A Not To-Do List for Ad Agency New Business

December 13, 2011

Not To Do List Ad Agency New Business

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Additional articles that may be of interest:

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

9 Ways to Stay Focused on Ad Agency New Business

August 12, 2011

Photo credit toolstop

It is hard to stay focused and productive with so many workplace distractions such as laptops, smartphones, tablets and social media.

The new business director has to be like the rudder of a ship when it comes to new business and keep it consistently focused on new business.

I have been working in ad agency new business almost my entire advertising career. I’m   organized and disciplined but I’m  still constantly learning new techniques that lessen distractions and increase my productivity. 

Here are 9 ways that I’ve found helpful to stay focused on new business:

  1. Create an game plan every day. You can use a To Do’s app for your laptop, Smartphone or iPad/Tablet to schedule daily reminders that need to be accomplished as a way to stay focused throughout the day.
  2. Dedicate blocks of time to your most important tasks. Make a specific effort to not allow the distractions or disruptions of others break your focus. After that block of time is up, take a brief break, then begin to focus on the next block of time.
  3. Set times for checking email. A study showed that people distracted by incoming email and phone calls saw a 10-point fall in their IQs, the equivalent of losing a nights sleep. I would suggest avoiding checking your email as soon as you get into the office. One of the first tasks should be to create your action plan and get a good productive start on your work day. At pre-set times,  check and respond to your emails.
  4. Use noise canceling headphones. I don’t only use my headphones when I travel, I’ve found they help me quickly get into a ‘focused zone’ for completing task. I’m actually wearing them as I write this article.
  5. Take planned breaks. It is important to take a breather and it usually enhances productivity, especially if these breaks are pre-scheduled in between your major tasks for the day. This allows for a natural transition and a time to refocus from one task to another.
  6. At work focus on business and at home focus on your personal life. Its important to keep your personal and business life as  separate as possible. You’ll stay more refreshed, focused and productive.
  7. Be comfortable. I enjoy my work environment. My desk, my chair and computer screen are at the right height. I have adjustable lighting for my workspace. The temps just right. My office is organized. Everything is conducive to keeping my mind focused.
  8. Discipline your time online. To avoid distractions my browser’s homepage is set to Google Reader. Having my online content in one location is extremely helpful to avowing distractions online.
  9. Respect the time of others. Instead of calling for a 1 hour meeting, try cutting the time in half. Don’t send lengthy emails, do the extra work to create emails that are concise and to the point. Remember that everyone is busy and  keep the time of your calls to a minimum. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Respect to time of others and they will learn to respect yours.

Additional articles that may be of interest:

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Posted by Michael Gass

When it comes to new business Ad Agencies are ADHD

August 2, 2011

Photo Credit ADHD CENTER

ADHD is a problem with inattentiveness, over-activity, impulsivity, or a combination – It also is descriptive of most advertising agencies, especially when it comes to new business.

For a large number of ad agencies, the atmosphere is chaotic. It is an environment that is in a perpetual state of distraction. Working in this kind of climate is stressful. You’re constantly shifting from one task to the next. There are numerous interruptions and urgent requests throughout each day.

The digital revolution has created additional challenges – how do we stay focused and productive with so many intriguing distractions only a click away. That’s exacerbated with laptops, smartphones, tablets and the popularity of social media.

New business directors must continually refocus their attention, creating fatigue and decreased productivity. That’s bad for agency new business.

Office and internet distractions lessen productivity:

  • Every time we become distracted, it takes an average of 15 minutes to regain complete focus.
  • Gloria Mark, a UC-Irvine professor has found that the average employee switches tasks every three minutes, is interrupted every two minutes and has a maximum focus stretch of 12 minutes.
  • A study showed that people distracted by incoming email and phone calls saw a 10-point fall in their IQs, the equivalent of losing a nights sleep.
  • An American study reported in the Journal Of Experimental Psychology found our productivity goes down by as much as 40% when we attempt to do several things at once.
  • Studies by Gloria Mark, an ‘interruption scientist’ at the University of California, show that when people are frequently diverted from one task to another, they work faster, produce less, report significantly higher stress levels, frustration, workload, effort and pressure.

I have been working in ad agency new business almost my entire advertising career and have completed two post-graduate degrees. I’m   organized and focused but far from perfect. I’m constantly learning new techniques that lessen distraction and increase my productivity. 

One solution that has been the most helpful for me is to dedicate blocks of time to similar tasks. The result – it increases your productivity, creativity, and mental sharpness, while decreasing fatigue, procrastination, and stress. You simply group similar tasks that require similar resources in order to streamline their completion.

Set aside a specific amount of time for specific tasks and make a specific effort to not allow the distractions or disruptions of others break your focus. After that block of time is up, take a brief break, then begin to focus on the next block of time.

Here are some tips to help get you started:

  1. Write it down. Write down 4 to 5 of the most important tasks that need to be accomplished as you begin your day.
  2. Keep time. Use a wristwatch, timer, alarm, PDA or computer—anything that keeps accurate time and is within your sight at all times. When you start a task, say the time out loud or write it down. Allot yourself limited amounts of time for each task.
  3. Check off. After completing a task, manually mark it off your list.
  4. Take a break. A 5 minute break after the completion of each task.
  5. Begin again. Refocus, reset the timer and begin working on the next task.
  6. Take an extended break. After completing your top 4 to 5 task for the day, take a 20 minute break.

I’m a fan of a technique invented in the late 1980s by Francesco Cirillo, a professional in the fields of productivity and process improvement, called The Pomodoro Technique. This easy to use, simple system, used by professional teams and individuals in a range of fields has become a popular tool. It is easy to use and, most of all, it works.

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management system that can help prioritize and accomplish important agency new business tasks.

Here are some Pomodoro resources to help get you started:

  • Download the Pomodoro Technique® book for free or order it on the Internet or from your bookshop.
  • Cheat Sheet. Download a one-page overview of the Pomodoro Technique® .
  • The Pomodoro Technique To-Do Checklist
  • The Pomodoro Pro app is a timer tailored for people using the Pomodoro Technique and designed specifically for the iPhone or iPad.

Whatever plan you use, be committed to improve your focus and time management. Practice makes perfect.

12 Comments | Agency Leadership, Best Practices, New Business Tips, Time Management | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Multitasking Kills Productivity and That’s Bad for New Business

July 22, 2011

Photo Credit Daquella Manera

Research shows that the more you multitask, the worse you are at it and that can be bad for ad agency new business.

In some situations multitasking is deadly. I recently read of a well-known plastic surgeon who was killed when he accidentally drove his car over a cliff while sending a Twitter message about his dog. Most of us understand the dangers of multitasking while driving but many don’t realize that multitasking can be killing productivity.

The term “multitasking originated in the computer engineering industry, referring to the ability of a microprocessor to process several task at the simultaneously. Our ability to multitask is not as efficient as we might think.

On the surface multitasking sounds like it would boost productivity but studies show just the opposite happens:

Professor Earl Miller, a neuroscientist at the world-renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a leader in multi-tasking research, says, ‘People can’t do it very well, and when they say they can, they’re deluding themselves,’ he says. ‘The brain is very good at deluding itself.’ 

Psychiatrist Edward M. Hallowell has gone so far as to describe multitasking as a “mythical activity in which people believe they can perform two or more tasks simultaneously as effectively as one.” 

A study at the University of California found that multitasking impedes the brain’s ability to absorb information

Author of the book Distraction, Damon Young, says, “When we move from our job to an e-mail, it takes about a minute to recover our train of thought and then we get another e-mail, or an SMS, so our concentration is fractured. The result? We’re not really multi-tasking. We’re switching between tasks in an unfocused or clumsy way.”

Studies here in the US have shown that students who do homework while watching television get consistently lower grades.

“There is a cost to the way that our society is changing. Humans are not built to work this way, we’re really built to focus.” Russell Poldrack,UCLA psychology professor

Persons charged with business development for most small to mid-size ad agencies often wear multiple hats. That increases the likelihood that they do a lot of multi-tasking and are less efficient than they could be.

We are not made for multitasking and it actually hinders our productivity:

  • The time it takes to complete jobs increases significantly. People actually lose time rather than gain it. The brain has to restart and refocus. Switching attention is from one task to another, work may be faster but studies show that productivity is less.
  • Multi-taskers are prone to errors.
  • Multi-taskers are more easily distracted. The more they multitask the worse they are at it and the less they can focus on one thing.
  • Multitasking hurts relationships. Even though it isn’t intended, it makes clients, coworkers, friends and most importantly family feel unimportant.
  • Multitasking comes at a high price. It greatly increases stress,  even rage in adults and learning problems for children. You need to ask yourself, ‘is this the way I want to feel? Is this the way I really want to live my life?”

If you want to be productive it’s best not to multi-task at all. There is no downside to it. Here are 10 tips to overcoming multitasking:

  1. Embrace single tasking. Acknowledge the problem, “Hi, my name is Michael and I’m a multi-tasker.” 
  2. Manage your time better, do one thing at a time if at all possible.Schedule time to switch your attention from one task to another.
  3. Look for ways to create silence. I turn off any distractions and even use a set of noise canceling headphones to help me get into a focused state of mind.
  4. Turn off the cell phone and disable email alerts. Have set time to check voice mail and your inbox.
  5. Distractions on the internet are abundant. To bring strategy and focus to your online reading, use an RSS Reader such as Google Reader.
  6. Force yourself to disconnect. Take a break from social media and the internet.
  7. Create a To Do List for the day. Plan your day in blocks. Set  just a few primary objectives that you want to complete by end of day.
  8. Begin at in the mornings to complete your most important tasks.
  9. Amazing at how deadlines can keep things moving.  Give yourself less time helps hyper-focus your attention on the project at thand.
  10. Schedule in some periodic breaks during the day, such as going for a brief walk.

10 Comments | Agency Leadership, Best Practices, Fuel for Thought, New Business Tips, Time Management | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

The number one reason ad agencies new business plans fail

July 20, 2011

Photo Credit DigitalNative

Why new business plans tend to fail and what you can do about it.

For ad agencies that have a new business plan, the majority fall short in its implementation. The reason? According to a poll conducted by Mirren Business Development , when asked “What is the primary reason new business plans fail?”, 57% responded that it was a lack of discipline/accountability followed a lack of team commitment – 21%.

Here are 20 tips to overcome the lack of discipline/accountability and team commitment assuring success implementing a new business plan for your agency: 

  1. Set goals that are realistically achievable within the culture and resources of the agency.
  2. You’ll need to convert your strategic plan into a game plan that includes Milestone Dates, To Do List, Resources, Assignments, etc.
  3. One person who is responsible. Have a new business director/manager who is held accountable for its execution. If “everyone” is responsible for your agency’s new business, in actuality no one is. But that doesn’t mean that others, particularly agency principals aren’t involved in the process.
  4.  Top management must be intimately involved in the process. No one in the agency feels the pressure to succeed more than the agency principals. Like it or not, they are the face of the agency. Their involvement is important for new business and they shouldn’t shy away from this responsibility.
  5. Determine what is needed to achieve your priorities: People, funding, equipment, space, training/development, etc.
  6. Get organized: Use a program such as Basecamp, an excellent, inexpensive online project management tool to help in the implementation process.
  7. 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
  8. Look for ways to simplify your internal processes. From RFP responses, to new business reporting … always invoke the K.I.S.S. principle.
  9. It may also be wise to outsource some services when possible. For some agencies outsourcing certain aspects of their new business program to services such as Catapult New Business orRSW is the best option. I know of a large full service agency,with their own PR department, that chooses to outsource PR for the agency to keep it consistent.
  10. I say it often, you can’t improve it if you can’t measure it. Be sure to have measurements in place, but again, keep them simple.
  11. I would suggest developing a 1 page monthly new business report on activities and results.
  12. 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 will have 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.
  13. Create rituals for new business. If you are responsible for new business, you know how easy it is to get side-tracked within the agency environment. I would encourage you  to simply set up a routine in the morning that you do as soon as you wake up. This works so well because what you do early in the day often sets the context for your day. A bad start usually leads to a bad day.
  14. Consistency is a key component to ad agency new business. Remember that consistency is more important than perfection.
  15. Do the things that you dislike the most first and get them out-of-the-way. It provides me with an incentive to get to the tasks that I enjoy the most.
  16. Stay focused on the process. I’ve learned to maintain a consistency through the ups and downs by paying attention to the processes that I’ve created for new business. This makes me less prone to distractions and knee-jerk reactions. I know that if I consistently work the new business program that I have in place the results will come.
  17. Use simple reminders. I use reminders, either on a sticky-note, my computer DeskTop, pop-up alerts, to keep me on course throughout the day. I know what I want to achieve by the end of the day and I use a variety of tools to help keep me keep me on track.
  18. Celebrate successes. New business is tough. Especially in this economy. Life in the trenches for new business is nonstop hard work and often goes unnoticed. For the well-being of your new business team, it is important to stop, take the time to celebrate each new business victory.
  19. Resolve to stay the course. New business efforts are highly relational and take time to come to fruition.
  20. Incorporate “lessons learned” from accessing your accomplishments into the next year plan.

Additional articles that may be of interest:

5 Comments | New Business Plans, New Business Tips, Time Management | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Vacationing for Ad Agency New Business

July 18, 2011

Hopefully my personal experience can provide you with some ideas for you can keep your social media | new business program churning even while on vacation.

As I was preparing to write this post, I noticed that Edward Boches, Mullen’s Chief Creative Office,  had disconnected for a short period from his social media activity and described his experience in this blog article, “Random Thoughts from a Summer Vacation.”

Edward writes, “Ironically while social media connects us to strangers it isolates us from the people we’re closest to. I got a taste of my own medicine last week as I watched my daughter disappear into her Facebook and YouTube communities, half unaware of my presence. Now I know what my family feels like when I’m saying “uh huh,” but staring at one of my screens.”

New business is tough, especially in this economy plus the acceleration of communication’s technology, just keeping up can be exhausting. Life in the trenches for your agency’s new business is nonstop, hard work. For your family and your personal well-being, it is important to take some personal time off from the rigors of new business as well as a refreshing break from social media.

Recharging your batteries with personal time away is always good and often needed to avoid burn-out. But just because you are taking some much needed time off doesn’t mean your agency’s new business has to suffer. Utilizing social media, with a few select tools and tactics can keep your new business pipeline full even when you are away.

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve cut back on my social media engagement, unplugged myself for a period to reflect, rewind and redirect my energies. I’ve spent less time online over the past couple of weeks than anytime over the past 4 years. But, even while I’m off unwinding and off the grid my social media program continues to churn out new business opportunities.

Here’s are a few tactics that I employ to keep my social media | new business program working for me while I’m away:

  • My blog continues to generate traffic throughout my off period because it is highly optimized for search. I was also able to repurpose my blog’s content through multiple tools through other social media channels such as Twitter and Facebook.
  • Schedule Guest Post for content creation for your blog while you are away. John Sharpe, CMO of the BOHAN agency, created this post that was used for FUEL LINES while I was on sabbatical: How did YOU get into ad agency business development?
  • I created my  email newsletter in advance and preset it to publish during my break time.
  • I use a variety of social media apps to add some personal touches to my social media stream using my iPhone and iPad. It only a few minutes of my time per day while vacationing. Most of my followers wouldn’t even know that I’m mostly off the grid during this time.

Additional articles that may be of interest:

Leave a Comment » | Best Practices, Fuel for Thought, New Business Tips, Social Media, Time Management | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

7 Ways to Stay Connected for Ad Agency New Business

May 16, 2011

 

Some simple tips to stay connected and be available for prospects while you are traveling. 

Many agency CEOs and those charged with agency new business are traveling a lot these days. I just returned from an overseas trip and it was important for me to stay connected to my own social media new business network.

My on-the-road my basic equipment consists of:

  • A MacBook 13″, easier to use at airports and lunch counters. I prefer using my Mac when I write even when traveling.
  • I have an iPad and iPhone (my iPhone is jailbroken which helps with overseas travels and allows me to use T-Mobile’s data and cell phone plan).
  • I own a T-Mobile aircard/laptop stick but I prefer the Verizon version, that seems to have a much better coverage area. Sometimes it has been helpful that your laptop stick be a different service than your cell phone, when one has weak coverage in a particular area the other may be stronger signal.

Here’s some connection tips that I thought would be helpful to share.

  1. I never know what kind of internet service I’m going to get from one airport, hotel or conference facility. I always carry my T-Mobile air card. I wouldn’t leave home without it.
  2. As a backup for my presentations and other travel information I use Dropbox. It is a free service and I’ve found it to be extremely useful to me when I travel. I can also post large files for others to easily review.
  3. I absolutely love Tripit. I still use its free version which does all that I need it to do. You can easily organize trip details into one master online itinerary. It also will post trip updates through your social networks. When I arrive at an airport, one of the first things that I do is open up Tripit, touch the number for my ground transportation connection and it will automatically make the call. To many other great benefits to list here. But to say the least Tripit is one of my most essential travel tools.
  4. I often have sought out tips from others who are traveling to some of the same parts of the U.S. or abroad for their suggestions. I reached out to Trey Pennington for example. Trey travels often to the UK and provided some great advice. Particularly helpful was his recommendation to add the iPad 3g International plan.  I purchased the 50 MB global plan for a recent overseas trip. I only used a small portion of the plan and could have gotten by easily with the 20 MB plan. You can preset the travel dates in advance and have your iPad connection ready to go as soon as you land.
  5. I often use Skype while traveling for video and conference calls. It is free to start using Skype – to speak, see and instant message other people on Skype for example. For very little costs subscribe or pay-as-you go for additional features like call phones, access WiFi or send texts.
  6. I use the Tru global phone service and app to make calls from my iPad to land line phones and to persons who don’t have Skype.  Call recipients tell me that the call clarity is great. This tool was great when I made calls from the UK to the US.
  7. I use Foursquare often. It lets others who follow me know when I’m in or near where they are located. For example, I was in Nashville, TN recently, checked into a location with Foursquare which led to an invitation for coffee, a lunch meeting and an offer to drop by one of the agencies for an impromptu meet-and-greet.

I now have This is nowhere near an exhaustive list of tools and tactics to stay connected while traveling. I’m sure others have some additional tools and tips to add to this list. Please feel free to do so in the comment section below.

Update: Shortly after writing this post, I now have the Personal Hotspot for iPhone 4. I dropped my T-Mobile air card  service. I upgraded my Verizon cell plan to include the Hotspot service for $20. I’m also able to connect my iPad through Personal Hotspot which allowed me to also cancel my AT&T iPad data plan.

3 Comments | Best Practices, New Business Tips, Special Events, Time Management | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

10 Tips to Create a Consistent Ad Agency New Business Program

September 28, 2010

“Consistency is a key component to ad agency new business. Consistency is more important than perfection.”

Your agency’s new business program must be sustainable at the times when your agency is at its busiest. Too often new business development is put on the back burner until existing business decreases and a downturn begins. That creates a roller coaster effect on your agency’s pipeline of prospects which impacts agency income and causes you to accept the wrong type of client, from the wrong pool of prospects which do not fit your agency’s strengths and core competencies.

To be consistent, any agency new business program must:

  1. Be realistically achievable within the culture and resources of the agency
  2. Have a new business director/manager who is held accountable for its execution. If “everyone” is responsible for your agency’s new business, in actuality no one is. But that doesn’t mean that others, particularly agency principals aren’t involved in the process.
  3. Look for ways to simplify your processes. From RFP responses, to new business reporting … always invoke the K.I.S.S. principle.
  4. It may also be wise to outsource some services when possible. For some agencies outsourcing certain aspects of their new business program to services such as Catapult New Business or RSW is the best option. I know of a large full service agency,with their own PR department, that chooses to outsource PR for the agency to keep it consistent.
  5. I say it often, you can’t improve it if you can’t measure it. Be sure to have measurements in place, but again, keep them simple.
  6. Create rituals for new business. If you are responsible for new business, you know how easy it is to get side-tracked within the agency environment. I would encourage you  to simply set up a routine in the morning that you do as soon as you wake up. This works so well because what you do early in the day often sets the context for your day. A bad start usually leads to a bad day.
  7. Do the things that you dislike the most first and get them out-of-the-way. It provides me with an incentive to get to the tasks that I enjoy the most.
  8. Stay focused on the process. I’ve learned to maintain a consistency through the ups and downs by paying attention to the processes that I’ve created for new business. This makes me less prone to distractions and knee-jerk reactions. I know that if I consistently work the new business program that I have in place the results will come.
  9. Use simple reminders. I use reminders, either on a sticky-note, my computer DeskTop, pop-up alerts, to keep me on course throughout the day. I know what I want to achieve by the end of the day and I use a variety of tools to help keep me keep me on track.
  10. Celebrate successes. New business is tough. Especially in this economy. Life in the trenches for new business is nonstop hard work and often goes unnoticed. For the well-being of your new business team, it is important to stop, take the time to celebrate each new business victory.

One of the primary reasons that I’m such a huge advocate of social media is that it can help your agency to be more consistent with its new business program: “Social Media ‘Teaches’ Ad Agencies to Promote Themselves the Right Way.”

What is your best tip for being consistent?


2 Comments | Agency Leadership, New Business Tips, Time Management | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Reading Can Fuel Your Writing for Ad Agency New Business

August 2, 2010

“Okay, I believe that content marketing can create significant traffic to my agency’s blog and generate inbound new business leads. But my main concern is that I wont have enough to write about that would be of interest to my audience. What should I do?”

I’ve been writing about ad agency new business for four years. My wife will occassoinaly ask how can I possibly have anything more to write about regarding “ad agency new business”. But I still have plenty of ideas. At last count, I had over 200 post drafts that await my completion.

What fuels my writing? A solid reading program that keeps me ahead of the curve and provides the resources for writing.

My reading had to be strategic and more efficient. It also had to be focused, geared to the interest of my target audience which is small to midsize advertising agencies and specifically, ad agency new business. I learned early on to constantly manually searching online was a huge time waster.

The primary tool that simplified, strategized and focused my online reading more efficiently has been the use of an RSS Reader, specifically  Google Reader. This Reader is set as my Homepage,  on my Firefox browser to help me ritualistically start each day using it. I found that if I opened even on email, most of the day my reading was put on the back-burner.

Also, I’m ADD enough, that when I just Google information, I’m easily distracted and chase lots of rabbits. An hour or two goes by and I can’t even recall what I initially was searching for. Google Reader resolves this issue for me.

Using Google Reader can be awkward and first, but you will soon see its value and time-management benefits. I have hundreds of focused, daily RSS feeds coming to me instead of me searching for them. They are all one central location, organized in specific topical folders.

A couple of tools will enhance your Google Reader experience and make your reading seamless:

  • Bit.ly is a little tool is becoming a big deal. It is now the default shortener for Twitter and has rapidly become the most popular URL shortener available.Google Reader included it in their new “send-to” feature, which lets you share any post on Twitter, automatically shortening long URLs with bit.ly. Just sign up for bit.ly  and drag and drop into your browser bar.
  • Press This. This tool is for WordPress.com users. You can collect and share bits of the web easier and faster than ever with Press This, the new WordPress bookmarklet. Grab an article title, URL and info quickly and add it as a draft post. When you are in your writing mode, all you need do is go to your blog post drafts and you’ll have plenty of writing resources to kick start a new post.

In addition to an RSS Reader, eNewsletters also provide a great resource. Some of these are daily briefs and others are received either weekly or monthly. Here are a few of my choice newsletters:

A couple of other online sources that are directed to my Inbox allows me to stay organized and focused.

  • Google Alerts (Some handy uses of Google Alerts include monitoring news stories, keeping current on a competitor or industry)
  • TweetBeeps (Keep track of conversations that mention you, your URL, your clients, anything, with hourly updates)

Additional articles that may be of interest:

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2 Comments | Agency Blogs, Best Practices, Social Media, Time Management | Tagged: , , , , , , | 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: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

7 Tips to Find Time for Ad Agency New Business

July 8, 2010

Your agency’s new business program must be sustainable at the times when your agency is at its busiest.

To often new business development is put on the back burner until existing business decreases and a downturn begins. That creates a roller coaster effect on your agency’s pipeline of prospects which impacts agency income and causes you to accept the wrong type of client, from the wrong pool of prospects who do not fit your agency’s strengths and core competencies.

Definition: con·sis·tent

adj = able to maintain a particular standard or repeat a particular task with minimal variation

To be consistent, any agency new business program must be “realistically” achievable within the culture and resources of the agency.

A lot of agency’s, when they start thinking about new business, are doing so when they are not busy.  They should create a new business program that is sustainable when they are at their busiest.

7 tips to find time for ad agency new business, when you are at your busiest:

1. Have someone who is held accountable, who will also keep others accountable for the agency’s new business process. If “everyone” is responsible for your agency’s new business, in actuality no one is. But that doesn’t mean that others, particularly agency principals aren’t involved in the process.

2. Look for ways to simplify your new business processes. Your agency’s new business program should shut down or even slow down just because you have a couple of RFPs that have a short turn-around period or even if you have a significant new business pitch that week.

For all of your agency’s new business activities such as RFP responses, direct mail, phone calls, social media marketing, etc, always invoke the K.I.S.S. principle. It isn’t rocket science, so keep everything simple so that it is sustainable even during your agency’s peak periods.

3. Keep reporting to a minimum. I know of some agencies that overburden the person that is charged with new business with lots of detailed reporting on the persons daily or weekly activities. Don’t hold them accountable for the activities, hold them accountable for results. In the end that is what they are judged on anyway.

4. Keep meetings to a minimum. Don’t tie up your new business person(s) with meaningless meetings.

When I served as VP of new business for a regional ad agencies, we moved our new business staff to a quiet floor of the agency that no one else occupied. We didn’t get roped into the plurality of meetings that were being held throughout the day. This kept us out-of-site and out-of-mind so that we could stay focused on generating results for new business.

5. Create a support group. Involve junior level staff, interns and/or persons working remotely to carry out a lot of the “grunt” type new business work. There are many activities that don’t make financial sense for a new business executive to be doing on a daily basis. It isn’t smart business for their time to be used for some new business tasks.

6. Outsource services where it is appropriate. An example of a service that could be outsourced could be the agency’s prospective client database.  A lot of agency’s tell me about their data base of prospects. But most of the time, this type of a database is just a bunch of names and contact information gathered from lots of different efforts and sources. But there usually no one that is maintaining and updating the data because of the tremendous amount of time that it takes.

A midsize ad agency, outsourced their own PR for new business, even though they had a PR department. They found that outsourcing the service provided more accountability and consistency. “You can be sure it’s no accident that some agencies get more ink and air time than others. It’s because they have an intentional, ongoing effort to get their names in the marketplace, and they have made PR a priority” - Don Beehler, PR Consultant.

7. Maintain focus. Part of the excitement and also frustration of working within the agency environment is that it face paced and constantly changing. But this kind of environment makes easy to get sidetracked and wastes lots of time. And it will happen particularly if your new business program lacks focus.

To have focus, it is imperative that you create a simple new business plan and ritualistically work it. It must be the person responsible for new business to keep it headed in the right direction. Strategic, not reactionary.  Plan the work and work the plan. It is that simple.

Additional articles that may be of interest:

 

4 Comments | Best Practices, New Business Tips, Time Management | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Three Helpful Services Improves Ad Agency New Business

June 23, 2010

There are three services that are essential to “jump-start” you agency’s ability to generate inbound leads for new business using social media.

Most ad agencies are participating in social media, meaning they have a blog, Facebook Fan page, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts, but they haven’t connected the dots to generate qualified leads for their new business pipeline. It is primary for agencies to have a focused strategy and a clear objective for using social media specifically for new business.

Ad agencies can’t wait six months to start generating leads. They need to new business now.

To accelerate the time it takes for your online new business activities to begin producing, there are three services that I recommend:

To begin a successful agency new business program one of the first steps is to identify your best target audience and build a data base of company information that would include a contact database.

Many ad agencies and marketing services companies expect their new business director to build their own marketing and sales database. A number of ad agencies that I talk with attempt to maintain their own database of prospects. For a short list that is doable but if your list is large it is impossible to maintain unless you have someone totally dedicated to keeping it updated on a regular basis.

I recommend using a database service company. Most charge an annual fee to subscribe but the cost is usually worth the price because of the internal time saved along with updated information on thousands of companies, agencies and businesses.

My recommendation is The List, the service that I currently use and the service I recommend for my clients. It provided the “seed list” of email addresses for the FUEL LINES email newsletter. If I need information on a company not in their data base, I can make a request and The List will research and get the data for me.

It’s worth your time to review their free trial and explore how many of your targeted prospects they have in their data base.

Questions to help determine if  The List is the right new business database service for your agency:

  • How many “qualified” companies are listed that are viable prospects for your agency?
  • How many (marketing) contacts do they have at the companies that matter to me? Be sure they have them in the quantity you need to justify the expense for their.
  • What contact information is provided?  Beyond the usual address and phone numbers do they have sufficient numbers of email addresses which would be a great resource for your agency’s eNewsletter.

SocialOomph.com is a service that provides free and paid productivity enhancement services to fuel your agency’s new business through social media. It is not only a great tool for your agency but also one that will greatly help with your clients social media efforts.

Content marketing is a key component for using social media for ad agency new business. Content is written for SEO so that it will be found by your best prospects who elevate you to a position as a thought leader. SocialOomph will help to repurpose you content through multiple social media channels. It is a huge time saver.

Out of the  hundreds of tools that have been developed to enhance Twitter’s usefulness for marketing SocialOomph is the one that has been the most helpful for me.

These are some of the SocialOomph features that I like and use:

  • Manage multiple accounts from one dashboard (your agency’s as well as clients Twitter accounts)
  • Manage an unlimited number of blogs
  • Upload your agency’s blog posts and URLs from an Excel spread sheet, in bulk to Social Oomph
  • Pre-set the date/time range for each post in minutes
  • Automatically shorten post URLs through Bit.ly and track clicks
  • Automate – follow those who follow you in Twitter
  • Automate – unfollow those who don’t follow you in Twitter
  • Purge and filter your Twitter account’s DM box
  • Small monthly fee that is month-to-month, cancelable at any time (more than pays for itself for the time that it saves)
  • Junior level people/interns can be easily trained to use this tool on behalf of the agency and clients
  • You can also schedule your agency blog posts to Facebook, just keep the repurpose level to only a few per day

Basecamp is an online project management tool that focuses on communication and collaboration. It is the best tool that I’ve used for creating consistent new business programs for my clients. Many agencies enjoy it so well they in-turn use it for their clients. Basecamp expedites the new business process, provides an accountability system and moves projects forward. All communications, files, presentations, resources, meeting notes, etc. are all in one place. Milestones and To-Do lists easily created, assigned and tracked.

“Basecamp is so simple you (or your clients) can’t do anything wrong. Basecamp is addictively easy-to-use.” — Robert Hof, BusinessWeek

Basecamp features I love the most:

  • No “IT Guy” required
  • Nothing to download all Web-based, always up-to-date and backed-up
  • Plays well with Mac
  • Easily handles multiple client accounts and dozens of projects
  • Transfer info from one account to another such as detailed to-do lists
  • Any client can use it, no need for training

Additional new business resources: 75 Ad Agency New Business articles, posts, reports, surveys and white papers

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6 Comments | Agency Blogs, Best Practices, New Business Tools, Social Media, Time Management | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

A New Tool for Ad Agencies to Service Client’s Social Media?

March 11, 2010

Agencies need to track, measure and engage social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and others. The New Radian6 Engagement Console is a promising tool that equip your agency to listen, engage, and respond, in real time to conversations about your agency and your client’s brands.

This overview video provides a sneak peak of a tool that could enhance your agency’s social media services to clients:

The top 10 ad agency new business articles:

  1. Ad Agencies: 6 Quick Tips for Pricing and Servicing Social Media
  2. The Top 100 Social Brands of 2009
  3. Add A Fact Sheet for Ad Agency New Business
  4. Edward Boches: 5 questions every CMO should ask a prospective ad agency
  5. Survey: 2010 Digital Marketing Outlook
  6. Skin in the Game: Ad Agency Creates Mini-Mutual Fund of Clients’ Stocks
  7. The Top 10 Social Media Questions Ad Agency Clients are Asking
  8. 12 Blog Writing Tips to Generate Ad Agency New Business
  9. Creating an iPhone App for Your Ad Agency’s Blog
  10. Twitter List: 500+ Advertising Agencies on Twitter

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1 Comment | New Business Tools, Social Media, Time Management | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Ad Agencies: 6 Quick Tips for Pricing and Servicing Social Media

January 19, 2010

Two of the most asked questions I receive from agencies are: “How do we price social media?” and “How Do we service social media?”

Many advertising agencies are trying to sell social media services and even though they don’t know how to price it nor service it. In prospective client meetings, if the agency brings up social media, it generally will peak a prospects interest.

A lot of agencies are still struggling for any new business opportunities.  So, if it generates interest and leads to a project, they’ll sell it and try and figure out how to price it and service it when they get back to the office. I’m sure your agency has never been guilty of anything like that. Truth be known, most of us have done it at one time or another.

The agencies that do have some experience with social media tend to “over-think” social when they try to price it and create a plan for servicing it. They make it much more complex than it is.

Social media is very time intensive but usually has very little hard cost associated with it. Agencies are accustom to charging for their time and that should make it easier when they need to create a proposal for social media services.

Here are my six quick tips to help with the pricing and servicing of social media:

  1. Create a very detailed proposal based on “scope of work”
  2. Use a blended rate when pricing agency time, often $125 per hour for small-to mid-size agencies
  3. Provide clients with a flat-rate monthly retainer agreement
  4. Understand and utilize the social media 3rd party tools that will allow your agency to handle multiple accounts
  5. Train your staff in time management skills specific to social media to maximize their efficiency in handling client accounts
  6. Equip junior level staff members to handle a lot of the day-to-day “grunt” work in servicing social media accounts for clients (monitoring, blog comments, Twitter, Google alerts, maintaining Twitter, schedule, etc).

If you have additional tips, please share them in the comment section below.

Additional articles that may be of interest:

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35 Comments | Agency Leadership, Best Practices, Social Media, Time Management | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

10 iPhone Apps for Ad Agency New Business

December 10, 2009

For your social media efforts to be effective for inbound lead generation, its important for you to stay connected. Apps make it easier to do so, even when you are at your busiest.

If you don’t have an iPhone I highly recommend them. I was a long time Blackberry loyalist but finally decided to make the switch. Its been worth it. The apps are a big part of the iPhones success. There are now over 200,000 and and its expected there will be over 300,000 iPhone apps before the end of 2010.

The iPhone is a handheld computer. It not only is my phone and allows me to send and receive email but also web browsing, GPS, games, scanner, radio, TV/Video monitor and much more.

I’ve assembled a list of some handy iPhone apps that allow me to be efficient as I travel and make the most of my time out of the office. Here’s my personal top 10 list:

1. WordPress app for iPhone

This iPhone app lets you write posts, upload photos, edit pages, and manage comments on your blog from your iPhone or iPod touch. With support for both WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress (2.7 or higher), you can up and going in seconds.

Available on the App Store

2. Tweetdeck app for iPhone

Tweet on the go with all your favorite TweetDeck features, including the ability to view and update Facebook, direct from your iPhone.

Available on the App Store

3. Facebook app for iPhone

Facebook for iPhone makes it easier than ever to stay connected wherever you are. You can easily update your status numerous times day once you have Facebook in your pocket. The site lets you search for people with just a few quick taps and call your friends directly from their profile. Facebook events become even easier with your iPhone, as you can quickly look up maps and directions on the go. Available on the App Store

4. DropBox app for iPhone

The free Dropbox iPhone app lets you:

  • Access your Dropbox on the go.
  • View your files on your iPhone or iPod Touch.
  • Download files for offline viewing.
  • Take photos and videos and sync them to your Dropbox.
  • Share links to files in your Dropbox.
  • View interactive photo galleries.
  • Sync downloaded files so they’re up-to-date.

This is one of my favorite apps. I use it to transfer documents that I’m using while traveling, and documents that I need to share. Super simple. Works easily across Mac and PC’s as well as iPhone.

Available on the App Store

5. Scanner Pro app for iPhone

Scanner Pro transforms your iPhone into portable scanner. It easily handles situations when you have printed document that should be send by email and there is no scanner nearby. You can scan multipage documents and email them or upload it to your DropBox (mentioned above). You also can transfer a scanned document to your desktop computer over Wi-Fi and, if you use iPhone 3GS, transform it into editable MS Word file with desktop OCR tool of your choice.

I never dreamed I would use this app as much as I do. It has come in very handy.

Available on the App Store

6.  Evernote app for iPhone

Evernote’s claim is that it helps you remember everything.  This iPhone app lets you create notes, snap photos, and record voice memos that you can then access any time — from your iPhone, computer, or the web.

Special features:

  • Create text, snapshot, and voice notes any time
  • Snap photos of white board, business cards, or wine labels and Evernote will recognize the text in the images
  • Turn your iPhone on its side to scroll through an endless stream of notes.
  • Quickly find your note by location using Evernote’s map view

Available on the App Store

7. MEO (My Eyes Only) app for iPhone

My Eyes Only is an iPhone application designed to secure your personal information by password protecting encrypted personal information that includes, web site passwords, credit card numbers, banking information, identity card information, passports, and other personal information that iPhone users want to carry with them for instant access. MEO uses secure RSA encryption to protect sensitive information from loss or theft, and protects access to all MEO personal information with user chosen passwords.

Very handy.

Available on the App Store

8. Dragon Dictation app for iPhone

Dragon Dictation is an easy-to-use voice recognition application  that allows you to speak and instantly see your text or email messages, 5 tims faster than typing on the keyboard. You can send voice-to-text messages on your iPhone by SMS, Email or paste into any applications.

Simple to use and works surprisingly well.

Available on the App Store

9. Jeremiah Owyang’s Blog app for iPhone

Web Strategist, Jeremiah Owyang, is among the first bloggers to have his own iPhone app that extends his reach to the mobile medium. This is not only an example of what is to come from other bloggers, Jeremiah offers great insight into web strategies, interactive marketing and social technologies.

Available on the App Store

10. Advertising Age app for iPhone

The most recent news and views from Ad Age, the leading source of the advertising/marketing industry. You can read it and share it while on the go.

Available on the App Store

Additional article that may be of interest: Creating an iPhone App for Your Ad Agency’s Blog

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15 Comments | New Business Tools, Social Media, Time Management | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Overcoming Social Media Writer’s Block

November 30, 2009

If your agency is going to effectively use social media for inbound lead generation then you must have content. You have to develop a system to write even during the of busiest times and also when you have bouts with writers block.

Overcoming social media writer’s block: If you put your focus on what your audience wants to read (rather than what you want to write), the whole game changes — and the shift is in your favor. Dave Navarro, Copyblogger

I’m now going on my third year of writing articles and post for small-to midsize ad agency new business through social media. At last count I’ve written 417 posts. My wife has asked me on numerous occasions what do I have left to write about.

I can honestly say, during all this time, I haven’t struggled with “writers block” until recently. My guess is that I’ve spent so much time online that I needed more offline time to recharge my batteries, gain a fresh perspective and regain my fire and passion for doing this.

I recommend a blog to be the central component for your agency’s social media strategy for inbound lead generation. Let it become the “gateway to your agency.” Content is vital. No doubt you will have periods of “writers block.” I thought I would share my personal insights in overcoming it. I hope these will be a help to you:

There was no getting around the fact that I had to pay my dues in social. The past couple of years I’ve put forth the effort to “catch up” and devised a plan to get a head of the curve just as if I were back in grad school. Which meant nights, weekends, very little time off, with very little time offline, just whatever it took. I know that I can’t continue to do that and I feel that I have developed some good habits that are maintainable but now I need a better diet, exercise, down-time with the family, etc. to recharge my batteries and stay fresh. So time off is important.

With the bouts of writers block and burn out, one of the ways to clear my head was to read. I turn to my Google Reader and my RSS subscriptions. I also rely on some good email newsletters such as The eMarketer Daily, Ragan’s PR Daily, SmartBrief on Social Media and Harvard Business Publishing. I have a great respect for some people within our own industry who are among the first to understand social from an advertising industry perspective. People like: Edward Bosches, Jay Baer,  Jason Falls, Avi Savar. I follow their blogs and connect with them through Twitter and Facebook. My reading keeps me up to date and generates new ideas and keeps my mental juices flowing.

You don’t know what you know until you write it down. That old cliche inspired me when I first started writing and stays in the back of my mind. When I get into a mental fog and have difficulty with writing, I simply write. It helps me to see the forest from the trees, think my way clear. I have over 230 blog post drafts. Some will eventually be published and a good number will never see the light of day, but they were a good mental exercise that helped me to clear my head.

Lack of focus. I’ve been privileged to work with over 50 advertising agencies to assist in developing their positioning, new business pipeline and social media strategy. The ones that have the most difficulty are the ones that lack focus. Reflecting on my recent struggle with content, I think that it was purely a lack of focus. I’ve been working on a plan for next year that I had not completed and felt like I was in a bit of a flux, in a state of limbo and I think that had a direct impact upon my writing. Focus makes the writing so much easier. Especially when you can clearly identify your target audience and you know your objectives.

A shortage of confidence. As I reflect back, this bout with writer’s block started about the time of my Social Media | New Business Round Table retreat with Jaci Russo, Razzor Branding, Stephanie Holland, She-conomy, Park Howell, A Brighter Shade of Green Marketing, S.A. Habib, Blue Collar Branding and John Sonnhalter, Tradesmen Insights.

These are all very talented creative people.To be very candid with you there are times when I have doubts about my own abilities and lose my self confidence. I’ve worked with enough great copy writers to know that I’m not one of them but here I am writing a blog. My readers are very forgiving and kind. For whatever reason, they seem to like what I write and want more. I simply try and provide help and be a resource to them. If I retain that simple formula it seems to work very well.

Most importantly – It is not I want to write about. I have to write about what my audience wants to read. I fully agree with Dave Navarro’s advice, particularly for social media, you have to zone in on what your audience is interested in reading. It’s not what I’m passionate about it’s what their needs are. To know what my audience wants from me, I  have to listen and engage with them.

Quick tips for overcoming “writers block”:

  • Identify a need
  • Create a writing schedule
  • Turn off distractions (TV, iPhone, etc)
  • Set deadlines
  • Research it
  • Nike’s “Just Do It” approach
  • Write. Stop thinking and start writing
  • Keep a list of blog post ideas
  • Connect ideas to your specific audience
  • Find your best time to write
  • When you don’t know what to write, conduct an interview
  • Free write without editing
  • Determine your topic

Additional Writer’s Block Articles:

 

15 Comments | Agency Blogs, Social Media, Time Management | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Ad Agencies: 94 Social Media Monitoring Tools and Solutions

September 9, 2009

Ad agency new business can be negatively impacted if you are not monitoring your agency’s brand.

“Customers, prospects and peers are discussing your brand, your industry and your competitors right now in social media: with or without you. Unfortunately, choosing not to listen doesn’t make those conversations go away. Actively listening means protecting brand reputation, discovering opportunities, staying competititive and avoiding runaway crisis”. David Alston of Radian6, a leader in the field of social media measurement

Ben Kutz, through his post, List of social media monitoring tools, introduced me to a great list that was initiated by Ken Burbarby. I actually found this resource as a result of monitoring my own brand and comments that had been made about one of my recent post.

Ken says, “When the Social Media Monitoring Tools & Solutions Wiki launched a little more than two and half weeks ago, I wasn’t sure what the response from the social media community would be. To say the least, it has been overwhelming. I’m grateful to all the people that volunteered to expand on the original list, and submitted additions of their own. In a short time, we’ve built up a comprehensive set of world class monitoring tools from companies that span the globe. I’ve already received a deluge of feedback, requests for more information, and ideas to expand on what is already there.

As of right now, the social media monitoring wiki contains 34 free tools(wow!) that you can use to listen to online conversations with, along with 60 paid commercial tools, ranging from inexpensive and lightweight for smaller tasks, to heavy duty full service platforms.”

Click here to view Ken’s Master List of social media monitoring tools

8 Comments | Social Media, Time Management | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

How to Generate Traffic to Your Ad Agency’s Blog with Repeat Tweets

September 2, 2009

Twitter has long outgrown the original intent of its early adopters, establishing relationships with people by answering the question, “What are you doing?” 


 My Twitter participation from the very beginning has been from a new business perspective. How to use this new communication’s tool for ad agency new business. The way that I use it has been different than most. At times I receive some criticism from some early adopters of Twitter that I’m not using it correctly. 

One of the early Twitter rules: Do not repeat your Tweets.

Well, I’m proud to say that I never followed that rule. Now others are starting to see the light. I recently read a post by social media mega star, Guy Kawasaki, How to Drive Traffic with Repeat Tweets. Guy shares an experiment he conducted re-tweeting some of his posts that was hugely successful … he advises:

“Based on these experiences, I encourage you to break all the “rules” that you’ve heard about social media and make your own. Like my friends from Alaska tell me, unless you’re the lead dogma, the view never changes.”


This past month I had 25,000+ page views to Fuel Lines. Twitter generated more traffic to my blog than any other tool I’ve used. Here’s how I use repeat Tweets:

Create a Twitter Schedule

I actually create a “twitter media schedule” for over 370 of my blog post using an Excel spread sheet. I assign 168 of these posts a specific day and time to publish on Twitter. I publish a different post every hour, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. For example a post that is published on Thursday at 2:30 PM, will post every Thursday at that time until I rotate it to a different day/time placement or take it out of the rotating schedule.  

Usually the only complaint that I will receive will be from a few of those that are following less than 200 people. You will get some that will unfollow.  I keep a check on unfollowers using a tool called SocialToo and receive an email generated daily report. 

Use Twitter tool: Social Oomph (formally known as Tweetlater)

 

social oomph tweetlater

Using my twitter media schedule I add each post to Social Oomph and select a day/time for the post to publish and the recurrence to once a week. Social Oomph has a tool to shorten the URL so basically I’m publishing a post title and tiny URL so that it stays within Twitter’s 140 character limit. Almost all of my post titles identify my target audience so that they know the post is a resource of interest to them and can also be found through search.

Whenever I add a new post to my blog I will also post it immediately to Twitter, include it in my Twitter Schedule and add it to Social Oomph (Tweetlater).

Keep check of your blog analytics to see what posts are trending higher then periodically, usually once a quarter, add your higher trending posts to Twitter’s “prime-time” between 11 am and 3 pm so they will get more exposure. 

I publish round the clock because of the traffic that can be generated from other time zones. Along with a large West Coast following I’ have a following and traffic to my blog from places like Brazil, England and Tokyo.  

The time and effort that goes into creating a single blog posts can provide a great return on your investment. Blog posts that I’ve written 2 years ago continue to generate traffic back to my blog.

For Twitter to have real value from a new business perspective for ad agencies, you must have a clear objective and follow a simple formula for use.

To reach my objective to my blog’s traffic and exposing it to a new but targeted audience, I’ve followed Angela Maiers 70-20-10 Twitter Engagement Formula.

70 to 80% of my “Twittertime” is spent sharing helpful information for ad agency new business with my audience. I do this in two ways:

  1. I share lots of information from my online reading that I think will be of help to my audience.  I’m able to use some tools such as TwitThis that I’ve placed in my browser bar. When I come across a good article that I think will be of help all I have to do is click on TwitThis and automatically post the article title and tiny URL into my Twitter account.
  2. I also share the content from my FUEL LINES blog.  Repeating older posts, that are still useful, have new life. The best posts are often re-tweeted and exposed to new networks of people.

Twitter is more than a fad. It is a valuable marketing tool. The searchability of Twitter already have some saying that it can become even more valuable than Google. Twitter tools such as Social Oomph make it priceless. 

Read more on how I use Twitter for new business: A Simple Twitter Formula for Ad Agency New Business

Additional articles that may be of interest:

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16 Comments | Agency Blogs, Social Media, Time Management, Twitter | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

When Ad Agencies Should Be Leading in Social Media, Most are Overwhelmed

August 4, 2009

So many new media channels, so little time! Is Social Media Overwhelming Your Ad Agency?

Barbara Bacci Mirque, executive vice president of the Association of National Advertisers, ANA, recently observed that,

“More and more advertisers are leading their agencies into new media, not the other way around,” and that ”clients are the ones who are personally and professionally experimenting with new media forms and directing their agencies to look into them.” 

“When I started out in this business in the mid 80’s as an assistant product manager at The Frito-Lay Company, we expected our advertising agencies to be innovative and inform us about what was hip and cool – now it appears to be the other way around,” she wrote in the ANA blog.

I launched my ad agency new business consultancy entirely through the use of social media. With three kids in college I had to generate new business quickly. When I started my consultancy, I was determined that I was going to use the new business tools that I  recommend my clients and put into practice what I preach. There is no replacement from personal hands on experience when it comes to social media, if you are going to truly “get it.”

What is my motivation? I’m a participant because I’m a believer that I must know emerging media and the changes occurring in the advertising industry through new communication technology for my own professional survival. We are in the midst of a communications revolution as dynamic as was the invention and growth of television to our culture and its impact upon the ad industry.

My approach to new media is focused. I have learned to develop a disciplined approach and that focus comes from defining my target audience and be positioned to benefit them through my services.

When I’m writing blog posts for FUEL LINES I’m providing posts to to help them overcome their obstacles and challenges in generating new business for their small-to mid-size ad agency. I primarily write about new business tactics, tips, trends, talents and tools. I write exclusively for my target group. Knowing my audience provides me with focus and direction.

By identifying the key words that my target audience would use to find my content I can dominate the first two pages of Google. I also become aware of is appealing to them through my blog’s analytics.  They are the “judge and the jury” and they ultimately decide what is of interest.

My target group engages with me online and I learn a great deal about their challenges. What keeps them up at night.  There are a commonality of problems that help me hone in on finding solutions. Just this week past week I have had interactions through email, blog post comments, Twitter, LinkedIn, FaceBook and by phone with ad agencies located in Phoenix, Atlanta, Birmingham, Nashville, Dallas, San Diego and even agencies in Canada, Brazil, England and New Zealand. It amazes me how similar their new business problems are no matter where the agency is located.

When I started my consultancy to small-to mid-size ad agencies, I was advised that I should broaden my scope, my focus was to limited and my niche to narrow. But I have been able to generate a national awareness and a position of expertise among my best prospects within a short period of time and at very little cost using social media.

In my opinion participating in social media is a professional survival tool for those in the advertising industry.

It is the greatest professional enrichment tool that I have ever used. It keeps me current, connected and informed. Plus it is the best tool for agency branding that I’ve worked with. It simplifies the branding process for agencies and allows for engagement with their potential clients to test and hone their brand’s appeal. In addition, social media has become a great new business tool that produces a pipeline of inbound leads and networking opportunities with an agency’s best prospective clients. And to top it all off, as you are becoming professionally enriched, branding your agency, generating new business, you are learning to use social media and will be able to help your clients and provide a powerful demonstration by using the tools you recommend they use.

I’ve taken the attitude that I’m back in graduate school and I’m putting in the extra time to immerse myself for my personal benefit as well as being able to provide help to my clients. I confess, I’m working a lot of nights and weekends. But I can say truely that it has been worth all of the time and effort. Lead generation from new media is beyond my expectations.

This is an exciting time to be in advertising. We are in the midst of a communication revolution. It is possible for small and midsize agencies to be ahead of the curve and make great gains for their business.

The best way to understand new media is to experience it first hand. So roll up your shirt sleeves and get involved.

5 tips to handle social media when feeling overwhelmed:

  1. Set simple, obtainable goals and objects
  2. Stay focus, it’s easy to have ADD while online
  3. Manage your online time
  4. Find and use the online tools that provide you with short cuts and efficiencies
  5. Create a strategic reading program and manage the content that is fed to you

Additional articles that may be of interest:

5 Comments | New Business Tips, New Business Trends, Social Media, Time Management | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

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