New Business Tactics « FUEL LINES Fueling Ad Agency New Business Through Social Media

The Top 10 Articles of 2011 for Ad Agency New Business

December 29, 2011

www.funphotobox.com

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.

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.
Social Media Eruption - social media is now mainstream and is as a key engagement channel for prospects.
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.
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.
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: Ad Agencies, ad agency new business, business development, content marketing, Digital Agencies, Michael Gass, pr firms, Social Media | 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:

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 – 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:

Image Credit: Intersection Consulting

3 Comments | Agency Blogs, Content Marketing, Creating Content, New Business Tactics, New Business Trends, Social Media | Tagged: ad agency new business, business development, digital shops, inbound marketing, lead generation, Michael Gass, Public Relations, Social Media | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Ad Agency New Business 101: Conduct a SWOT Analysis

October 20, 2011

Photo Credit Pshegubj

A SWOT analysis is a good starting point for someone who is charged with creating new business opportunities for a small to midsize advertising agency, PR firm or digital shop.

Part of Steve Jobs’ 12 Rules of Success: Perform SWOT analysis. As soon as you join/start a company, make a list of strengths and weaknesses of yourself and your company on a piece of paper.

This strategic planning method, when used properly, can be a valuable tool for making decisions, setting strategy, and evaluating courses of action. You should use it as an initial step for defining your agency’s new business objectives. It is a helpful tool for reviewing your agency’s current focus and positioning.

SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors. Opportunities and threats are external factors. Internal factors are ones that you have control over. External factors are ones you don’t have much control over.

Strengths: internal characteristics of the agency that gives it an advantage over the competition. What does your agency do well? What resources are available? List your agency’s attributes: people, expertise, credentials, etc.
Weaknesses: internal limitations that are a liability and create a disadvantage relative to the competitor. They are things that detract an agency from its ability to obtain new business. It could be a lack of expertise or resources, location, positioning, training, etc.
Opportunities: the external competitive advantages that are helpful to you achieving your new business objectives.
Threats: external factors that are potential threats to your agency’s new business. These are challenges that are created by an unfavorable trend or development that may lead to deteriorating revenues or profits. Proactively plan for and respond to them.

Ask yourself the following questions from a new business perspective:

How can we leverage our strengths?
How can we improve upon our weaknesses?
How we can capitalize on our opportunities?
How can we minimize our threats?

The true value of the SWOT analysis is in bringing this information together, to assess the most promising opportunities, and the most crucial issues.

Before you begin, review the following 3 steps and keep them in mind to avoid the danger of it becoming a meaningless exercise.

Step 1 – Collect the Information

Conducting a SWOT exercise for your agency is a straight forward exercise. Begin the SWOT analysis by conducting an inventory of internal strengths and weaknesses within your agency. This shouldn’t be only one person’s perspective. You will need to include others in this process. Plan to interview your agency’s key executives and possibly your entire staff. Use open-ended questions built around these four areas. Keep your SWOT short and simple with a bullet point list. The analysis should become an executive summary.

Step 2 – Prepare a Plan of Action

Unbelievably, 62% of agencies don’t have a planned new business effort.

You should review your SWOT summary with a view of creating a plan that addresses each of the four areas. It serves as a basis for the development of a new business plan that will be your guide for implementing a successful new business program.

The SWOT analysis will act as a filter for lots of information and will allow you to better interpret and identify the primary keys for your new business plan.

Follow the KISS (keep-it-simple-stupid) method. Keep everything as simple as possible including the plan. A one page plan will easily suffice.

Step 3 – Benchmarks for Measurement

Set goals that are realistically achievable within the culture and resources of the agency.

There is a lot of truth to the old cliché, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” Conducting a SWOT analysis will allow you to know what agency data needs to be collected to use as a benchmark for key objectives for the future.

The SWOT exercise will provide a clearer direction for new business and will allow you to easily set new business goals that stretch your agency while being realistically attainable.

For instance, a lot of agencies will say, “we want to double the size of our agency over the next year.” Your SWOT analysis provides the kind of information that helps determine if that goal is attainable. It may be more realistic to state the objective as: “We want to increase the agency’s new business by 25% over the next three years.”

You want to set goals that are realistic given the agency’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

Additional articles that may be of interest:

6 Comments | Best Practices, New Business Plans, New Business Tactics, New Business Tips | Tagged: ad agency, business development, Michael Gass, new business, SWOT Analysis | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

5 Tips for Using Direct Mail for Ad Agency New Business

October 4, 2011

Photo Credit Ian Broyles

Direct mail isn’t dead as a tactic for ad agency new business.

When everyone Zigs, maybe you should Zag. So much attention is being given to online tactics, it may be a good time to do the opposite and utilize some offline tactics such as direct mail to raise awareness for your agency and stay top-of-mind with prospects.

A lot of small to midsize advertising agencies fail at their own direct mail efforts because they give up after only a couple of mailings when there is little or no results. Direct mail isn’t dead. But it’s not very effective unless it is used consistently and that is usually a problem for most agencies. We are always our own worst client.

Your agency is probably like most. When things get busy with client work, work for the agency is often neglected. Here are 5 tips to keep your direct mail project moving:

1. Keep the creative process simple.

I’ve seen a number of agencies attempt to design some very elaborate mailers, one-at a time. This isn’t good use of your agency’s creative energy. Have your creative department design an entire campaign, 12 mail pieces, an oversized postcard would suffice. Have them printed an on the shelf read to mail each month.

You can also mix in other types of mailings such as personal letters, hand written notes, self mailers. You can also send work in expensive boxes to high target prospects.

Locomotion Creative printed a case study and creative sample on post cards that could also be sent as an entire collection in an elegant box.

When it was learned that search consultants often complained about the size of mailings received from agencies and one search consultant said, “Whatever you send me, make sure it can fit in a standard file folder.” So the Lewis Communications created a unique folder just for search consultants.

2. Treat this project like a project for your agency’s most important client.

Open a job, develop a creative brief and have a start date and hard deadline for delivery so that it gets done.

3. Use a direct mail service.

Let them print, pre-sort and stamp for efficiency and savings. I’ve learned that the more things you can outsource, the more consistent your efforts will be. You not only save time, but you can save money.

4. Purchase a mailing list.

Most agencies don’t have the time and resources to develop and maintain their own database. Executive positions change often. Shop around and purchase a targeted list of companies. Purchase a list for 1 to 2 years and multi-use. Names, titles and addresses plus phone numbers that you can use for your “warm call” program.

5. Have a strong call to action.

Here’s an example: What is the first step that you “normally” take with a new client? Perhaps this exploratory session, market audit or brand audit could be something that you could carve out as a “first step” for prospective clients. A good value that would at least pay for your time and also eliminate the “tire kickers.” You have personal face-time with a qualified prospect.

Additional articles that may be of interest:

4 Comments | New Business Tactics | Tagged: ad agency new business, advertising agencies, direct mail, Michael Gass | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Ad Agency New Business: Tips for Eliminating the Tire-Kickers

June 13, 2011

How not to waste time with unqualified prospects.

It isn’t difficult to secure meetings with prospective clients of small to midsize ad agencies. What is key is to get appointments with qualified prospects that have the proper budget and a readiness to spend money for an agency’s services.

There are a lot of prospects out there are always glad to meet to glean whatever they can from your agency for free. These are the “tire-kickers”, prospects who eat up lots of your precious time and from the get-go never intend to work with you.

One way to eliminate the “Tire-Kickers” is to have a clear call-to-action … an initial first step for any prospective client.

How do you usually begin a relationship with a new client? Do you normally conduct a market or brand audit with a new client? Turn it into your call-to-action. Price it in a way that is a great value for the prospect but helps to recover some of your agency’s time investment. Tire-Kickers usually wont be willing to pay for anything. This will help to eliminate them and provide a reasonable first step for a prospect to become a client.

4 tips for creating your ‘call-to-action’:

Define your goal. I would suggest that your objective would be for a face-to-face meeting with a qualified prospect.
Keep your offering simple. Remember attention spans is fleeting online. They wont spend a lot of time trying to figure it out.
Make your offering valuable to the prospect. Their takeaway is much greater than their time and monetary investment.
What action. Be clear as to what action you want your readers to take. The action could be a:

*Market Audit

*Brand Audit

*Competitive Analysis

*SWOT Analysis

*Social Media Workshop

*Digital Workshop

*Strategic Marketing Plan

Prospects want to be able to read up on the details of your agency’s call to action within their own time frame. So make it easy for them to find. You can promote it on a special landing page, through your website, blog, eNewsletter, or traditional collateral print pieces.

I consistently hear from agencies, “if we can just get in front of our prospects, we have no trouble closing the deal”. We’ll here’s your chance. By using this approach for a call to action, you meet your primary objective of getting in front of qualified prospects.

Additional articles that may be of interest:

1 Comment | New Business Tactics, New Business Tips | Tagged: advertising agencies, business development, call to action, Michael Gass | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

12 Tips for Building a Rewards Program for Ad Agency New Business

June 6, 2011

Everyone in the agency should contribute to new business and one of the best ways to encourage lead generation is through a referral program.

A referral program is one of the most cost-effective and efficient methods for generating new business for small-to-midsize ad agencies. Here are my 12 tips on how to create or enhance your agency’s new business referral program:

Identify the kinds of clients you are looking for and set parameters for qualifying leads (size, niche or category, etc.) so all employees know the kinds of clients you want to pursue.
Make your process simple and easy to understand. Your staff will not be willing to jump through lots of hoops to participate.
Set goals such as getting a 75 percent participation rate or a certain number of referrals per employee by year’s end.
Regularly encourage employees to make referrals. Get in front of them often and present a clear message of how your new business referral program works, why they are an integral part of its success, and what’s in it for them.
As a way to increase the quality of referrals, pay out their incentives in two stages, offering an initial payout upon a referral as well as a second, supplementary bonus if the initial lead turns into a new account for the agency. The “right” reward will depend upon your agency’s size and the size of the new business account.
For initial leads offer gift cards, movie tickets, dinner or non-monetary prizes like reserved parking spaces or a cubicle by the window, or thanking them at a reception with their peers. I would suggest rewarding ALL qualified referrals in some way to ratchet-up participation.
If the referral leads to a new account for your agency, provide a much larger financial bonus or allow employees too earn extra vacation days – with pay.
Be sure to publicly say “thank you” to the person who supplied the lead that generates new business. Make it impressive enough that employees will proactively feed you names on a regular basis.
Teach your staff how to ask for referrals and train them to be better networkers, especially integrating social media into the mix of tools available. You will systematically turn your employees into indispensable brand advocates.
Do a good job of providing periodic status updates. Employees will be frustrated with the lack of follow-up on the status of their referrals.
Continuously find ways to improve the program.
Create consistency. The deeper you draw your employees into the hunt for new business “hunt,” the easier it will be for your agency will stay focused and consistent in generating new business.

Additional articles that may be of interest:

Leave a Comment » | New Business Tactics, New Business Tips | Tagged: lead generation, Michael Gass, new business, referrals, rewards program | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Executing Your Agency’s New Business Strategy Requires a System

May 26, 2011

A plan is just a plan, wishful thinking, until it is executed.

How many annual planning meetings has your agency gone through the motions of creating a strategic new business plan only to have it fail in its implementation? Maybe next year, instead of focusing so much attention on the plan, use annual planning to create dynamic processes for execution.

“Execution, more so than planning, is the battleground that determines success and failure.”

Experience has taught me that successfully executing a new business strategy requires a system, not a series of diverse projects performed by different parts of the agency. Here are some practical tips for creating a system for new business for your agency:

One person responsible: You will not only need the right person in place to oversee the process, someone who has focus, determination and consistency, the qualities are required for success.
Convert your strategic plan into a game plan that includes Milestone Dates, To Do List, Resources, Assignments, etc.
Set goals that stretch your agency but that are reasonably attainable and measurable.
Determine what is needed to achieve your priorities: People, funding, equipment, space, training/development, etc.
Get organized: Use a program such as Basecamp, an excellent, inexpensive online project management tool to help in the implementation process.
Just start: A lot of time can be wasted if you don’t start somewhere. Identify and focus on the first step. Once you get going, it’s much easier to keep going. Also remember, don’t over think things, keep it simple.
Based on your tasks create a “must work week” schedule. Arrange your work week priorities ahead of time. “If you don’t know and control your schedule, someone else will.”
Be prepared to make changes. This is not an exercise in perfection – Plans give you a road map to our goals, but you have to be ready to make adjustments, based on your experience in execution. Every plan I have ever seen has obstacles. Don’t abandon your strategy at the first obstacle, create “work-arounds”, solutions, even temporary ones that will allow you to keep the process moving. Don’t let anything stop implementation.
Make assignments: clear communications with those who must help with implementation of the various projects is a must. Who is doing what and when. Make sure they know their assignment, due dates and be prepared to prod, poke and push for completion.
Close out completed projects.
Monitor and report progress: Unless there is an ongoing process for evaluating execution, making decisions about it, and closing the loop with the original strategy, the effort fails. Note: I’ve worked with agencies that are bombarded with internal meetings, communications and reports. Keep this part simple, a monthly one-page executive summary of progress and a brief monthly meeting with only the persons that are necessary to review and make changes, will usually suffice.
Periodically highlight successes and celebrate new business acquisitions: This will reward participants and create excitement within the agency.
Incorporate “lessons learned” from accessing your accomplishments into the next year plan.

Please feel free to share additional tips and ideas for creating a system for agency new business in the comment section below

Additional articles that may be of interest:

1 Comment | Agency Leadership, Best Practices, New Business Tactics, New Business Tips | Tagged: ad agency new business, advertising agencies, business development, Michael Gass, processes, system | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

The Future of Ad Agency Promotion at Events Through Social Media

April 1, 2011

Social media can enhance your special event experience and make networking for new business easier.

Without a doubt an industry trade show or conference has been a beneficial professional networking event for business opportunities. Social media has transformed these events and taken them to a new level.

“I think social media is changing the nature of interaction surrounding conventions,” said Steven Paganelli, vice president of business development-DMOs/CVBs for the Washington, D.C.-based, TIG Global. “Certainly, the opportunity to connect on a higher, more meaningful level face-to-face has always been at the heart of meetings and conventions, but social media tools and new technologies are making it easier for delegates to move beyond their comfort zone to meet new contacts, share ideas and engage in these events in deeper ways.”

In an American Express OPEN Forum article, Scott Belsky, Founder and CEO of Behance, shares insights from his 4-day experience at this year’s South By Southwest Interactive Conference. I’ve taken Scott’s main take aways regarding the future of advertising and self promotion to highlight the future of ad agency promotion at events through social media for new business:

1. Curation is a great tool for agency self-promotion.

Scott identifies one company that stood out above all others at this year’s SXSW event by serving as a curator of of event information.

“AOL set up a booth where they sorted through the day’s news at the conference and streamed channels of information for particular interests. In effect, AOL was serving as a curator of the overwhelming amount of stuff, and people gravitated toward the booth.”

This is a great social media strategy for ad agency promotion. Become a curator of information by allowing your agency blog and website to be a repository of helpful information for your prospective clients. Scott says, “If people like your taste—or just the way you display information—they will tune into your message.”

I was able to interact with attendees of Ad Age’s first Small Agency Conference. From my social media interactions I was able to create this article: 50 of the Best Insights from Ad Age’s First Ever Small Agency Conference. The amazing thing – I wasn’t there!

I was able to create this list of the 50 Best Insights in an article for my blog and propagate it through my 50,000 + followers on Twitter before the conference was even over.

I also helped spread the word of the conference, create buzz and assisted in generating traffic for the conference sponsors: AdAge andAOL Advertising.

It put me on Ad Age’s radar: @adage And it’s not even over! RT @michaelgass 50 of the Best Insights from Ad Age’s First Small Agency Conf #smallagency http://bit.ly/bTZqhL

2. The Future of Advertising (networking) is Education.

I wasn’t able to attend this years SXSW event, but according to Scott, the future of advertising was one of the main topics of discussion.

“With brands in the hands of the people, a new genre of advertising will arise that is more authentic and borderline educational. Companies will tap their expertise as a way to win people over. For example, GE knows a lot about the future of energy and jet engines, Pepsi knows a lot about marketing and beverages, The New York Times knows a lot about journalism.

While you would likely skip over any commercials from these brands, you might be interested in their perspectives in areas where your interests intersect.”

Social media can play an important role in defining your agency’s brand. To be successful with social media you are compelled to lead prospective client engagement with benefits and value rather than agency capabilities and credentials. Check out these “Top 10 Benefits of Social Media for Ad Agency New Business.”

Education provides a great networking platform to build value for your prospects and positioning of leadership for you and your agency.

3. The value of attending conferences lies with personal connections, not panels.

Some people believe that we are so connected online that offline conferences, seminars and trade shows are losing their importance. Scott’s takeaway is just the opposite:

“In a world of increasing remoteness and virtual relationships, the benefits of physical engagement only increase. I would argue that conferences will become MORE essential as our lives become more digital.”

Social media has transformed offline events and can maximize the personnel connections with prospective clients. Your involvement with blogging, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn can change your whole experience. You can “get to know” many of the exhibitors, speakers and event attendees from your online interactions that will propagate and enhance meeting them in person.

I recently received this note from Tom Matter, CEO of MAX Advertising in Atlanta. Tom’s agency specializes in law firm marketing and had this to say after attending the Legal Marketing Association’s Conference in Orlando:

“I wanted to tell you how fast we have been noticed by the national legal marketing community. We are easily the most talked about new marketing strategy and creative shop in the business.

All the blogs we followed last year to get started are all now following me for content ideas! They told me this themselves. I

had women stop me and ask to get my picture taken with them because they love The Matte Pad!! No joke. So many people read it and follow it with their RSS reader.

It was great validation for all the hard work we are putting into it. MAX Advertising is a great social media success story. We will get so much work from the conference it’s not even funny.”

Tips for participating in special events using social media:

Include a banner for the event in your blog’s sidebar.
Information about the event in your email newsletter.
Invite one of the event organizers to write a guest post.
Write your own article prior to and/or after the event.
Find out if the event already has a Twitter #hashtag set up. If they don’t suggest one to the event organizers. Use the hashtag for Twitter posts about the event, before, during and after.
Use the time to network
Conduct interviews. Use your iPhone to video and edit podcasts that you can share on your blog.
Act an a reporter for the event with live updates via Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Set-up “meet-ups” from your online networks of people

Click on the following link to read Scott’s article, “SXSW Interactive Takeaways: The Future Of Advertising & Self-Promotion.” If you are an event speaker, you might find the “7 Traits Event Organizers Need From Speakers” helpful.

9 Comments | Agency Networks, Best Practices, New Business Tactics, New Business Trends, Social Media, Speaking, Special Events | Tagged: Ad Age, Behance, CEO, curation, events, MAX Advertising, Michael Gass, networking, Scott Belsky, Social Media, Steven Paganelli, Tom Matte, trade shows | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

An Ad Agency’s ‘Buy Local Campaign’ Generates New Business

January 3, 2011

Park Howell, president of Park&Co, a full service agency that specializes in environmental marketing, provides a successful promotional campaign example for how he built awareness for his agency … by promoting its competition.

Arizona is trying to heal the P.R. black eye and business boycott created by its strict illegal immigration bill SB1070. Among other issues, the state is also battling a historic state deficit, lack of investment in education and nearly 10 percent unemployment. As one solution, Park and his agency launched a ‘Buy Local Advertising Campaign.’

“I was honored earlier this year by being named Ad Person of the Year, by the American Advertising Federation of Metro Phoenix. I thought with the recognition came some modicum of accountability for our industry.

So as we close 2010, our agency wanted to take one last stand for the local advertising industry and encourage all of you Arizona companies that are spending your dollars in other markets with other agencies and production companies, to at least consider including local creative companies on your bid list for 2011. And seriously consider the impact your spending can have on your neighbors right here at home, versus spreading your important dollars abroad.” Park Howell

With the philosophy that “a rising tide lifts all boats”, Park&Co is encouraging AZ companies in need of an advertising agency, to give a first look to Arizona ad agencies and also reminding them that for every $100 spend for goods and services at a locally owned business, $73 remained in the AZ economy.

From Park & Co’s Extra Cut Blog:

You buy your lettuce locally. Why not your marketing?

“You buy local produce, seek out locally owned stores, and drink local wines. So why go to other markets like L.A. for your advertising? Phoenix agencies offer a wealth of talent, from brand strategy and development to internationally award-winning creative, as well as innovative interactive campaigns and Hollywood-caliber film and video production. And you don’t have to look far …

… So, if you want to buy your maple syrup out of state, that’s fine by us. But if its business-building brand strategy and creative you’re looking for, we encourage you to shop locally by visiting parkandco.com/azagencies. And no worries if you pick another local firm over us. Just tell them Park&Co sent you.”

Park&Co have enlisted support and generated buzz for the campaign through its blog, social media network, email and with print. Check out their campaign through the following links:

About the madness behind the “Buy Local” campaign: http://bit.ly/h7bN7v
The web and interactive ad: http://bit.ly/fBeyF6
Why would an ad agency promote its competition?
Your location for talented film and video companies starts in Arizona
You buy your lettuce locally. Why not your marketing?
@parkandco Buying your web out of L.A. is like sourcing your prickly pear jam in N.J. ExtraCuts http://bit.ly/fBeyF6
Flashpoint Newsletter: http://parkandco.com/_newsletters/flashpoint/2010-12/
Arizona Ad Agencies’ Landing Page: http://parkandco.com/azagencies/

Results thus far: Park shared with me that the response to their campaign was 95% positive and within the first couple of weeks of the campaign’s launch his agency had received an opportunity to pitch for new business, a direct result of the Buy Local campaign. By the 4th week of the campaign they had secured 5 new business calls, 3 of them in one day.

3 Comments | Best Practices, Fuel for Thought, New Business Tactics, New Business Tips, Promotion | Tagged: advertising agencies, AZ, Michael Gass, new business, Park & Co, park howell, Phoenix, Promotion | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

6 Reasons Why You Should Replace Your Paper Business Cards for Ad Agency New Business

December 21, 2010

The traditional method of networking with business cards is one of the most cost-effective means of marketing your agency but the online version provides greater opportunities for new business.

Online business cards allows an easier and more efficient way to share, receive, organize and even track your cards than their printed counterpart. Online business card services are now providing programs that mimics the action of handing out a paper business card as close as possible. All that is needed to share your card is an email address.

“No more stacks of cards on your desk. Paperless business cards are good for the environment, but they are also easier to carry, unlimited — you’ll never run out when you’re networking at an event or conference and you have a card ready for instant connections, for each context, every situation and any kind of person you meet in real life.”

A service that I recommend is MyNameIsE, essentially a mobile social network of business cards. E plays well with the services that contain all of your content such as your LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Skype or other social media accounts like Foursquare, SoundCloud or Flickr. It supports over 50 social media platforms.

With E you can store notes, tags, ratings and the geolocation of everybody you meet or send cards to. From your free account on their website you can view all of this information from your user interface. Here you can also create new cards, one for each occasion and manage them all from one location.

If your card recipient doesn’t have an E account you can send your card directly by email. Recipients receive a nice card with your logo, contact information and social networking profiles. They can store the card directly to the Outlook, Entourage accounts or on their smart phone through E’s vCard support.

You can use E’s new apps to share your card directly, peer-to-peer, from phone to phone. You can even share your card with multiple people at the same time if they have our app installed.

6 reasons why you should replace your paper cards:

Never run out of cards. Ever left your business cards at home or back at the hotel room? Started to hand out cards but didn’t have enough? Had to put a line through inaccurate information and handwrite in the new? Look through your pockets for a prospects card only to discover you lost it? Having an online card solves these problems.
Make notes and tags. Just like your printed business cards, you can add simple notes to the electronic version. You can also add tags to index a person and even rate them as a prospect.
Expand your social networks. You can easily add all of your primary social networks to your cards for card recipients to easily connect with you.
Remembering the place. The online version of your business card can tell you the location from where the card was received.
Easily save card information. Cards that are received can be saved immediately to your phone, computer or other device through the standard vCard (.vcf) format. No more having to type or scan in card info when you return from business trips.
Mobile Connection. You can use any smart phone and exchange cards with multiple people from phone to phone instantly. Phone apps make this service even easier to use.

Click the link to take a tour or sign-up for MyNameIsE . You can connect with me or download my vCard info through my online card at this link: http://www.mynameise.com/michaelgass

Leave a Comment » | Best Practices, Digital, New Business Tactics, New Business Tools, New Business Trends | Tagged: ad agency new business, business cards, ecards, Michael Gass, MyNameIsE | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Is the Phone Call an Outmoded Communication Tool?

November 15, 2010

The debate may have switched from “is cold calling dead” to “is the phone call in general dead” for agency new business.

A growing number of persons consider phone calls to be interrupting and annoying. The phone call is rapidly fading as a generation of e-mailing, followed by an explosion in texting and social media, has pushed the telephone conversation into serious decline.

TechCrunch writer, Alexia Tsotsis, recently wrote an insightful article that has been stirring a lot of debate, “The Phone Call is Dead.”

She writes,

“Less obsolete but more annoying than a handwritten letter, the phone call is fading as a mode of communication even if the nostalgic will be singing its praises for a while.”

While Alexia points out that to say something is dead in the tech industry, actually means it’s on the decline, she provides some good points regarding the fall of the call, I’ve also included some of additional data on this topic:

We reached a breaking point in 2008 when text messaging topped mobile phone calling in usage, and we’ve been living in a world dominated by text-based communication ever since.
According to Nielsen data, voice usage has been dropping in every age group except for those past the of age of 54.
78 percent of teens recognize the functionality and convenience of SMS, considering it easier (22 percent) and faster (20 percent) than voice calls.
Voice activity has decreased 14 percent among teens, who average 646 minutes talking on the phone per month.
Interest in voice calling is now sharply differentiated by age, and few technological advancements have ever survived while failing to capture the interest of 22 year olds.
The fall of the call is driven by 18 to 34-year-olds, whose average monthly voice minutes have plunged from about 1,200 to 900 in the past two years, research by Nielsen shows.
iPhone users (and to greater extent smartphone users in general) are not primarily using our phones to make calls.
We now have access to a plethora of free, internet-based calling options like Google Voice.
Not only are people making fewer calls, but they are also having shorter conversations when they do call. The average length of a cell phone call has dropped from 2.38 minutes in 1993 to 1.81 minutes in 2009, according to industry data.
Between 2005 and 2009, as the number of minutes people spent talking on cell phones inched up, the number of cellphone messages containing text or multimedia content ballooned by 1,840 percent.
Cellphone industry group CTIA saw text messaging double from June 2008 to June 2009, when Americans sent a staggering 135.2 billion text messages, and its data backs up the idea that voice is declining.
Land lines are disappearing. Verizon, the country’s second-largest land line carrier after AT&T, says its hard-wired phone connections have dropped from 50 million in 2005 to 31 million this year.

“The fundamental way we people communicate is just about to change again,” said Delly Tamer, CEO of Letstalk, which sells a variety of cellphones. “We humans will now start to rely less on our mouths and more on our heads and our fingers.”

Alexia Tsotsis, is LA Weekly’s internet culture reporter, and then as SF Weekly’s web editor. Before she joined TechCrunch, she ran the SFweekly.com website while staying on top of memes, the tech scene, and human behavior in the digital age. Read here entire article: “The Phone Call is Dead.”

8 Comments | Agency Leadership, New Business Tactics, New Business Trends, Social Media | Tagged: advertising agencies, Alexia Tsotsis, cold calls, land lines, Michael Gass, new business development, Nielsen, Phone Calls, Social Media, TechCrunch, text messaging | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Ad Age: A List of the Worst Agency Websites for IPhones and IPads

September 20, 2010

Attention Agencies: You provide a sweet target for your competition if you don’t practice what you preach and aren’t doing for yourself what you recommend for clients.

The McKinney agency, Durham, NC, recently created some positive press for themselves while creating a firestorm around some of the biggest advertising agencies websites.

Advertising Age, provided with McKinney’s review of agency’s websites, recently published the article, The World’s Worst Agency Websites (For IPhones and IPads).

David Teicher, for Advertising Age writes, “McKinney Art Director Nick Jones stumbled upon an unfortunate, albeit not surprising, byproduct of that: Some of the biggest agency websites are built on Adobe’s Flash and thus entirely inaccessible from iPhones and iPads.

Now, it’s probably no coincidence that Mr. Jones just happened to discover, and call attention to, this industry-wide failing, concurrent with McKinney’s own new site launch, which is built, according to Nick, so that you can “Swipe it on your iPad or click it in Internet Explorer.”

But the point remains: How can any agency expect to build out an emerging media practice and secure business in the growing mobile and tablet market, if their own mobile sites are unusable?

McKinney’s tactic unleveled the playing field in their favor creating a positive buzz, differentiating themselves from their competitors and generating significant traffic for their newly launched website: www.mckinney.com. From a new business perspective, they deserve kudos!

I’m sure the agencies that made McKinney’s list are already underway making the necessary changes to their sites.

Here are 10 full service and even digital agencies to make the list:

Reaching out to bloggers like myself on behalf of your agency:

I get invitations to review lots of agency stuff daily and I can’t respond to them all. Many of these emails are way to long for me to even consider reading.

Stephanie Sumner, VP/Director of Business Development for McKinney, did a splendid job in the way she reached out to me by email. She didn’t ask me for anything, but provided just enough information that would peak my interest.Her note was personal, concise copy with links to the relevant info. She made it easy for me to review and respond.

It takes more work to be brief but when you are the one inundated with emails it is much appreciated. Stephanie did the work on my behalf.

Kudos also to Mckinney’s art director, Nick Jones. Way-to-go in creating new business opportunities for your agency.

Additional articles regarding ad agency promotion:

14 Comments | Agency Leadership, New Business Tactics, Promotion | Tagged: Avertising Age, business development, David Teicher, McKinney, Michael Gass, Nick Jones, Stephanie Sumner | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Recycling Older Posts and Articles for Ad Agency New Business

July 27, 2010

Keeping older content alive can provide additional fuel your agency’s inbound lead generation program through social media. It also greatly enhances the return on your writing time investment.

Some of the most helpful tips on blog writing I have found online from resources as old as 1996. In a day when blog content that was published only a few months, it is often discounted as being old. If it is content that has been generated over six months it is considered ancient. But some of the most helpful resources that I have found for writing for Web is as old as 1996.

I often cite older sources without disclosing the date, if I’m confident the resource is of worth to my readers. Readers would often discount these resources if I included the date when I cite the source.

Just one example is information that I gleaned from Jacob Nielsen when writing this post, “How do users read on the web? They don’t … they scan”. His online writings have completely changed my view of “older content”. The New York Times calls Nielsen,”the guru of Web page usability”.

The date of the material shouldn’t matter. What should matter is relevancy. Is the content still of value to your audience?

Here’s an example of some of Nielsen’s rich nuggets of information for writing for the Web:

In research on how people read websites we found that 79 percent of our test users always scanned any new page they came across; only 16 percent read word-by-word. (Update: a newer study found that users read email newsletters even more abruptly than they read websites.

As a result, Web pages have to employ scannable text, using

highlighted keywords (hypertext links serve as one form of highlighting; typeface variations and color are others)

meaningful sub-headings (not “clever” ones)

bulleted lists

one idea per paragraph (users will skip over any additional ideas if they are not caught by the first few words in the paragraph)

the inverted pyramid style, starting with the conclusion

half the word count (or less) than conventional writing

Web users generally prefer writing that is concise, easy to scan, and objective (rather than promotional) in style.

Jacob Nielsen’s insights were ahead of the times. It would be a shame to discount them just because some of his great content were published online over fourteen years ago.

I continue to recycle and repurpose blog posts to over 40,000 + Twitter followers and too subscribers to the Fuel Lines eNewsletter. I have also pulled older content together for eBooklets, white-papers, SlideShare presentations. You can even recycle your blogs content into a book. Recycled posts continue to generate lots of blog traffic and fresh comments from readers who have just discovered them for the first time. By reviewing my analytics I can tell what posts to keep in this recycling rotation and what I need to pull out. Ultimately my readers decide what is appealing and what isn’t.

If you’ve written it, don’t assume that the majority of your readers have read it. Don’t be afraid to repurpose/recycle content.

Also, as you write your posts, learn to write “ever-green” to give the content a long shelf life. By doing this, a post that took me an hour to write, will provide a 100% return on my time investment.

I recently wrote a post, 50 of the Best Insights from Ad Age’s First Ever Small Agency Conference, the first ever small agency conference sponsored by Ad Age. Even though this was a one-day conference, I purposefully wrote the post in a way that would allow the content to be used for a much longer period of time.

I would also suggest revisiting older posts that may not have generated very much traffic. With the proper edits and revisions you can breath new life into them as well.

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

3 Comments | Agency Blogs, New Business Tactics, Social Media, Time Management | Tagged: Ad Agencies, content marketing, Jacob Nielsen, Michael Gass, new business, recycling content, Social Media | 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

The New Rules of Engagement for Ad Agency New Business

April 21, 2010

Lead generation techniques that include direct mail and cold calls are becoming less effective as new communication channels and technology have greatly altered prospective client behavior.

Prospects are using the Internet and related media to learn about agencies that best meet their needs. Your primary focus now should be on pulling them, through relevant, resourceful content, toward your agency’s services. Why?

Prospective Clients Control Engagement

80 to 90% of business transactions now begin from online search.
A recent CMO Council survey revealed that 80% of those surveyed said that they found their vendors, not the other way around.
Less than 10% of recent buyers were contacted cold by the solution provider.

New Influencers

A new study from Connected Marketer and DemandGen Inside the Mind of the New BtoB Buyer reveals shifts in the behavior of BtoB Buyers:

78% started with informal info gathering
59% engaged with peers who addressed the challenge
48% followed industry conversations on topic
44% conducted anonymous research of a select group of vendors
41% followed discussions to learn more about topic
37% posted questions on social networking sites looking for suggestions/feedback
More than 20% connected directly with potential solution providers via social networking channels

The Need to Connect Through Content

Almost 95% of recent purchasers said the solution provider they chose “provided them with ample content to help navigate through each stage of the buying process.” Publishing the right content and making sure it gets found in the right places is a vital component for your new business strategy.

Agencies should use inbound marketing tools such as:

Agency blogs
Search engine opitmization
Social media networks such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn
Social bookmarking sites
Your agency’s website (online brochure)
Forums and peer groups
Comments on other blogs and online articles
eNewsletters
Article marketing
Surveys
White papers
Slideshare: uploaded PowerPoint and Keynote presentations
Podcasts and Webinars
Videos
Analytics

Engagement is Expected

93% of the Internet users active in social media say they expect a company to have a social media presence and to be able to actively engage with that company.

The Forrester Research report Social Media Playtime is Over clearly shows that dabbling or experimenting is not enough. You have to deliver genuinely interesting and valuable content that meets the needs of your audience and actively engages them.

Our recent study of the top 100 companies in the small, medium and large categories revealed that only a very small percentage are actively engaging their audience. The playing field is wide open and this is a strategy that can reap big rewards. Social Media Strategy, Expansion Internet Marketing + PR

A Window of Opportunity

Prospective clients are actively using social media in the agency selection process. Agencies need to implement a social media strategy along with their other new business tactics. Time is of the essence. Because of the fact that few agencies understand this, even less are doing it. Small to midsize agencies in particular, have a window of opportunity to gain market share.

Your niche + social can put your agency at the head of the line for new business.

Additional articles that may be of interest:

11 Comments | Agency Blogs, Agency Leadership, New Business Tactics, New Business Trends, Social Media | Tagged: Blogs I Recommend, Connected Marketer, DemandGen, Expansion Internet Marketing + PR, Inside the Mind of the New BtoB Buyer, Michael Gass, prospective clients, Social Media | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Contests; A Lead Generation Tactic For Ad Agency New Business

April 12, 2010

According to Jupiter Research: companies that run contests or sweepstakes have twice as many fans on their sponsored social network pages as those who don’t.

Social media provides agencies with many avenues for new business lead generation. One particular strategy, creating contests to engage an audience, quickly build online traffic and generate leads, is now even more feasible for agencies thanks to easy-to-use platforms that have recently emerged.

These new platforms allow you to simply create, automate, and execute powerful online contests at little-to-no cost. Here are a few online contest platforms that you may want to explore:

ContestMachine: Promotions Made Easy

ContestMachine is an inexpensive solution for contest campaigns for small to midsize ad agencies. They offer a packages that range from free to $99 per month with no long term contracts. ContestMachine takes care of the details, from collecting entries to notifying winners.

Strutta – The Contest Platform

Strutta it easy for publishers, marketers and agencies to create online contests and promotions at a fraction of the cost of custom development. The make it easy for users to engage with your promotion and share via popular social media and communications tools (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, etc.).

They offer a Trial (Free), Basic ($499) and Pro version ($2499), and to create custom contest campaigns in minutes. The Strutta platform enables a wide range of promotional activities, including online contests, product testing, awards programs, and more.

Wildfire

Wildfire, another contest tool that can easily build & launch social media marketing campaigns within minutes. You can easily integrate branded interactive campaigns like sweepstakes, contests and give-aways with the viral features of the social web to create engaging campaigns that spread like virally, thus the name Wildfire.

Every campaign you build & launch on our platform offers a lead generation component or can be linked to one through another format.

They have the Basic package $5 per campaign, their Standard package, $25 per campaign and their Premium package, $250 per campaign. The also offer subscription plans as well. I liked that they have no contracts, no on-going fees and no credit card is needed for sign up.

Some additional contest ideas and tips:

You can promote your contest to hundreds of Web sites that list free contests
Send out a press releases about your contest
Ask for as much information as you can from contest subscribers. It would be important to get their social media information as well (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc)
Ask participants to your contest if they would opt-in to receive your agency’s eNewsletter
Use your agency’s services as the give away as prizes
Offer prizes that are relevant to your target audience
You may want to offer more than one prize and include some runner-up prizes
Provide enough information about the prizes, to generate interest and participation
Keep your contest simple and make it easy for people to participate
Be sure and include a specific time period for the length of the contest
Tell visitors how winners will be determined
Search online for other contests to get more ideas
Get your clients and prospective clients onboard by creating a contest for your agency that you can demonstrate success and that your agency uses the tools it recommends its clients use

Additional articles regarding ad agency promotion:

3 Comments | Agency Blogs, Best Practices, New Business Tactics, Promotion | Tagged: Blogs I Recommend, business development, ContestMachine, contests, lead generation, Michael Gass, Strutta, sweepstakes, Wildfire | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

25 Tips for Driving Traffic to Your Ad Agency’s Blog

April 9, 2010

Your ad agency’s blog should be a central component to your social media strategy for new business. It is the site that you want to bring your prospective client audience to, the gateway and face of your agency.

“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.

Denise Wakeman, Online Marketing Advisor and Founder of The Blog Squad, has created an excellent list of tips to generate traffic to you blog. I would encourage you to create a list of “to dos” from her suggestions. For more details, be sure to check out her article,“19 Tips for Driving Traffic to Your Blog”

Here are the 19 tips:

Publish as frequently as possible
Pay attention to the headlines (blog post titles)
Send an email broadcast
Add a link in your email signature
Include multiple subscription options on your blog
Try article marketing
Comment on blogs in your industry
Do some guest posting
Conduct surveys and polls
Submit your blog to directories
Make a Google profile
Syndicate to Twitter
Syndicate Facebook
Syndicate to LinkedIn
Use Hootsuite
Distribute your video
Add the retweet button to your posts
Consider share buttons
Use social bookmarking

Denise’s list isn’t an exhaustive list of tactics but these are the core that you need for your own list. Just be sure that someone from your agency is charged with implementing it.

I would add at least six additional tips:

Make your target audience crystal clear. If you can’t clearly and narrowly define your audience you wont build significant traffic.
Optimize your posts content for search. Identify and dominate a few key words that your target audience will most likely use to find you. Use these words consistently in your posts titles and copy.
Knowledge is power. Get in the habit of checking your blogs analytics frequently. Keep it simple, but know at least daily the number of unique visitors, page views, top posts, how people got to your blog, search terms and incoming links.
Don’t be afraid to repurpose older blog content through multiple social media channels. Posts that I’ve written 3 years ago is still pertinent and continues to generate traffic to my blog.
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.
Identify who your audience is in your post titles. This is especially helpful when you repurpose your content on Twitter and an important part of SEO for your blog.

Here are some resources to help you further create an agency blog for new business:

5 Comments | Agency Blogs, Agency Leadership, Metrics, New Business Tactics, New Business Trends, SEO | Tagged: Agency Blogs, blog traffic, Denise Wakeman, Michael Gass, new business, SEO, Social Media Examiner, The Blog Squad | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

The Top 50 Ad Agency New Business Articles

April 8, 2010

With almost 500 post on this blog, I thought it would be good to publish this top 50 post list. I’ve assembled the “best of” FUEL LINES agency new business articles based upon analytics of site visitors and their comments.

This is an example of how you can optimize popular blog posts on your agency’s blog. Here are also 10 Ways to Optimize a Popular Post on Your Blog, from ProBlogger.

FUEL LINES Top 50:

Additional ad agency new business articles can be found on these blog sites:

3 Comments | Agency Blogs, Best Practices, New Business Tactics, New Business Tips, New Business Tools, New Business Trends | Tagged: 4 A's, Ad-ology, blog post, blogs, Blogs I Recommend, business development, catapult new business, Clive Maclean, Michael Gass, midsize ad agencies, RSW, small ad agencies, The List | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Ad Agency Principals on Point for Agency New Business

March 2, 2010

Make new business easier for your agency by being positioned as a “thought leader” to your best prospective clients.

Jesse Thomas continues to do a masterful job doing just that. He is the CEO and Founder of JESS3, a young creative interactive agency specializing in social media data visualization. Jesse’s positioning has led to some great opportunities for new business with companies such as IBM, Intel, Microsoft, MySpace, Pfizer, Time Warner, NASA, Nestle, Pepsi / Tropicana, the Wall Street Journal and many other blue chip companies.

Just one of the tools that helps in positioning Jess as a thought leader:

The video below was recently created by Thomas, it highlights some remarkable figures and visually depicts the Internet as we know it today. It’s fast becoming a must-watch video for anyone trying to wrap their minds around just how immersed web technologies have become in our everyday lives.

Another example of Jess’s thought leadership was the design of a diagram called The Twitterverse with Brian Solis that outlines the expanding network of applications that function with the popular web tool.

Jesse’s partnerships with organizations such as Social Media Club, Barcamp, AIGA, Mashable, Tech Cocktail, Art Directors Club and WOMMA have further bolstered his agency’s new business success.

You will also hear Jesse speaking at an number of industry events in D.C and NYC, “Lunch n Learns”, workshop leader, conference organizer or leading seminars such as “Blog Design.”

As popular as Jesse is, he also makes it EASY for prospective clients who are looking to collaborate with him, providing his personal email address, through his blog at jess3.com/blog, Twitter or Facebook, LinkedIn, even his cell phone number. How many agency principals are willing to do that?

Jesse understands that he is on point for his agency’s new business. He’s the face of his agency. Prospective clients have a desire to work with people, that they know, like and trust … people like Jesse!

Additional agency principals on point for new business: