The Top 10 Articles of 2011 for Ad Agency New Business

December 29, 2011

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How new business is being acquired for ad agencies is currently undergoing a paradigm shift; instead of pursuing clients, it’s now more important for your prospective clients to find your agency. 

I’m sure that you are well aware of the changing marketing landscape and the need to make fundamental changes to the traditional methods for business development.

  1. Data Explosion - 90% of the world’s data was created in just the past two years. Content marketing has become a key element in building awareness for agencies.
  2. Social Media Eruption - social media is now mainstream and is as a key engagement channel for prospects.
  3. Channel and Device Boom - The growing number of new marketing channels and devices, such as smart phones and tablets, are quickly becoming a priority for reaching prospective clients.
  4. Expanding Markets - Small to midsize agencies have a new window of opportunity to reach a larger market than ever before through new media. There are even international opportunities for agencies.
  5. New business Professionals Struggle - Those who were once good at acquiring new business are finding it to be more complex and changing rapidly. Many are struggling. The interruption type tactics, which were successful in the past, are becoming less and less effective.

Unconventional times call for unconventional methods for ad agency new business.

For those charged with developing a new business program for a small to midsize ad agency, PR firm or digital shop, the following resources are for you. I’ve pulled together a list of the “best of” FUEL LINES agency new business articles based upon analytics of site visitors and their comments. These articles include some of the latest trends, tactics and tips for business development as well as articles that hopefully will give you inspiration.

The Top 10 New Business Articles of 2011:

#1 Steve Jobs: 10 Presentation Tactics for Ad Agency New  Business

#2 Steve Jobs’s 10 Best Quotes for Advertising Agencies

#3 Forbes: 20 Best-Ever Social Media Campaigns

#4 Top 10 Benefits of Social Media for Ad Agency New Business

#5 The Top 14 List of Advertising Agency Networks for New Business

#6 New Roper Study: 9 in 10 CMOs See Value in Content Marketing

#7 2011 Forecast: 100 Global Trends That Will Drive Consumer Behavior

#8 28 Stimulating Digital and Social Media Marketing Quotes

#9 16 of the Top Quotes from Fast Company’s The Future of Advertising

#10 The 10-20-30 Rule for Keynote Presentations for Ad Agency New  Business

Here are some additional new business resources by category:

Leave a Comment » | Best Practices, Compensation, New Business Tactics, New Business Talents, New Business Tips, New Business Tools, New Business Trends | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Content Marketing is Hard Work: 4 Tips to Make it Easier

December 15, 2011

Content marketing is the wave of the future for ad agency new business, but to have success you will need to make advance preparations to consistently deliver quality content.  

I’ve recently written my 650th blog post article. I have a sense of jubilation mainly because I had been battling one of the most serious bouts of “writers block” since starting my blog. I had dealt with this dreaded writers malady in the past but I have never had this much trouble overcoming it.

Writer’s block is a condition, primarily associated with writing as a profession, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work. The condition varies widely in intensity. It can be trivial, a temporary difficulty in dealing with the task at hand. At the other extreme, some “blocked” writers have been unable to work for years on end, and some have even abandoned their careers. Wikepedia

If you are discovering just how difficult it is to write and create quality content, you aren’t alone. Here’s a collection of notable quotes on the challenges of writing:

  • “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” Red Smith
  • “I’m writing a book. I’ve got the page numbers done.” Steven Wright
  • “Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.” Gene Fowler
  • “I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.” James Michener
  • “Every writer I know has trouble writing.” Joseph Heller
  • “When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing.” Enrique Jardiel Poncela
  • “I do not like to write – I like to have written.” Gloria Steinem
  • “Writing is the flip side of sex – it’s good only when it’s over.” Hunter S. Thompson
  • “Being a good writer is 3% talent, 97% not being distracted by the Internet.” Anonymous
  • “Easy reading is damn hard writing.” Nathaniel Hawthorne

There is nothing mystical about writing, it is simply hard work. It begins with deciding on the purpose of your writing and who you are writing for. What is the benefit to your readers? What is the benefit to you?  It’s also about making a serious time commitment and then grunting the work out until you get it done.

Here are some tips that I would suggest to make content creation easier:

  1. Know your audience: One of the first things you MUST do is to identify who your audience is. Then you must focus your content toward their marketing challenges and needs. Use your analytics for instant feed back to know what content is appealing and what isn’t. Your audience will become the guide for your writing.
  2. Keep your objective top-of-mind: You are writing with a purpose. Use content marketing to generate new business opportunities for the agency by building awareness, lead generation, referrals and positioning as a thought leader. If you don’t have a clear objective you will be wasting your time.
  3. Commit to create original content: Many agencies are trying to take the easy way out by only curating the content of others. There is a place for curating content, but note that original content is in great demand. You will get the best return of your time investment if you are the one that is creating the content that others are curating. That’s where the gold is.
  4. Develop a process for delivering content consistently: Small to midsize agencies should develop a content marketing team, but be sure to name the team leader. If everyone is responsible then no one is. A designated person should be responsible for setting up and managing the editorial calendar and edits as well as managing the content delivery process. I’m hearing from many agencies that have recently created a position of Content Director who oversees the creation of content on behalf of the agency as well as agency clients. I think this is a smart move. Agencies can also hire a freelancer to oversee and manage the process remotely.

Here are some additional articles to help with your agency’s content creation:

4 Comments | Content Marketing, Creating Content, New Business Trends | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

A Not To-Do List for Ad Agency New Business

December 13, 2011

Not To Do List Ad Agency New Business

If you want to have a productive new business program, you must decide what you are not going to do.

Most everyone has a “To-Do List.”  But it can be helpful to periodically create a “Not To-Do List.” Simply make an assessment of all of the non-productive things you are currently doing that need to be eliminated.

“Deciding what not to do can be crucial to getting things done.”

Here are some things that I have found helpful creating my own Not-To-Do List:

  1. Review the previous year’s calendar of activities and evaluate which of your activities produced the best results for new business and which didn’t. I’d suggest making a list of your activities and create a ranking system.
  2. Create a list of agency activities you are involved in that have nothing to do with new business.
  3. Evaluate your current To Do List. Ask yourself this question, “Are these tasks going to produce the best results for my time  and energy and help in my position of generating new business opportunities for the agency?” Make note of tasks that you deem to be less productive.
  4. You should then have enough information to begin to add to your “Not To-Do List.”

It would be important to review and discuss your Not To-Do List with the agency principal(s). Everyone has a limited amount of time and energy and hopefully your boss will see the value in making the most of your time.  For instance, it may not be the best use of your time to be involved in meetings that are not directly related to the agency’s new business.

 Items on my “Not-To Do List” for the new year:

  • Don’t make my own travel arrangements. I waste far to much important time doing this on my own.
  • Don’t obligate myself to review the blogs of other bloggers. I constantly get requests from others to review and provide input on their site. While I was happy to do this in the beginning there are just to more requests than I can handle. Plus its a part of my services that clients are paying for.
  • Don’t read and respond to emails throughout the day. I strive to keep my Inbox clean. I’ve had the habit of reading and responding as emails are received but it has become a huge disruption to my focus. I hope to be responding to emails at set periods where I can respond to these in blocks of time.
  • Don’t accept “pick my brain” phone calls. Almost daily I’m getting requests for these type calls. I’m reserving my time for paying clients instead of giving my services away for free.
  • Don’t schedule appointments with vendors wanting to pitch their products. Most of these type pitches are for products and services that are totally unrelated to my audience. If it is related I have vendors to email a “brief” overview.
  • Don’t accept writing invitations for guest posts on other blogs. Creating content for my own blog is difficult enough without adding to additional writing assignments to it and most of these requests are from blogs that are not specifically related to my audience.
  • Don’t personally respond to every blogger wanting to submit a guest post – automate responses. I have created email templates to auto respond to these type requests.
  • Don’t accept all phone calls from unrecognized numbers. Its by far better to let these calls go to voice mail and review.
  • Don’t repeat the same instructions over and over – create tutorials. I want to do a better job of creating video and written tutorials to help clients and others with specific instructions on using various tools that I help clients with such as TweetAdder, SocialOomph, WordPress.com, etc. There are specific ways these tools need to be used for new business. I also provide the same kind of instruction for things such as how to write a blog post or how to embed video into a WordPress blog and need to be better at taking the time to create tutorials for these tasks as well. I will ultimately save lots of time.
  • Don’t watch TV programs during the week.I’ve read more books this past year than ever and I want to increase my reading and view less television. Reading fuels my writing.
  • Don’t skip breakfast. I’m not much of a breakfast eater and tend to skip it. But I know its important and plan to do better.

These are the additions to my Not To-Do List for the new year. Have a Not To-Do List of your own? Feel free to share it in the comment section below.

Additional articles that may be of interest:

3 Comments | Time Management | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

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