How to Consistently Create Great Content for Ad Agency New Business

February 22, 2012

Creating original content is a powerful tool to differentiate your agency and create new business opportunities but it is also a big challenge.

Content marketing will provide a foundation for generating leads and turning those leads into new business opportunities as well as build an awareness and positioning for your agency. The biggest challenge will be in finding the time to create the content. But this doesn’t have to be such a daunting task.

The following infographic demonstrates how you can easily create great content if you will remember that writing compelling content isn’t about coming up with something completely original.

The graphic is based on 21 Ways to Create Compelling Content When You Don’t Have a Clue by Copyblogger guest writer Danny Iny.

22 Ways to Create Compelling Content - Infographic

Like this infographic? Get more content marketing tips from Copyblogger.

Additional content marketing articles that may be of interest:

Leave a Comment » | Content Marketing, Creating Content | 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:

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

20 Top Inbound Marketing Resources for the Paradigm Shift in Ad Agency New Business

November 9, 2011

Intersection Consulting

Advertising agencies, PR firms and digital shops should reverse their new business efforts from “Outbound Marketing” techniques to “Inbound Marketing.”

There is a dramatic paradigm shift for acquiring new business opportunities for advertising agencies, digital shops and PR firms. Agencies need to rethink their approach to new business and intensify their focus on inbound tactics, such as creating magnetic content that will attract prospective clients, rather than relying on the traditional interruption model which consumers are responding to less and less.

MarketingSherpa reported in a CMO Study, 80 percent of decision makers said they FOUND their vendors (not the other way around). Inbound Marketing is marketing focused on getting found by customers.

Most agencies are spending the majority of their new business efforts on “Outbound Marketing” tactics such as direct mail, cold calling, email blasts and other efforts that push their message out to a wide, diverse prospective client audience.  Their prospects are already inundated with over 2000 interruptions per day.  They are becoming experts at blocking out those unsolicited outbound tactics.

It is much more effective and efficient to follow the paradigm shift to “Inbound Marketing” techniques where 100% of your potential clients will begin an agency search by using Google.  The internet, coupled with social media marketing and inbound marketing techniques, takes the ability to network and gain referral business to a whole new level. It allows agencies to maintain a top of mind awareness without using interruption tactics and helps to build relationships quickly.

If an agency has been 90% focused on outbound marketing tactics and only 10% on inbound marketing, I recommend that they do just the opposite. 

To make this shift effective, the most successful Inbound Marketing programs will have three key parts:

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

Those agencies that adapt to this new business paradigm shift from “outbound marketing” methods to “inbound marketing” will have a distinct advantage over their competition.  Some are already seeing results.

In a recent 2011 HubSpot ROI Study,  69% of businesses surveyed said that inbound marketing attributed to their lead generation success. 

With help from American Business Media and the Business Marketing Association, Junta42 and MarketingProfs surveyed over 1,100 North American B2B marketers from diverse industries and a wide range of company sizes. The survey revealed that inbound marketing was a key lead generation source for 63% of the respondents:

  • Brand Awareness – 78%
  • Customer Attention/Loyalty – 69%
  • Lead Generation – 63%
  • Website Traffic – 55%
  • Thought Leadership – 52%
  • Sales – 51%
  • Lead Nurturing – 37%

The internet and the rise of social media has changed the nature of ad agency new business and subsequently changed the shape of the sales funnel. That initial client conversation today is much different from the one a decade ago because the prospect often knows as much about your agency as the new business director does and the prospect is already much more “qualified.”

Here are 20 of Fuel Lines’s most popular resources for helping agencies make the shift from outbound marketing to inbound marketing for new business: 

  1. Ten Toughest Content Marketing Challenges for Ad Agency New Business
  2. The 2011 State of Inbound Marketing for Ad Agency New Business
  3. Report: Inbound Marketing Channels More Cost-Effective for Ad Agency New Business
  4. 10 Idea Starters to Keep Fresh Content Churning
  5. 2011 Trends: Content Marketing Is Critical to Ad Agency New Business
  6. 10 Ways to Create An Ad Agency Blog That is Reader-Centric
  7. 6 Simple Steps for Using Content Marketing to Attract Ad Agency New Business
  8. 6 Writing Tips to Make Your Ad Agency’s Blog Effective for New Business
  9. 21 Blog Post Writing Tips for Ad Agency New Business
  10. The Four Great Laws of Copywriting for Ad Agency New Business
  11. New Roper Study: 9 in 10 CMOs See Value in Content Marketing
  12. How to launch a blog for ad agency for new business — fast!
  13. 8 SEO Writing Tips to Help Prospects Find Your Ad Agency
  14. 40 Ways to Take Your Ad Agency’s Blog to the Next Level
  15. 50 Blog Post Ideas to Fuel Your Ad Agency’s Blog
  16. How to Write Your Ad Agency’s Blog
  17. A 70 Point Checklist for Jump-Starting or Tuning-Up Your Blog for New Business
  18. Study: 69% of Businesses Increased New Business Leads Through Blogging
  19. 10 Prime Time Benefits of Blogging for New Business
  20. Ernest Hemingway’s Top 5 Tips For Writing Well

Image Credit: Intersection Consulting

3 Comments | Agency Blogs, Content Marketing, Creating Content, New Business Tactics, New Business Trends, Social Media | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

A 70 Point Checklist for Jump-Starting or Tuning-Up Your Blog for New Business

September 29, 2011

You should evaluate your agency’s blog to optimize its potential as a tool for lead generation, referrals and networking.

There is a dramatic paradigm shift for acquiring new business opportunities for small to midsize ad agencies. Agencies need to rethink their approach to new business and intensify their focus for creating magnetic content that will attract prospective clients, rather than relying primarily on the interruption model of cold calls and unsolicited direct mail, which consumers are responding to less and less.

Creating new business opportunities through social media is growing. In a recent Ad Agency New Business Survey that I conducted, 64% of the 430 responding ad agencies said they now have a blog. Unfortunately, a number of these blogs are not optimized for new business.

I’ve compiled the following 70 point check-list to help “jump-start” or “tune-up”agency blogs for new business:

  1. Identify your audience. This will help to make your writing easier and more focused.
  2. State the purpose of  your blog. Create a descriptor statement in the blog’s Header. A one sentence summation of the purpose for your blog. Expand upon the descriptor statement in a “Welcome” section in your blog’s sidebar.
  3. Make sure that your blog’s benefit to your visitors is crystal clear.
  4. Reading fuels your writing. You need a good strategic reading program with a clear focus that is centered upon your audience’s interest and needs.
  5. Have calls-to-action that are clear. What do you want your audience to do? They can subscribe to your newsletter, inquire about your services, download a white-paper or eBook, email you their questions, etc.
  6. Create each post title with the keywords you want to dominate through search (i.e. “ad agency new business”). It is also helpful to flag a targeted audience through Twitter and let them know the content is specific to their needs.
  7. The first sentence of your post should be the “takeaway or benefit statement”. Just simply answer the question, what will be my takeaway or benefit if I commit to read this post?  Lead with the conclusion.
  8. Have a distinct point-of-differentiation.
  9. Remember that online readers prefer writing that is concise, easy to scan, and objective (rather than promotional) in style.
  10. Focus on providing quality information over the quantity of posts being generated.
  11. Build relationships with your readers by integrating your blog with Facebook, Google +, Twitter and LinkedIn.
  12. Your blog should become a repository of valued information for your audience. This means that it’s not all original content. I recommend writing 1 original post for every 4 or 5 resource posts.
  13. Use bulleted or numbered lists often. Readers love them.
  14. Highlighted keywords (hypertext links serve as one form of highlighting; typeface variations and color are others).
  15. Publish on a regular schedule. Be consistent in delivering at least 3 to 5 posts per week. This will keep your readers coming back for more. Also, frequently updated content makes search engines happy.
  16. Build credibility and authority for your niche.
  17. Highlight your successes through a featured page such as Press, Awards or your Profile page.
  18. Write headlines that are benefit driven.
  19. Evaluate and improve your writing so that it stands out among the crowd.
  20. Make your posts easy to find and your blog simple to navigate.
  21. Highlight popular posts.
  22. Provide links to additional resources. I almost always provide “Additional articles that may be of interest” at the end of most of my post, linking to similar content from my blog and other sources. It also will keep your visitors on your site longer and improve their experience.
  23. Half the word count (or less) than conventional writing. Usually 350 to 450 words.
  24. Demonstrate how you stand out in your niche. Provide testimonials, comments, featured articles, endorsements, and statistics—in text, audio, and video format through additional linked blog pages or specialty pages.
  25. Provide one call-to-action with clear instructions above the fold.
  26. Avoid jargon and agency speak.
  27. Provide headlines and sub headlines that make it easy for readers to skim your piece before reading the entire article.
  28. Don’t use white writing on black or colored background that makes it hard for people to read.
  29. Create or choose a blog layout that isn’t cluttered or confusing.
  30. Provide captions (where appropriate) on photos that are keyword rich and benefit-driven.
  31. Don’t use too many fonts, colors, and sizes.
  32. Check to see that  your blog is quick to load.
  33. Have a clean, simple, banner at the top of your blog that creates the right feeling on your site. A personal rather than corporate feel.
  34. Break-up long text with sub-headings, bullet points, italics, indention, photos and graphics.
  35. Your opt-in should be above the fold.
  36. Provide an incentive for visitors to give you their name and email.
  37. Only ask for opt-in information that you intend to utilize.
  38. Don’t adhere to the belief that if you “build it and they will come”.
  39. Test, monitor and fine tune your blog regularly.
  40. Use offline-to-online marketing to further promote your blog.
  41. Collect blog stats on results weekly, or per campaign.
  42. In the early phase of promoting your blog, consider paid traffic, Facebook PPC and banner ads.
  43. Build or buy email lists as you build your opt-in list for your niche. A good resource would be The List out of Atlanta, GA.
  44. Write guest articles for other blogs in your niche and even other niches.
  45. Submit your blog post to online directories.
  46. Facilitate referral opportunities through your blog.
  47. Interact regularly through social media—Facebook, Google +, Twitter and LinkedIn.
  48. Run competitions. I’ve generated a lot of traffic to my blog through an “Agency Blog of the Month” contest that culminated into an “Agency Blog of the Year”.
  49. Conduct online surveys and polls through your blog at least quarterly and share results in a post article, PRWeb or PR Newswire.
  50. Create partnering and promotional opportunities with online thought leaders in your niche.
  51. Find ways, through your blog, to help your readers engage with one another.
  52. Write with an “evergreen” style that allows your blog posts to have a long shelf-life and provide a greater return on your time investment.
  53. Write for fast comprehension.
  54. Be sure to include a photo or graphic for each post to add some additional flavor. Use only images that you have rights to or  Creative Commons-licensed content that you can find through photo sharing service such as Flicker.com.
  55. Repurpose content. Someone that finds one of your blog post through search might click-through to another post because you have repurposed it through an email newsletter, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Google +.
  56. Carefully think through your blog’s heading. A “heading” is a stand-alone phrase that describes your blogs content that appear below it. I usually advise clients to create a blog descriptor statement for the header that lets a reader and search engines know the purpose and intent of the content such as “Fueling Ad Agency New Business Through Social Media.”
  57. Write consistently: This is important to creating regular readership. Write at least 3 to 5 posts per week.
  58. Make sure that your blog’s content stays focused and relevant to your target audience. Especially when developing curated content.  Curation is essentially the organizing and sharing (some might even say “repackaging”) of content in ways that are meaningful to a specific target audience. There is a lot of great information you can glean from online that is not related to your readership, but you can easily make them relevant.
  59. Be sure you own your domain name. A person that still has “wordpress or blogspot” in their domain won’t be able to change blogging platforms without losing traffic. This is a huge mistake.
  60. Be sure your site is indexed with Google. If your pages are not indexed, then Google is not crawling them.
  61. Build quality inbound links.There are many online business directories where you can just submit your URL, agency’s name and a description of your services.
  62. Make sure your content can be easily shared on Facebook, Twitter, Linked, as well as social bookmarking sites such as Digg, dell.icio.us and StumbleUpon with Share buttons.
  63. Jump-start traffic by repurposing your blog’s content through an email newsletter that is sent every-other-week. Don’t assume that because you’ve written a post, everyone has read it. You should always assume just the opposite.
  64. Build a sizable Twitter following that is targeted using TweetAdder and repurpose your blog content to your Twitter account using a program such as Social Oomph. Twitter can become your blog’s number one tool for generating targeted traffic.
  65. Invite others to guest post for your blog but be selective.
  66. Be proactive in facilitating speaking opportunities by creating a “Speakers Page” for your blog, list the topics and titles that you can speak to.
  67. Place your RSS Subscription Feed button above the fold, near the top of you blog’s homepage.
  68. Also place a subscription for your email newsletter within your blog’s sidebar to create Opt-Ins from site visitors.
  69. Review your blog site’s analytics daily to see what posts are generating the most traffic, what search terms are being used, where traffic is coming from, who is linking to you, links readers clicked on, page views, etc.
  70. Create a first-step call-to-action for your readers to know how to initially engage with your services. This could be a market or brand audit, or a workshop. Whatever it is, make it something simple and of good value . Price it low so that it doesn’t require a lot of time to consider. It will at least pay for your time in front of a prospect and lead to more new business opportunities.  A call-to-action will also help separate your qualified prospects from those that just want to pick your brain for free.

Some additional agency blogging resources:

7 Comments | Agency Blogs, Content Marketing, Creating Content, New Business Trends, Social Media | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

5 Ways Ad Agency Blogs Can Produce Significant Traffic for New Business

February 8, 2011

Your ad agency’s blog can become one of the most important tools for new business.

A blog is certainly the most critical component to fuel agency new business through social media. How? As a powerful traffic generator. Traffic = leads and leads = new business opportunities.

In a survey of business technology marketing executives by the research firm MarketingSherpa, blogs were voted the No. 4 tool for generating sales leads.

Your blog has the potential to create more web traffic than your agency’s website ever could. It can attract a high volume of quality traffic from the pool of prospective clients you are trying to reach.

Here are 5 Ways an agency’s blog can increase prospective client traffic:

1. Search visibility

The right search traffic doesn’t just happen. It will only occur if you consistently produce unique content. Frequently updated content makes search engines very happy.

Blogs are organized to be search engine friendly. With focus you can dominate search terms for your best prospects to find you. Writing focused content to a particular audience will help to optimize your blog quickly.  When I want to rank well for something like “ad agency new business” optimizing my blog is much easier.

2. Repeat Traffic

Posting fresh content brings visitors back often. Most agency websites are too stagnant to produce repeat traffic. Helpful content that is reader-centric will naturally attract prospective clients to your site and provide top of mind awareness for your agency without having to rely on an interruption tactics such as cold calling for new business.

3. Click-Throughs from Twitter

At the time of writing this post, I have over 57,000 following my two Twitter accounts, @michaelgass and @fuellines. I’m able to fuel traffic by repurposing over 600 articles through these two accounts. This material gets retweeted often into other people’s Twitter networks and makes my content viral, growing my following and exposing my blog to a highly targeted audience.

If you are using Twitter alone, it’s not a very good tool for new business. But in combination with your blog’s content, you are one of the few providing helpful information for the many. Writing in an ‘evergreen’ style your blog’s content has a much longer shelf life than a Tweet. Twitter used in combination with your blog has the potential of creating even more targeted traffic than SEO.

You can continue to generate significant traffic for old posts, if you are intentional about it. Once the blog content is written, Third party Twitter tools like Social Oomph will allow you to easily create a system to consistently keep your content in  front of a large audience with very little effort.

4. Personality

It’s hard to socialize an entity such as your agency. Social media is all about people and relationships. A blog puts a face to your age and allows your personality to shine through. You wont appeal to everyone, but that’s okay. You will have a strong appeal among the prospects who are the best fit for your agency.

A good example of this is Bob Hoffman, CEO of Hoffman/Lewis advertising in San Francisco. Bob’s personality really shines through his writing for his blog, The Ad Contrarian.

I first learned of Bob’s blog through a critical article highlighting his frequent rants about the ad industry, often laced with profanity. I was curious enough to find out for myself and found was intrigued with his writing. Bob came across as a ‘straight-shooter’ who cut through all of the branding and social media b.s. I ended up becoming a fan, as have a significant number of others.

Social media is all about connecting on a personal level. People have a natural desire to work with other people that they know, trust and like. A blog is a great place to foster these initial personal relationships with your prospective clients.

5. Viral Effects

A blog provides content that can be easily shared across multiple social media channels. It can also be repurposed and shared through an email newsletter, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn. You could compile related or the best of your content into an eBook or white paper. Readers will share it through bookmarking sites such as Digg, Delicious or StumbleUpon. You’re return-on-your-time-investment (ROTI), writing content, can be extensive.

Ultimately, a blog can be highly effective and the most powerful and low-cost new business marketing tool your agency will ever use. Provided you know your target audience, have the right positioning, messaging and rich content that is of benefit to those you are trying to reach.

Here are some additional agency blogging resources that may be a help to get you started:

7 Comments | Agency Blogs, Creating Content, New Business Tips, New Business Tools, Social Media | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Using the Inverted Pyramid Style of Writing for Ad Agency New Business

October 26, 2010

The inverted pyramid style of writing works well to produce the kind of content that generates significant targeted traffic to your agency’s blog for new business leads.

I recommend using the inverted pyramid style of writing used by journalists where you place the most important information first with a text. It is a common method for writing news stories but works extremely well when writing for online versus writing for print.

Journalism on the Web is definitely different from print journalism. How most people read online? They don’t, 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. A newer study found that users read email newsletters even more abruptly than they read websites.) People prefer sites that get to the point and let them get things done quickly.

Nielsen also predicted the use of the inverted pyramid style of writing for the Web back in 1996.

Most readers are impatient and want stories to get to the point immediately. The inverted pyramid style of writing helps compel the writer to get to the point quicker. For this style of writing, you put  the most newsworthy information at the top, and then the remaining information follows in order of importance, with the least important at the bottom.

The pyramid style of writing is valued to your readers because they can leave the story at any point and still understand it, even if they don’t have all of the smaller details.

I would suggest actually leading your article/post with what I call the “takeaway or benefit” statement. Simply answer the question, “What is my take away, what is my benefit if I commit to read this article?” You actually lead the story by starting with the conclusion.

“The inverted pyramid organizes stories not around ideas or chronologies but around facts. It weighs and shuffles the various pieces of information, focusing with remarkable single-mindedness on their relative news value.” - journalism historian Mitchell Stephens

6 Comments | Agency Blogs, Agency Leadership, Best Practices, Creating Content | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

How to launch a blog for ad agency for new business — fast!

October 15, 2010

Agencies can’t afford to wait 6 months for social media to help generate new business, they need the business now.

An agency blog serves as the central component for your agency’s social media strategy.  I’ve compiled my suggested best practices to help you to get your agency’s blog up, focused and running quickly as well as rapidly building your agency’s credibility within this space.

An agency blog is like fishing. You want to fish for a particular fish, with a particular bait and you want to get the bait away from the boat so you don’t scare off the fish.

To get an agency blog up and running quickly  you’ll need to do the following:

  1. Have a clear objective: Create content to generate inbound leads for my agency’s new business.
  2. Identify your target audience.
  3. Compose a descriptor statement, subtitle that states emphatically what your blog is about (i.e. A Guys Guide to Marketing to Women, Fueling Ad Agency New Business Through Social Media, Data-Driven Marketing That Pays for Itself)
  4. Create a unique title for the blog. It’s helpful if you can also tie in the title with a URL for the blog that you own.
  5. URL, just be sure that you own it instead of having a wordpress.com, typepad.com or blogspot.com. That way you can change blogging platforms without losing your online traffic.
  6. Know the  key words that you want to dominate in Google Search. Be consistent to include your key words into your post titles.
  7. Come up with 10 to 12 categories that you will write to. These will help guide your writing and will facilitate navigation of your blog’s content for your readers.
  8. Start with a simple blogging platform that you can easily switch from in the future. My suggestion would be WordPress.com.
  9. Keep your IT  and Creative department out of the picture in the beginning stages. Keep the process as simple as possible and focus on the blog’s content.
  10. Set a goal for writing 50 post within 30 days. This will help you to develop your research, resourcing, writing and publishing processes. You will quickly know what obstacles will inhibit you and allow you to figure out workarounds to keep the process moving.
  11. Navigation is critical. Make your blog easy to navigate with Top Posts, Categories, etc. Install a search widget that is included in your blog’s sidebar and located above the fold.
  12. Create a “welcome to your blog” and include your photo to make it more personable. The “welcome” copy should be an expansion of your blog’s descriptor statement.
  13. Add these pages: About, Services, Speaking, Contact.
  14. Add social media buttons for your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts.
  15. Be sure to add an RSS subscription button and create a Feedburner account through Google to get your link.
  16. Add a subscription button for an email newsletter that is directly linked to your email provider account such as Vertical Response, Emma, Constant Contact, etc.
  17. Jump start traffic by sending out an email newsletter at least monthly, preferably every other week. Content from the blog is used in the email newsletter. Don’t assume that just because you’ve written it, everyone has read it.
  18. Generate initial traffic as well through Twitter using tools like Social Oomph and TweetAdder.

Create a format that you can use for every post:

  • Incorporate your key words into every blog post title.
  • A benefit/takeaway statement that begins each post that answers the question, “what is my benefit if I commit to read this post?” This is the inverted pyramid style of writing, like a newspaper report would use, lead with the conclusion.
  • Easy to read copy, breaking up long paragraphs and editing to make the post concise, a Readers Digest version, on average 350 to 450 words.
  • For the best return on your time investment, write post that are “evergreen.” Try not to “date” your content.
  • Consistently create valued content that is “reader-centric.”
  • Hyperlink to resources and attribution to primary sources.
  • Select one or more categories that are reflective of the blog’s content.
  • Add tags for people, places, entities that are referenced in your post.
  • Include “additional articles that may be of interest” at the bottom of the post with titles and links to 4 to 5 other post that you’ve written.
  • Include a photo or graphic in every post to make it visually pleasing.

Here is a collection of additional blogging resources:

11 Comments | Agency Blogs, Agency Leadership, Best Practices, Creating Content, Social Media | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

10 Ways to Create An Ad Agency Blog That is Reader-Centric

October 6, 2010

A key to your agency’s blog success for new business is to put the user’s experience ahead of your own.

People don’t have time to work hard for their information. You must be prepared to do some work on their behalf if you want to grow your blog’s traffic and generate inbound leads.

Success on the Internet depends on multiplying the number of people who will visit a home page times the proportion who actually enlist your services –the percentage who become clients.

Writing for Web: it is the survival of the easiest. Giving attention to usability can greatly increase the amount of your blog’s visitors who turn into new clients.

Here are 10 ways to create an agency blog that is reader-centric and puts the user’s experience first and foremost:

  1. Write to be easily found. Create an SEO strategy so that your blog’s content is found by your intended target audience. Consistency using certain key words in your post titles that aid in the search-ability of your posts. This same tactic also helps with Twitter and identifies content specific to  your audience’s needs.
  2. Make your blog site easy to navigate. Blogs are not often read chronologically. That makes navigation from a Category section located in your blog’s sidebar a very important feature. Creating blog categories will also provide a guide for your writing keeping you focused.
  3. Provide the reader’s digest version for the information that you share. I would suggest limiting your posts to 350 to 450 words on average. Usually half the word count than you would use for print. It actually takes a bit more work to make post copy concise but your readers will love you for it.
  4. Create numbered and bullet-pointed lists when possible. Readers love it when you created this type of executive summary of information.
  5. If you want more readers focus on short, scannable content. 79 percent of Web users scan rather than read word-for-word. Highlight key words, indent quotes, etc.
  6. Write for fast comprehension. Eliminate unnecessary copy. It takes more work to be brief. Try to stay within 350 to 450 words per post. Web content must be brief and get to the point quickly, because users are likely to be on a specific mission.
  7. Write content that is evergreen to provide information that has a long and valued shelf-life.
  8. Use your analytics to sharpen your blog’s appeal. Your readership will be your guide to relevant content.
  9. Don’t think that just because you’re written it that everyone has read it. Repurpose content. Someone that found a post through SEO, might find another through your email newsletter, or through Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.
  10. Take the time and select images for your post that convey useful, memorable information, not just decoration.

Why is it so important to create a blog that is “reader-centric”?  To provide a great user experience with your online content, you must overcome these obstacles:

  • You are competing with hundreds of millions of other online sources.  Advertisers are  trying to break through the clutter by yelling more loudly and being more aggressive by deceptive means that hurts everyone’s credibility and raises users suspicions. Readers come to your site with their defenses engaged.
  • Online readers have a very short attention span. The average page visit lasts about 30 seconds. 10 minutes would be a long visit to a website. People want sites to get to the point, they have very little patience.
  • Your competition is a click away. There is a low tolerance for poor site navigation, material that is hard to locate and sites that are slow to load.
  • Users want to construct their own experience by piecing together content from multiple sources. Many users want simply to reach a site quickly, complete a task and leave.
  • Web users are getting more selfish when they go online. People arrive at a website with a goal in mind, and they are ruthless in pursuing their own interest and in rejecting whatever the site is trying to push.
  • Online behavior is very search-dominated which makes your content search dependent.

What are some of  the benefits for creating a “reader-centric” blog?:

  • It will improve the success rate for communicating key messages.
  • Increase your credibility.
  • Convert readers into loyal followers and advocates.
  • Generate more traffic which leads to higher conversion rates of readers to new clients.

Some additional articles that may be of interest:

Learn more with a full day, Social Media | Ad Agency New Business Workshop

15 Comments | Agency Blogs, Agency Leadership, Creating Content, New Business Trends, Social Media | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

5 Steps to Improve Your Ad Agency’s Blog for New Business

September 7, 2010

Tim Volk, President of Kelliher Samets Vok

An agency blog that is a repository of helpful content can effectively attract a large number of prospective clients.

Here are 5 simple steps and suggestions to improve your agency’s blog as a major tool for fueling new business leads:

1. Creating

Each new blog post is a new opportunity for you to be found online by your best prospects. Some quick suggestions:

  • Write to a specific target audience and provide answers to their advertising/marketing challenges.
  • Write consistently: is important to creating regular readership. Write at least 3 to 5 posts per week.
  • Post should average 350 to 450 words and be pleasantly scannable to the eye. Break up long paragraphs, use bullet/numbered list when possible. Highlight key words and thoughts.
  • Write in the inverted pyramid style, lead with your conclusion. People read differently online than they do for print. They tend to scan much more.
  • Identify and consistently use key words in your post title. You want to be able to dominate these words in Google search.
  • Let your reading fuel your writing.
  • Write 1 original post to every 4 to 5 resource posts. You’ll never be considered a thought leader without original content but you wont generate much traffic if all of your content is just your original thought. A balance of both needs to be provided through your blog.
  • Write with an “evergreen” style that will have a long shelf-life and provide a great return on your time investment.
  • Provide the “Readers Digest” version for your writers. Do the work on behalf of your readers and pull out the nuggets in simple language that is concise and easy to read.

2. Optimizing

  • Carefully think through your blog’s heading. A “heading” is a stand-alone phrase that describes your blogs content that appear below it. I usually advise clients to create a blog descriptor statement for the header that lets a reader and search engines know the purpose and intent of the content. Mine is “Fueling ad agency new business through social media.”
  • Be sure you own your domain. A person that still has “wordpress or blogspot” in their domain wont be able to change blogging platforms without losing traffic.
  • Be sure your site is indexed with Google. If your pages are not indexed, then Google is not crawling them.
  • Build quality inbound links.There are lots of online business directories where you can just submit your URL, agency’s name and a description of your services. There are also many social media sites where you can simply build links to your site. Writing guest articles and posts and optimized our press releases can build links. The best way however, is to produce valued content and create a blog that is a repository of helpful information for your target audience.

3.  Promoting

  • Make sure your content can be easily shared on Facebook, Twitter, Linked, as well as social bookmarking sites such as Digg, dell.icio.us and StumbleUpon with Share buttons.
  • Jumpstart traffic by repurposing your blog’s content through an email newsletter that is sent every-other-week. This is an easy way thing to do. Since you already have the content and can create an email template that is reused, it will take literally minutes to prepare the newsletter and send.
  • Build a sizable Twitter following that is targeted using TweetAdder and repurpose your blog content to your Twitter account using a program such as Social Oomph.
  • Write guest post, invite others to guest post for your blog.
  • Comment on other blog post and online articles, sites such as Ad Age, ADWEEK, etc. Select that sites that are frequented by your target audience.
  • Write content for search-ability.
  • Publish new blog content to your other social media accounts such as Facebook and LinkedIn.
  • Conduct your own primary research using your blog generate links and traffic through press releases using PRWeb or PRNewswire.
  • Be proactive in facilitating speaking opportunities by creating a Speakers Page for your blog, list the topics and titles that you can speak to. You can also provide links to your past speaking engagements through YouTube, post photos through your Flickr Photostream.
  • Pull blog content together, expand SEO opportunities, creating Slideshare Presentations, Whitepapers, etc.

4. Converting

All of this activity isn’t worth the time investment if it doesn’t turn visitors into leads.

  • Place your RSS Subscription Feed button above the fold, near the top of you blog’s homepage. Visitors who subscribe will automatically receive updates every time you publish a new post either through an RSS Reader or through their email Inbox. I would suggest setting up an RSS feed through Feedburner.
  • Also place a subscription for your email newsletter within your blog’s sidebar to create Opt-Ins from site visitors.

5. Measuring

If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it. Fortunately you can measure a lot online and continually hone your program.

  • Review your blog site’s analytics daily to see what posts are generating the most traffic, what search terms are being used, where traffic is coming from, who is linking to you, links readers clicked on, page views, etc.
  • Utilize your email newsletter analytics to improve open and click-through rates. Test the day of the week your email newsletter is sent, time-of-day and subject line copy.
  • Create a first-step call-to-action for your readers to know how to initially engage you. This could be something similar to my New Business | Social Media Workshop. Make it something simple and of value that doesn’t take a lot of consideration but does separate to qualified prospects from those that just want to glean what they can from you for free.
  • Use tools this suite of tools to analyze your marketing efforts:

Some additional agency blogging resources:

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Posted by Michael Gass

Use Brevity for Ad Agency New Business

August 27, 2010

If you want to reach prospective clients online, copy for email, eNewsletters, blog posts, etc. should contain half the word count of conventional text. People read a lot online plus they receive a ton of email. A majority of your readers won’t have time to read your lengthy copy.

The most frequent advice study participants had for newsletter creators was  - “keep it brief.”

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. A newer study found that users read email newsletters even more abruptly than they read websites.) People prefer sites that get to the point and let them get things done quickly

Improve your online writing style from this …

Nebraska is filled with internationally recognized attractions that draw large crowds of people every year, without fail. In 1996, some of the most popular places were Fort Robinson State Park (355,000 visitors), Scotts Bluff National Monument (132,166), Arbor Lodge State Historical Park & Museum (100,000), Carhenge (86,598), Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer (60,002), and Buffalo Bill Ranch State Historical Park (28,446).

… to this,  to increase readability and usefulness:

In 1996, six of the most-visited places in Nebraska were:

  • Fort Robinson State Park
  • Scotts Bluff National Monument
  • Arbor Lodge State Historical Park & Museum
  • Carhenge
  • Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer
  • Buffalo Bill Ranch State Historical Park

Users spend 51 seconds reading the average newsletter. The layout and writing both need superb usability to survive in the high-pressure environment of a crowded inbox.

I highly recommend the Nielsen Norman Group, they are true pioneers in user experience studies that can greatly improve your writing for Web. Check out their online publications, white papers and reports:

  • Web Usability
  • Intranet Usability
  • Email Usability
  • Mobile Usability

Additional articles that may be of interest:

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Posted by Michael Gass

21 Blog Post Writing Tips for Ad Agency New Business

August 23, 2010

This is my collection of  writing tips to help you consistently generate great content that produces inbound leads for your agency’s new business through social media.

Content marketing is a great means of converting prospects into clients by creating and freely sharing helpful, informative content that builds awareness and relevant relationships.

I hope that you find these 21 blog post writing tips helpful:

  1. Write to a specific target audience. Having a target audience in mind keeps your writing focused. Plus, the narrower your focus the easier it is to write.
  2. Reading fuels your writing. You need a good strategic reading program with a clear focus that is centered upon your audience’s interest and needs.
  3. Keep headlines simple and direct.
  4. Load each post title with the keywords you want to dominate through search (i.e. “ad agency new business”). This is also helpful to your Twitter audience as well.
  5. Write post titles that are understandable out of context (because headlines often appear without articles, as in search engine results).
  6. Be predictable, so users know whether they’ll like the full article before they click.
  7. The first sentence of your post should be the “takeaway or benefits statement”. Just simply answer the question, what will be my takeaway or benefit if I commit to read this post? This is the inverted pyramid style, starting with the conclusion.
  8. Remember that online readers prefer writing that is concise, easy to scan, and objective (rather than promotional) in style.
  9. Avoid quickly written, shallow postings. Invest this time in writing thorough articles that are of value to your audience.
  10. Publish on a regular schedule. Be consistent in delivering at least 3 to 5 posts per week. This will keep your readers coming back for more. Also, frequently updated content makes search engines happy.
  11. Highlighted keywords (hypertext links serve as one form of highlighting; typeface variations and color are others).
  12. Use often, bulleted or numbered lists. Readers love them. You are basically providing the “readers digest version” or an “executive summary” for your readers. You are doing work on their behalf, highlighting the rich nuggets of content for them and presenting it in an easy-to-read format.
  13. Half the word count (or less) than conventional writing. Usually 350 to 450 words.
  14. Don’t sell. Readers detest “marketes”; the promotional writing style with boastful claims. The moment you start to sell on your agency’s blog is when you will lose your audience.
  15. Include at least one high quality graphic.
  16. Write numbers with digits, not letters (21, not twenty-one).
  17. Use short sentences. Get to the point. Break up long paragraphs. Make your copy easy for a persons eye to scan.
  18. Your blog should become a repository of valued information for your audience. That means that it’s not all original content. I recommend writing 1 original post for every 4 or 5 resource post.
  19. This is an example of a “resource post”: Steve Jobs: 10 Presentation Tactics for Ad Agency New Business. I found this info through my reading program. I made it relevant to my audience, added my own thoughts and provided some additional tips to create more value. It took only 25 to 30 minutes to write.
  20. For original posts, I share my opinions, my point of view. Original posts usually take over and hour to write. Your prospective client audience is searching the internet for good, rich information that solves problems. They are attracted to fresh thinking, writers who have opinions that don’t always follow the status quo.
  21. Think of your reader’s experience. Make your posts easy to find, your blog simple to navigate. Highlight popular posts, provide links to additional resources. Make their interaction with your blog’s content a pleasant experience.

Here are a few thoughts on repurposing content from your blog and maximize the return on your time investment:

  • Don’t ever think  that just because you’ve written it, everyone has read it. Repurpose content in a bi-weekly or at least monthly eNewsletter. It can take as little as 15 minutes to create and provide a great return on your time investment.
  • Take your most popular blog post, add some really good images and translate it into PowerPoint or Keynote.
  • You should also take advantage the time and effort that goes into writing for your blog and compile your best 100 blog posts into a book. You can actually think ahead and create an outline for a book as a guide for your blog post writing.

Some additional agency blogging resources:

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Posted by Michael Gass

Let Hemingway improve your writing for ad agency new business

June 9, 2010

A great resource for content marketing, social media marketing and agency new business is Ernest Hemingway, one of my favorite authors.

Hemingway, is among the most famous American novelists, short-story writers and essayists, who won both the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes.  No doubt he would have easily adapted to write for Web and word limiting platforms such as Twitter.

Hemingway  pioneered a new style of writing, simple clear, direct and unadorned. His style is very helpful for content marketing and writing for social media.

Content marketing is a means of achieving a position of  thought leader and lead generation. Creating relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined target audience – with the objective of generating agency new business.

Social media didn’t create content marketing, but it’s an incredible tool for getting it easily circulated to a large audience.

The two combined can greatly increase inbound lead generation and networking opportunities. But I’ve found that a lot of agency principal’s struggle with generating content and writing for the Web.

People read online differently than they do in print. Most people tend to have short attention spans and are constantly scanning rather than reading word-for-word. They are more comfortable and accustom writing for print. Hemingway can help.

Ernest Miller Hemingway was 18 years old when he walked into the newsroom of The Kansas City Star and began his writing career. He was given a copy of “The Star Copy Style’” sheet, a single, galley-sized page, which contained the 110 rules governing Star prose.

Hemingway would always remember the style sheet and its core admonition: “Use short sentences. Use short first paragraphs. Use vigorous English. Be positive, not negative.”

At the core of the style sheet that greatly influenced Hemingway’s writings are these four simple rules for writing well:

  1. Use short sentences. Don’t waste time and words, get straight to the point. Perhaps his finest demonstration of short sentence skill was when he was challenged to tell an entire story in only 6 words: For sale: baby shoes, never used. Just write the truest sentence that you know.
  2. Use short opening first paragraphs.
  3. Use vigorous English. “Vigorous English is muscular, forceful, it comes from passion, focus and intention” – David Garfinkel
  4. Be positive, not negative. Say what something is rather than what it isn’t. For example, instead of saying “inexpensive,” say “economical.”

“Those were the best rules I ever learned for the business of writing,” Hemingway said in 1940. “I’ve never forgotten them. No man with any talent, who feels and writes truly about the thing he is trying to say, can fail to write well if he abides with them.”

I’ve printed out, read and re-read often the Kansas City Star Style Sheet.  I hope that it will be a helpful resource too you.

Here are some memorable Hemingway quotes on writing:

  • All my life I’ve looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.
  • I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.
  • I never had to choose a subject – my subject rather chose me.
  • If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one ninth of it being above water.
  • My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.
  • The shortest answer is doing the thing.
  • There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it’s like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.
  • There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.
  • Develop a built-in bullshit detector.

A quote from Hemingway that every agency should adhere to for new business, “Never mistake motion for action”.

Photos from my recent trip to Hemingway’s home in Key West.

6 Comments | Agency Blogs, Agency Leadership, Creating Content, Fuel for Thought, Social Media | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

The Four Great Laws of Copywriting for Ad Agency New Business

June 7, 2010

 

Herschell Gordon Lewis, a copywriting trainer, at American Writers & Artists teaches The Four Great Laws of Copywriting. These are excellent Web writing tips for agencies too generate great content that produces inbound leads for agency new business through social media channels.

  1. The First Great Law gives direction: Reach and influence, at the lowest logical cost, the most people who can and will respond. You can’t target everyone.
  2. The Second Great Law is a caution for sanity: In this Age of Skepticism, cleverness for the sake of cleverness may well be a liability rather than an asset.
  3. The Third Great Law is an equation: E2 = 0. This equation means, when you emphasize everything, you emphasize nothing. Don’t expect your readers to “go fish” for what might be of interest to them.
  4. The Fourth Great Law (and the most violated) is the payoff: Tell the reader/viewer/listener what to do. The whole point of salesmanship is lost if we don’t tell our targets what to do.

Read the entire article: The Four Great Laws of Copywriting.

Here is a collection of agency blogging resources:

 

12 Comments | Agency Blogs, Best Practices, Creating Content, Social Media | Tagged: , , , , | 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 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:

  1. Content Marketing 101: How to Build Your Business With Content
  2. The 8 Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers
  3. Five Areas to Focus On for Effective SEO Copywriting
  4. 10 Secrets to More Magnetic Copy
  5. The Eminem Guide to Becoming a Writing and Marketing Machine
  6. The 7 Deadly Sins of Blogging
  7. How to Write an Article in 20 Minutes
  8. Ernest Hemingway’s Top 5 Tips For Writing Well
  9. Ten Timeless Persuasive Writing Techniques
  10. 10 Steps to Becoming a Better Writer

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Posted by Michael Gass

6 Writing Tips to Make Your Ad Agency’s Blog Effective for New Business

April 2, 2010

 

Writing for the Web is definitely different than writing for print.

Many who are accustom to writing for print have a difficult time writing for Web. In order to write effectively online you must understand how people read on the web.

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.

On the Web, users are engaged and want to go places and get things done. The Web is an active medium.

Web content must be brief and get to the point quickly, because users are likely to be on a specific mission.

The Web is perfect for narrow,just-in-time learning of information nuggets.

People arrive at a website with a goal in mind, and they are ruthless in pursuing their own interest and in rejecting whatever the site is trying to push.

In print, you can spice up linear narrative with anecdotes and individual examples that support a storytelling approach to exposition. On the Web, such content often feels like filler; it slows down users and stands in the way of their getting to the point.

If you’re smart, you’ll write accordingly: make your content actionable and focused on user needs.

For your agency’s blog to be effective, your text must be scannable. Nielsen offers these 6 tips:

  1. highlighted keywords (hypertext links serve as one form of highlighting; typeface variations and color are others)
  2. meaningful sub-headings (not “clever” ones)
  3. bulleted lists
  4. one idea per paragraph (users will skip over any additional ideas if they are not caught by the first few words in the paragraph)
  5. the inverted pyramid style, starting with the conclusion
  6. half the word count (or less) than conventional writing

Nielsen’s research also found that users detested “marketese”; the promotional writing style with boastful claims. I’ve often said that the moment you start to sell on your agency’s blog is when you will lose your audience.

You need to understand how people read on the web and learn to write for them effectively. Go to Jakob Nielsen’s web site and read this paper. If you look at the top blogs, you’ll find they follow Nielsen’s style guidelines remarkably well.

Helpful resources:How Users Read on the Web and detailed reading behavior in  eyetracking studies (please note that this is an older study but provides very helpful and relevant information)

Here are some additional resources for creating an agency blog for new business:

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Posted by Michael Gass

Ad Agencies: 97 Articles on How To Write Effectively for the Social Web

September 20, 2009

writing for blog

To convert content to new business leads you must learn to write effectively for the web.

There is a completely different writing style for web vs print. A lot of ad agency professionals have  difficulty with the transition from print to web.

I’ve found a number of helpful tips. For example: The use the inverted pyramid style of writing for my blog …

The most important information, the take-away or the benefit from your post should be in the first paragraph.

I’m always searching for additional resources that help me to become a better writer for web, whether it is for my blog, Twitter or other social media platforms. I recently came across a post written by  Robin Broitman, chief internet and social media strategist for Interactive Insights Group, IIG,  titled: HOW-TO: Write Effectively for Twitter & The Social Web. This post contains a collection of 97 articles that are a tremendous resource for your online writing. The articles are conveniently organized in the following 4 categories:

  • General Web and Social Media Writing Principles
  • Writing Strong Headlines and Titles
  • Writing for Twitter
  • Writing for Search Engines

Click Here for the links to Robin’s collection of “how to” articles for writing effectively for Web

An additional article of interest: How do users read on the Web? They don’t … they scan

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Posted by Michael Gass

50 Blog Post Ideas to Fuel Your Ad Agency’s Blog

August 3, 2009

50 blog post ideas

Generate targeted ad agency blog traffic = inbound new business leads

I’m often asked don’t you ever run out of ideas for blog posts? I did have struggles in the beginning but after time, 353+ posts later, I’ve found some ways that keep the ideas flowing. I begin each day reading from my online resources that I’ve collected and manage through the use of Google Reader. My daily reading fuels ideas for my own posts. When I’m ready to write I have over a 100 drafts of posts that I can work from. I never run out of ideas for posts.

If you are just starting an agency blog, I’ve put together 50 blog post ideas to help you get started.  

  1. Make a list of the top ten blogs of importance to your target audience
  2. Be among the first to break industry news
  3. Provide information of industry seminars and conferences that would be of interest to your target group
  4. Conduct your own survey/poll and write a post about the results
  5. Provide your comments and links to industry articles that would be helpful to your target audience
  6. Develop an ongoing weekly posts of good thought provoking quotes
  7. Profile of industry leaders and influencers
  8. Provide a synopsis of research and industry reports and links to the full data
  9. Highlight new communication, web tools, how they work and what benefits they provide your target group 
  10. Provide lists of  online resources for 
  11. Challenge and tell why you disagree with high level personalities within the industry when you have a differing opinion
  12. Report from a conference, seminar or trade show
  13. Provide a podcasts of a taped interview with industry leaders
  14. Analyze the current climate in your target groups industry 
  15. Be among the first to identify industry and business trends that will impact your audience
  16. Provide an analysis of big brand best practices and mistakes
  17. Identify bloggers of interest and post your recommendation for them as a resource
  18. Review books of interest that are a help to you and share with your readers
  19. Identify the most important marketing challenges facing your audience and provide solutions
  20. Check your analytics and provide a list of your top 10 blog posts for the month, quarter and year
  21. Engage your audience with a contest and the ability to cast their vote or share their opinion
  22. Invite an industry leader to write a guest post
  23. Discuss industry associations
  24. Provide a list of your favorite links
  25. Post about different marketing tips and tactics
  26. Provide a repository of useful information, facts, statistics, etc. that currently exists in different places online into a single post
  27. Answer very specific questions in detail
  28. Highlight important people of interest to your target audience
  29. Make a list of bite-size marketing tips 
  30. Create a contest that enhances the viral-bility of your agency’s blog
  31. Write something that will provide inspiration and motivation
  32. Walk readers through a day in your life. Include photos and video
  33. Provide a list of Twitter accounts your audience should be following
  34. Write what our industry is doing wrong and ways it could be improved
  35. Compile a post of inspirational quotes
  36. Share your blog’s statistics with your readers
  37. Conduct readership survey
  38. Write about online tools that have been helpful to your research and writing
  39. Create charts and graphs highlighting important facts of relevance to your audience
  40. Write about things that will provide professional enrichment
  41. Highlight current trends 
  42. Whenever you discover a new online tool share it through a post
  43. Ask your audience for feedback how you can be a better help to them
  44. Introduce one of your readers that you’ve gotten to know
  45. Write a series of posts
  46. Make a post for beginners
  47. Tell how to do something more efficiently or affordably
  48. Write a post about time management tips
  49. Write a rebuttal post
  50. Highlight your “signature” posts. The posts you want everyone to read

Your agency’s blog isn’t a platform to espouse its capabilities and credentials. The focus needs to be entirely upon your audience. 

The key to generating traffic and leads from your agency blog is to consistently provide rich content for your target audience. You need to become a valuable resource for their advertising and marketing challenges. 

Prospective clients all have a desire to work with someone they know, like and trust. An agency blog is a great platform to do just that. It should be the “gateway” to your agency. 

Additional articles of interest:

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Posted by Michael Gass