meeting them. Use this to your agency’s advantage to build relationships prior to your new business pitch.

You can get on a prospective client’s radar by commenting thoughtfully on their posts, retweeting and replying to them on Twitter, and submitting helpful tips to them for articles that have nothing to do with your agency.

Don’t promote, engage by being client centric in your conversations. Focus your attention on them, not your agency. well in advance of the pitch.

Here are some 10 quick tips to implement prior to your agency’s next pitch opportunity:

  1. Ask for a list of the pitch attendees from the client’s side, along with their titles.
  2. Do some intel ahead of the pitch on the various pitch participants and make a list of each person’s social media accounts in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, 4 Square, etc. and engage them.
  3. LinkedIn: look for connections from the client side with your agency’s pitch team such as previous employment, college, friends that are in their network. Your searching for the kind of information that will help build chemistry.
  4. Twitter: follow and engage each person who has an account. Let them know you look forward to meeting them. Tweet the kind of content that would be of interest to the prospective client.
  5. Monitor the Twitter hashtags within their community.
  6. Facebook: You could Friend select members from the client side’s personal accounts and ‘Like’ their companies Facebook page.
  7. Blog: If the company or individual members of their pitch review team has a blog, subscribe to its RSS feed for regular updates to keep up with what is being shared.
  8. Read and research before you pitch. Conduct a search for any writing, press releases or other intelligence their team members may have shared through online publications.
  9. Be sure to share intelligence with other members of your pitch team and help them form relationships with the client’s agency review team prior to the pitch.
  10. Focus on benefits. Your audience only care about how your service will improve their lives. Make the connection for your prospective clients. Don’t leave it to your audience to figure it out for themselves.

Additional articles that may be of interest:

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.

Comments

  1. Great stuff Michael.

    It’s so much about the chemistry and the more you can do to impact that, the better. We are in the final phase of an agency search, representing a large global manufacturer, and the chemistry “thing” has played a big role in deciding who to keep in the hunt. During the meetings things like “shared alma matters” made a difference.

    After all, agency-client relationships are like a marriage. You have to love your partner and work as a team.

    Great advice!

    Mark

  2. Thanks for the additional insights Mark. Very much appreciated.

    I enjoyed getting to meet Adam Whitaker, RSW, UK, last week while in London. Super nice guy.

  3. Nice post, Michael. Good tips to remember. Hope all is well.

  4. Thanks Drew. Good to hear from you. All good on this end. Hope all is way with you, Tim and the rest of the crew at Binary Pulse.

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