16 Signs That Social Media Isn’t Working for Ad Agency New Business

April 18, 2011

If your agency’s social media participation isn’t generating traffic and new business leads, it is important to know why. 

How can an agency help a client monetize their social media when it doesn’t have a handle on how to use it for itself? As more-and-more agencies jump on the social media band-wagon, clients are beginning to ask them,“what has social media done for you?”

Gone are the days when an agency can get by “talking the talk but not walking the walk.” Clients will be able to discern between the agencies that truly get social media from the ones that don’t with just a few clicks of their mouse.

100% of our clients are online and all they have to do is take a quick look and they can easily tell that most agencies have no plan with regards to social media. Agencies may have a blog, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts, but those accounts often hide behind the agency name and tend to be blatantly self promotional with little value to an undefinable audience.

Used correctly, social media makes new business easier not harder. It is an incredible communication’s channel for easily generating new business leads and creating personal networks far beyond your local market.

No traffic + no leads = no new business. Here are 16 signs that most likely indicate your social media isn’t working for your agency:

  1. No social media strategy, no plan. 60% of companies using social media have no plan. I would say from my own experience that is probably true of most agencies.
  2. No clear objective for using social media. The first step in creating a social media strategy for your agency, you MUST have an objective. I suggest it should be for new business.
  3. There is no focus on a particular target audience. The second step in creating in a social media strategy is to identify who you are trying to reach.
  4. A lack of positioning for agencies. The FOUNDATION of an ad agency’s new business program is its positioning.
    “The common failing among agencies seeking new business is the inability, or unwillingness, to name what they stand for,”Bob Lundin, Agency search consultancy Jones Lundin Beals. Social media provides a great opportunity to showcase how your agencies are different.
  5. Agencies using social media for blatant self-promotion. Credentials and capabilities belong on an agencies website but shouldn’t be the driving force of their social media program. Social media should be centered around benefits.
  6. No integration between blogging, Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. When the majority of agencies finally ‘jumped into’ social media, they just jumped in with a check list of channels. Yes we have a blog, Facebook Fan page, Twitter account and LinkedIn. But there was no convergence, bringing them together into a single social media strategy.
  7. Agencies are waiting passively for prospective clients to them. If you build it, doesn’t guarantee that prospects are going to come.
  8.  Many agencies lack appreciation for those that are willing ambassadors for your agency.  Zig Ziglar’s statement, “You can have everything in life that you want if you just give enough other people what they want.”  His philosophy works well in the arena of social media.
  9.  A lot of social media efforts fail because of the lack of value/benefit for the intended audience. Your audience will be your judge and jury as to whether you have an appealing position, post titles that spur interest, content that is beneficial.
  10. A lot of agencies obviously don’t care about anybody but themselves. To successfully build an online community, you must staf focused on the perspective and interests of your prospective clients. You have to genuinely care about their challenges and obstacles.
  11. There’s no SEO strategy for your agency’s social media presence. According to Marketing Sherpa, 80-90% of business to business transactions begin with a search on the web. A CMO survey, 80% of decision makers say they found the vendor, not the other way around. “Content Doesn’t Win. Optimized Content Wins” – Li Evans, search marketing guru
  12. Your agency’s social media ship has no rudder. Getting your staff on the same page and keeping them there is like  herding cats. Empower the person charged with your agency’s new business to keep your social media efforts focused and directed.
  13. Followers instead of leaders. Most agencies are still using social media the way the early adopters of social media intended. Instead of pressing the envelope for lead generation and networking for new business. This in no way means that you are SELLING.
  14. A mindset of income first. Just like in our offline networks and referrals, it’s relationships first. People want to work with other people that they know, trust and like.
  15. Attending offline events such as trade shows and conferences without inclusion in your agency’s social media efforts. 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.
  16. No social media training for their staffs. According to a recent 4A’s and Arnold Worldwide survey, 90% of agency staff say they have to figure things out on their own due to the lack of training.

Additional social media + ad agency new business articles that may be of interest:

6 Comments | Best Practices, New Business Tips, New Business Trends, Social Media | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

10 Tips for Writing for the Web for Ad Agency New Business

March 3, 2011

To fuel ad agency new business through social media, creating content is critical.

According to a social media study by King Fish Media, HubSpot and Junta42, original content, both branded and expert, is by far the most employed tactic for social media.

And … “businesses (agencies) that blog, get 55% more website traffic than those that don’t.”

Creating valuable content increases website traffic that will equate into new business leads. But writing for web can be daunting, even for experienced copywriters. They are often the ones that struggle the most with making the transition from print to web.

“Content marketing is a commitment, not a campaign.” – Jon Buscall

It doesn’t matter how great you write if no one finds your content and if they do find it, there’s no benefit to you unless they read it.

You need to think carefully about structuring and formatting your online content to ensure your readers find it  and read it. Here are my 10 tips to help you write better for the Web:

  1. Provide a Reader’s Digest or Executive Summary version. Readers love bullet pointed and numbered lists. That’s why so many readers are attracted to post titles that offer 10 tips or 25 ideas, etc.The work you do on behalf of your readers to simplify will be greatly appreciated and keep them coming back for more.
  2. Key words in every post titles. Write for SEO. It doesn’t matter how great your article is if no one can find it. A simple tip to help boost your rankings in Google search is to identify and use certain key words in every post title. 90% of my posts will contain ‘ad agency new business’ in the title. It helps not only for search but will also help drive ‘targeted traffic’ as your posts are repurposed through Twitter. With only 140 characters that you can use for Twitter, that’s not much more than your title and a shortened URL.
  3. Lead with the conclusion. I advise that you begin each post by starting with the conclusion, a take-away or benefits statement. Just answer this question, ‘what is my benefit if I commit to read this post?’
  4. Break up long paragraphs. A reader’s attention span online is much less than for print. Readers tend to scan instead of reading word-for-word. Keep paragraphs concise and short.
  5. Be sure and provide hyper links to your sources. Don’t be afraid that you will lose your audience if they go to another source. Your blog should become a repository of helpful resources for your readers.
  6. Make your content scannable to the eye. Use bold, italics, quotation marks, indention, etc. to make copy pop. A person should be able to quickly scan through your article and get the most important parts.
  7. Write in an Inverted Pyramid style. Similar to the way a newspaper reported would write, the most important copy should be at the top of your post.
  8. Use common language. This is an opportunity to do away with industry jargon and agency speak and write content that resonates with your intended audience.
  9. Get to the point, quickly. Online readers are extremely impatient. If you wade into a story and it takes 3 or 4 paragraphs to make show how it relates, you will have lost your audience before you’ve made your point.
  10. Make your post visually pleasing. I always include a nice photo or graphic to further drive home the main purpose of a post. Using them will create interest and help draw in a reader.

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

6 Comments | Agency Blogs, Content Marketing | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Social Media: The Shoe Firm, the Celebrity and the Ad Agency

March 1, 2011

iCrossing helped SKECHERS use social to become a more connected brand — in this case through a partnership with celebrity Kim Kardashian.

This is a guest post written by David Deal who currently serves as VP,Marketing for iCrossing, a global digital marketing agency. I first met David when he was charged with business development for Razorfish. He was an early adopter of social media and is a skilled and creative digital marketer plus an all around nice guy.

SKECHERS has partnered with the socially savvy celebrity to encourage everyone to break up with our bad habits and get into shape (a campaign launched via a Super Bowl spot in which Kim breaks up with her trainer because she can do a better job with her own SKECHERS Shape-ups).

To continue promoting the idea of keeping in shape with SKECHERS, iCrossing developed a campaign reaching multiple touch points including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and the SKECHERS website. The cross-platform approach helps SKECHERS share valuable content and keep its brand visible in an engaging way with new and current customers.

Using a feature called in-stream apps, friends of the SKECHERS Facebook page can watch the Super Bowl ad and take a poll to vote on a bad habit they would like to break, such as junk food. And you can get immediate results from all other participants in a single post.

All this functionality occurs within your Facebook news feed, where we spend most of our Facebook time, whereas typically the content would live in an engagement ad or a separate tab. (You can also drop bad habits on Twitter by using #BreakingUpWith.)

The SKECHERS page also offers exclusive promotions for Facebook fans to receive discounts from SKECHERS products on its website and a useful Fitness Shoe Finder (that helps you match the right fitness shoe for you), among other features.

SKECHERS has seen a 300% increase in its Facebook fan count since the campaign launched three weeks ago (compared to the prior three weeks leading up to the campaign). And engagement with the in-stream app has doubled compared to the normal volume of posts. The campaign runs through March 6.

Meantime, to get iCrossing employees involved, I’ve blogged about the work on one of the iCrossing company blogs, Tweeted about it, and encouraged employees to do the same. They’re doing their part to support clients by doing some basic actions that employees often overlook unless encouraged. I’m having fun collaborating with our people to tell our story.

Follow David on Twitter: @davidjdeal

Leave a Comment » | Client Campaigns, Social Media | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Chris Brogan: The Future of Media

February 21, 2011

To create new business opportunities for your agency, it is imperative to stay ahead of your clients and be aware of the possibilities of media in the  near future.

It is the people who figure out how to work simply in the present, rather than the people who mastered the complexities of the past, who get to say what happens in the future.” Clay Shirky

Chris Brogan was an early adopter of social media. I learned a great deal from him when I launched my consultancy through social media back in 2007. I’ve watched Chris build his personal brand awareness through social media to become one it’s rock starts.  He  has created an interesting video, discussing the future of media that I thought would be of interest to the ad agency community. Chris shares 7 ideas where he things media is going for the future and invites your participation in the discussion:

  1. Media will be Multi Touch
  2. Media will be Mobile
  3. Media will be Serial
  4. Media will be Two-Way
  5. Media will be Rich Data Mined
  6. Media will be Subscription Based
  7. Media will be Faster with Longer Burn

Chris Brogan consults and speaks professionally with Fortune 100 and 500 companies like PepsiCo, General Motors, Microsoft, and more, on the future of business communications, and social software technologies. He is a New York Times bestselling co-author of Trust Agents, and a featured monthly columnist at Entrepreneur Magazine. Chris’s blog,[chrisbrogan.com], is in the Top 5 of the Advertising Age Power150.

Click on the following link to participate in the conversation by sharing your thought on the Future of Media

Some additional articles as to the future of the ad industry that may be of interest:

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

My Twitter Formula for Ad Agency New Business

February 16, 2011

Photo Credit xotoko

How to engage Twitter with purpose and intention for agency new business.

Twitter is the leading traffic generator to my blog Fuel Lines. Out of 30,000 monthly page views, Twitter easily delivers more than half of my blog’s traffic.

Twitter, like SEO, also delivers highly targeted traffic to my blog.  My tweets are specific to a clearly defined audience, ad agencies.

When I first started using Twitter I stumbled upon a ‘twitter engagement formula‘ shared by an educational consultant, Angela Maiers. Her simple formula helped me to understand the potential of using Twitter for new business. Angela calls it her 70-20-10 Formula for using Twitter. Over time I’ve refined her formula and created my own method that I share often in agency workshops, conferences and meetings.

So here it is, My Formula for using Twitter specifically used specifically to generate blog traffic and create new business leads:

Share Helpful Resources

Sharing resources that are of value to my niche Twitter followers makes up 75% of my tweets.

I share content from my blog. Over 600 posts are circulated through Twitter. All specifically written for ad agencies, providing new business tips, trends and specific tactics. A repository of information to help make agency’s new business program easier. Here are a few examples of recent Tweets that link back to my blog’s content:

Few of those on Twitter are creating and sharing original content. You want to be the one whose content your followers are retweeting, sharing with their followers, exposing your content through their personal networks which creates awareness and a strong appeal.

People want to work with other people that they know, trust and like. Sharing resources through Twitter can keep top-of-mind awareness for your services.

I also share rich, helpful content that I find through my reading. I usually spend the mornings perusing through my RSS feeds in Google Reader. Content from a wide variety of online resources into one location. I save a considerable amount of my time, not having to constantly searching for content.

Meers Advertising turns itself around by plugging into digital | Kansas City Business Journal http://bit.ly/eeKczE

Downloadable Report: B2B Blogging Trends in 2011 featuring @johnsonnhalter @jaybaer http://bit.ly/emjPB0

When I find something particularly good that I think will be of benefit to my audience, I can immediately share it through bit.ly, or schedule a time to share it through tools like Hootsuite or Co-tweet.  This way I can scatter the helpful articles that I’m finding, over time instead of Tweeting them all within my morning reading hour.

I share tweets from others. I use some personal Twitter lists that I have created to help me keep up with Tweets from friends and other groups that I find helpful. When read something good, I’ll retweet it.

RT @TimWilliamsICG Ad Agencies: How and when do you make the decision to outsource? Here’s a friendly guide. http://ht.ly/3Q0kp

RT @marthabush B2C companies see a year-over-year market share growth when using analytics in lead gen efforts http://bit.ly/h2V2tt #b2c

As you can see, the biggest percentage of what I do with my Twitter account is sharing information with my audience.

Here’s a convenient list of the tools that make it easier for me to share content with your followers:

Networking

20% of my Tweets are directly responding to others.

Twitter is a real-time networking site. Answering questions, sharing a point-of-view,  re-connecting, collaboration, participating in conversation, etc. From these important tweets, lifelong professional and personal relationships have been forged.

Here are a few examples from just this morning:

TravisJLeone @michaelgass Do you have any specific case studies on social media leading to ad agency new business?#presentation4boss

EricWerner @michaelgass – Are there any events you’re planning to speak at in the Southeast this year? (Missed the one earlier this month)

@agencyside thanks for the RT. Look forward to seeing all of you at Bolo 2011 http://bolo2011.com
TonyCeresoli @michaelgass Hi Michael! Things are moving along pretty well, thanks for asking. How are things with you?

Note: Twitter isn’t the only place that I’m networking. I also use LinkedIn and Facebook.  Over time I see a lot of previous Twitter conversation move to Facebook. Especially as relationships grow.

Status Updates

5% or less of my Twittering is sharing “as-it-happens” updates.

I share status updates from workshops, conferences, seminars and other live events.

I’ve even reported on events that I wasn’t present at but was a listening participant, such as the Ad Age Small Agency Conference, I gathered information from attendees and was able to create this report: 50 of the Best Insights from Ad Age’s First Ever Small Agency Conference

This was the response from AdAge:

@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

This formula is intended to provide you with an example, a place to get started. No doubt, the more you participate, you’ll create your own formula for using Twitter.

“Engage Twitter with purpose and intention, and new business success will follow!”

Additional Twitter articles that may be of interest:

1 Comment | Social Media, Twitter | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

A Niche Blog for Ad Agency New Business

February 4, 2011

There are many agency blogs out there, if  you don’t go niche, you won’t be able to break out of the crowd.

If you look at all the ad agency blogs out there, most are far to general. Readers are left with thousands of blogs about the same thing. No particular niche, no point of differentiation. The blogging space becomes overcrowded by generalists. There are no experts, no leaders and an agency’s blog gets  lost in a crowd of sameness.

A blog provides your agency the opportunity to truly differentiate itself and create an appeal to a particular prospective client audience with less risk. It offers acceptable conditions for the small to mid size agency’s to fly their differentiated flag proudly without fear of missing “other” opportunities that will still come by way of personal networks and referrals.

In an arena of sameness, you will find it extremely difficult to gain the traction needed to be positioned as an expert, distinguish yourself, your agency and create appeal.  Your blogging efforts wont have much credibility and you’ll miss a great opportunity to generate new business.

“It’s time to un-level the playing field. To have success with social media, agencies need to fly a differentiated social media flag”

To be a leader you need a niche.  You need to focus on a narrow topic.

When I began my consultancy, I had some friends who advised me against becoming a consultant for ad agency new business. They said my focus was to narrow, especially  concentrating on ‘fueling ad agency new business through social media’. I was told that I would miss opportunities and wouldn’t be able to support my family. But having such a narrow focus, the opposite happened.  I was able to grow my consultancy much quicker with less expense and effort.

How do you make your agency’s blog different when everyone is writing about the same thing? Instead of another blog about branding, you could find a niche like ‘blue-collar branding’. When you do that you wont be offering the same tips, advice, and stories that every other agency is doing.

Social media has made all niches marketable. With millions of people participating in social media and searching and sharing information daily, even the smallest niche has an audience. You can bring a significant number of prospects together with your niche site.

No niche is too small you will always find interested followers within your area of expertise.

Don’t be everything to everyone. By going narrow-niche, your blog gains a single purpose. Everything you do focuses around one central theme. It helps focus your content and your audience.  It makes blogging much easier.

My blog, Fuel Lines, has a single-mindedness that allows for dominance in one field and builds awareness and recognition within the advertising industry. I’ve been able to build my consultancy well beyond my home state area create a national awareness for my services through my blog.

I recently received this brief email from the president the fastest growing major agency in America according to Ad Age,

It’s impressive how often your blog postings are passed around here.

Best,

Mike

Mike Hughes, President, The Martin Agency, Richmond, VA

You want people to reference your name when people ask where they need to go for help.

There are many agency blogs out there. If you don’t go niche, you won’t be able to create a name for yourself. If you really want to create a blog for new business success, you must pick a niche and be the expert on that. Otherwise, you’ll never break out of the crowd.

3 Comments | Agency Blogs, Social Media | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Survey: Economy Improving, New Business is Up for Small to Midsize Ad Agencies

January 27, 2011

Having endured one of the harshest economic periods since the great depression, agencies are reporting that 2011 is off to a better start.

A total of 430 advertising agency executives participated in the 2010 Advertising Agency New Business Survey.

The survey was sent by e-mail to a database of over 10,093 U.S. full service advertising agencies ranging in staff size from 5 to 350 full-time employees. The survey closed end of day, December 31, 2010.  The survey was developed and results analyzed by Michael Gass Consulting, Special thanks to THE LIST for providing the data sampling.

The results are not a scientific study, it does however, provide an indication of their beliefs, feelings and perceptions regarding agency new business trends in the last quarter of  2010.

Here is a summary of the survey results:

  • How has the economy impacted your business? Business is up or up significantly for 47% of the 430 advertising agencies that responded. 34.3% reporting that business was down or down significantly. These percentages are reverse from a similar study conducted in 2008. It looks like the end of The Great Recession for the advertising industry and business is starting to improve.
  • Would you say that obtaining new business is easier or harder than it was in 2009. New business is slightly better. In a 2008 survey, 56% of the agencies indicated new business was hard/harder than the previous year. That number drops to 47% for this 2010 survey, indicating a slight improvement. For 34% of the agencies surveyed new business was the same. 18.5% said it was easier or a lot easier in 2010.
  • What is the number one reason why it is harder to obtain business versus last year? Lack of opportunities (48.6%) was the number 1 reason new business was harder, followed by more competition (23.8%).
  • What are the 3 top sources for new business? 50% of ad agencies generate new business through referrals (25.9%) and personal networks (24.5%), the third primary source of new business is the agency’s website (9.1%).
  • Does your agency have a full-time new business director? If yes, how long have they been employed? More than half of the agencies (57.3%) have a new business director and most of them (38.5%) have been in their position 5 or more years.
  • Does your agency have a blog? 35.8%, of the agencies surveyed still do not have an agency blog.
  • Does your agency have a written new business plan? Just over half of the agencies that responded (53.7%), have a written new business plan.
  • Does your agency have a unique point of differentiation from competitors? An impressive 76.8% of agencies surveyed said yes, they indeed have a unique point of differentiation from their competitors.
  • When asked to briefly describe how their agency was different from the rest, you can decide if they are really that much different from their competition. Here’s a link to over the 243 of the agency’s that chose to respond: http://bit.ly/i3oe8J

Click on the following link to download a copy of the 2010 Advertising Agency New Business Survey

6 Comments | New Business Survey, New Business Trends, Recession | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

The History and Evolution of Social Media for Ad Agency New Business

January 22, 2011

A look back at the history of social media can help us better move forward as it continues to rapidly evolve.

There are social media solutions for almost every need. These are exciting times for the advertising industry.  I enjoy every day of exploring the potential of social media to advance ad agency new business and share what I’m learning with you.

Social media, in an incredibly short period of time, has become mainstream. Millions of people connect through social media channels daily.  To better understand where it is going, it is important to review its brief past.

Webdesigner Depot, has created an excellent summary of the  history of social media. Changes occur almost on a daily basis but this look back can help you put rising popularity of social media into context.  The following are the major topics covered in this resourceful article, that highlight’s social media’s history along with summaries of the various platforms that continue to evolve:

  • Precursors to Social Media: Usernets, BBSs (Bulletin Board Systems), IRC, ICQ, and Instant Messaging
  • Early Social Networks: Dating Sites, Forums, Six Degrees (the first modern social network) and Live Journal
  • Major Advances in Social Networking: Friendster, Hi5, LinkedIn, MySpace and Facebook
  • Other Major Social Networks: Multiply (family friendly social network), Orkut (Google’s social network), Kontain (allowing users to follow each other through photos, videos, and music, rather than just simple status updates)
  • Niche Social Networks: Ning, Media Sharing, Photobucket. Flickr, YouTube, Revver
  • Social News and Bookmarking: Delicious, Digg, Reddit
  • Real Time Updates: Twitter, Posterous, Tumblr,
  • Lifestreaming and Lifecasting: Ustream.tv, Justin.tv, FriendFeed, WP Lifestream

Click the following link to read the article, pass it along to your clients: The History and Evolution of Social Media

Some additional resources:

5 Comments | Social Media | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Something for the 34% of Ad Agencies That Have No Blog

January 21, 2011

 

As important as it was for your ad agency to have a website, it is now equally important that your agency have a blog. A blog is becoming the gateway for agency new business.

Ad agencies need to rethink their approach to new business and intensify their focus for creating magnetic content that will attract prospective clients, rather than relying primarily on the interruption model of cold calls an unsolicited direct mail, which consumers are responding to less and less.

In a recent Ad Agency New Business Survey that I recently conducted, 64% of the 430 responding ad agencies said they have a blog. For the remaining 36% of the agencies that don’t but should, I’ve compiled the following check-list to help get your agency’s blog quickly up and running for new business:

  • RSS Subscription button so your readers can opt to read content through a tool such as  Google Reader. Readers may also choose to get these feeds for new content from your blog through their in-box. You can easily set this up through Feedburner.
  • Email Subscription: provide a linked-button for readers to opt-in to receive your email newsletter.
  • Also provided linked-buttons in your blog’s sidebar for people to be able to connect with you through your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts.
  • Use a Facebook app to post new content directly to your Facebook account. There’s also a similar app for LinkedIn. Anytime you posts, those posts will automatically be published to your social media accounts.
  • Provide readers a way to ‘Like’ and ‘Tweet’ your posts. Also provide the button-links for your readers to easily share content through sites like Stumbleupon, Digg, Reddit or that would allow them to share it through an email or print out a copy.
  • Host your blog on your own domain. You never know when you might want to change from a WordPress or Typepad blog to something else.
  • SEO Measure: the number of your inbound links and the power of those links.  You can use Page Rank Checker, a free tool, to check the current page rank of your blog. Rankings will range between 1 and 10 (with 10 being the highest)
  • Unique post titles, less than 75 characters. I recommend consistently including key words to dominate in Google (i.e. for me it’s  ”ad agency new business”, which I include in almost every post title.
  • Post 2 to 5 times per week, 1 ‘original’ post for every 4 to 5 ‘resource’ posts.
  • Average post length should be 350 to 450 words. Less than that your post probably doesn’t have enough valued content to make it worths someones effort to click-through. If it’s more than 450 words, the amount of content is daunting and they often wont even begin to read your content.
  • People generally don’t read word-for-word online, they tend to scan. Make your posts scannable. Use bold, italics, indention, quotation marks, bullet-pointed and numbered lists.
  • Add links to your posts when appropriate. Be sure to provide attribution for resources used in your post and links to your primary resources.
  • Add 1 image per post, it will make your copy visually more interesting and emphasize your primary point.
  • Check your blog’s analytics frequently (once or twice a day) to see top posts, number of page views,  referring sites, search engine terms, clicks, incoming links, etc. Keep your blog traffic trending upwards from month-to-month.
  • Your blog should be easy to navigate by your readers. Provide at least 10 to 12 blog post categories and search feature for your blogs content. Highlight your top posts in a sidebar widget.
  • Make it personal. Include your photo in the blog’s sidebar and a welcome which states the purpose of the blog and ways for your audience to connect. Keep in mind that people want to work with other people that they know, trust and like. Your blog provides them that opportunity.
  • I would recommend that you add and About page, Contact page and Services page for when a reader wants to check you out further, in their on time. Provide specific information about your first-steps with a new client so that they know exactly how to engage you. For example, my first-point of engagement with a client is a social media | new business workshop.
  • Be sure that you have a nice a clean blog template that allows for easy navigation and also highlights your content. Content is more important than design and is key to your blog’s traffic.

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

2 Comments | Agency Blogs, Social Media | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

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

December 13, 2010

 

Highlighting an article that helps you gain a better perspective to the changes and challenges impacting the advertising industry as well as your agency’s ability to attract future new business.

As author Clay Shirky has said, “It is the people who figure out how to work simply in the present, rather than the people who mastered the complexities of the past, who get to say what happens in the future.”

One of the richest and most important articles on advertising I’ve read this year was Fast Company’s,“The Future of Advertising.” I highly recommend it. I must have re-read it at least 5 times already and I glean something new from it each time.

Knowing the tendency of the majority of online readers to scan, I want to provide an incentive for you to read word-for-word, this excellent, but lengthy, 5,700+ word article. As I was trying to put together a “Readers Digest” version I was impressed by the insights just from the quotes within the article.

Here’s my list of the top 16 quotes from The Future of Advertising:

  1. “Digital will fuck you up and the way your agencies are built to make money, staff things, price things. You guys have to change your DNA, and you’re going to have tough decisions.” Instructor form Hyper Island, a school based in Sweden that has gained recognition for producing some of the greatest digital talent in the ad industry
  2. “Here we go again, first the news business, then the music business, then advertising. Is there any industry I get involved in that doesn’t get destroyed by digital technology?” Andy Nibley, former CEO of: ad agency Marsteller  and the digital arms of both Reuters and Universal Music
  3. “Creating more work for less money is the big paradox,” says Matt Howell, president of the Boston agency Modernista
  4. “Our power has been matched and, in some categories, rivaled by user influence,” Nick Brien, CEO of Interpublic Group’s McCann
  5. “The irony is that while there have never been more ways to reach consumers, it’s never been harder to connect with consumers,” explains Jakeman, now chief creative officer at Activision, the gaming company
  6. “Marketing in the future is like sex. Only the losers will have to pay for it.” Jon Bond, cofounder of Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal + Partners
  7. “With infinite ad inventory on the Internet, you just can’t have people do [media planning] anymore, it’s now being done by a piece of software.” Dan Salmon, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets
  8. “Many agencies are hanging on to this idea that creativity is theirs to own and sell.” Harley CMO Mark-Hans Richer
  9. “[Victors & Spoils] offered a great place to start versus sitting across from a creative who spent weeks crafting the perfect idea and gets upset if you want to change a word. I think the new model is scary because all of us in the ad industry want to feel, at least from a creative point of view, that we have something no one else has. So if you’re really good at it, you had to go to Creative Circus or Portfolio Center; you had to pay for it. Then you had to toil to get into a good shop. Then you had to get lucky to get on the good briefs. For someone to come out and say, ‘We think a lot of people can offer great ideas’ means, ‘What, I’m not special?’ “ Victors & Spoils chief creative officer Evan Fry
  10. Referring to the possibilities of digital, “There’s never been a better time to be in advertising, and there’s never been a worse time.” Aaron Reitkopf, North American CEO of digital agency Profero
  11. ” There’s only one thing everyone agrees on, and that’s that there is too much excess: too many people, too many of the wrong kinds of people, too much bloat, too much inefficiency. And this in an industry that has laid off more than 160,000 people in the past two years. Ohhhh,the carnage is going to be awesome.” Aaron Reitkopf, North American CEO of digital agency Profero
  12. “In our business, whenever there’s a disruption, our clients need guidance.” CEO Michael Roth, Interpublic Group
  13. “In the early days, digital was always an afterthought, so we didn’t acknowledge the true cost. We sold wrong, we neglected to put digital-savvy people in our new business roles. Instead of building digital things that had utility, we approached it from a messaging mind-set and put messaging into the space. It took us a while to realize that project management in the digital space is completely different.”Edward Boches, Mullen’s chief innovative officer
  14. “We still don’t know how to monetize what we do. We don’t monetize ourselves properly, so we don’t hit our margins.” Peter McGuinness, CEO of Gotham
  15. “In a world where media spend is in inexorable decline, and where advertising per se is an endangered species, [agencies] don’t know where to turn,” he says. “The realization of the nightmare is under way. And that nightmare is the utter collapse of the business model.” Bob Garfield, advertising-industry pundit and author of The Chaos Scenario
  16. “When media and communications planning have become more important than ever, why are our media agencies further (physically and philosophically) from the people who create advertising?” Brian Perkins, Vice President of Corporate Affairs of Johnson & Johnson

I would encourage you to take the time to read Danielle Sack’s article in its entirety, “The Future of Advertising,” to learn how Mullen, which laid off 100 workers during the recession has hired twice that number and landed such progressive brand accounts as Zappos and JetBlue.

Danielle invites you to Tweet your answer to the question, “What is the Future of Advertising?” by using the hashtag #adfuture.

14 Comments | Agency Leadership, Digital, Fuel for Thought, New Business Trends | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Fuel Lines’ Ad Agency Blog of the Month for November 2010

December 9, 2010

The following 30 agency blogs have been submitted for Fuel Lines’ Ad Agency Blog of the Month for November.

Review and vote for your favorite. The winner will be featured in Fuel Lines article and included in the voting for agency blog of the year.

Cast your VOTE by CLICKING HERE

The agency blogs submitted for the month of November:

  1. 5 to 9 Branding, Cameron Christopher Thomas Advertising, Denver, CO
  2. Bill’s B2 Blog, Mintz & Hoke Communications Group, Avon, CT
  3. Blogmaster 2000, mediaRif, Kaysville, UT
  4. Creative Triage, ABZ Design Group, Charlotte, NC
  5. Daily Axioms, Axiom Marketing, Bloomington, MN
  6. Digitally Approved, Fanscape Inc., Los Angeles, CA
  7. Emotivator, Emotive Brand, San Francisco, CA
  8. Energy Efficiency Marketing, Kelliher Samets Volk, Burlington, VT
  9. Engauge Blog, Atlanta, GA
  10. Fluid’s Big Idea Blog, Fluid Studio, Salt Lake City, UT
  11. Kelsey Pulse, Kelsey Advertising & Design, LaGrange, GA
  12. L&S Unscripted, Lawrence & Schiller, Sioux Falls, SD
  13. Marketing OC Blog, MarketingOC, Orange, CA
  14. MediaCom Beyond Advertising, MediaCom, London, UK
  15. Nology, Nology Media, Seattle, WA
  16. Oh no, not another agency blog, Brokaw Inc., Cleveland, OH
  17. Outside Voice, Origin Design + Communications, Whistler, B.C., Canada
  18. Overdrive eMarketing Blog, Overdrive Interactive, Boston, MA
  19. Priority Integrated Marketing Blog, Priority Integrated Marketing, Minneapolis, MN
  20. PubliGestion’s Bloggers’ Block, PubliGestion, Petion-Ville, Haiti
  21. Smart Marketing with Larry Weintraub, Fanscape, Inc., Los Angeles, CA
  22. Sparksheet, Spafax, Toronto, ON, Canada
  23. Spring Blog, Spring Advertising, Vancouver, BC, Canada
  24. The Green Detectives, Enviromedia, Austin, TX
  25. The Lead, Padilla Speer Beardsley, Minneapolis | New York
  26. Third Degree Creative, Third Degree Advertising & Communications, Oklahoma City, OK
  27. The Reach Blog, Reach Marketing, Irving, TX
  28. Trendspottings, NOISE, Milwaukee, WI
  29. We Think. We Can. Blog, Murdoch Marketing, Holland, MI
  30. Welt’s Weekly Smack Down!,Welt Branding, Cincinnati, OH

    Fuel Lines Agency Blog of the Month for October: B2B Ideas @ Work, MLT Creative, Metro Atlanta, GA

    If you would like to submitted your agency’s blog for next month’s vote, send me an email and include:

    • In your email’s subject line – Blog of the Month
    • Blog title:
    • URL:
    • Agency Name:
    • City/State:

    Some additional agency blogging resources:

    Leave a Comment » | Agency Blogs | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
    Posted by Michael Gass

    The Last Advertising Agency On Earth

    November 22, 2010

    Your agency needs to be prepared for the magnitude of digital growth. Are you ready?

    What will the future of advertising look like? The Last Advertising Agency on earth is a short film about what the future of advertising might look like if they don’t embrace the power of digital. Produced by Saatchi & Saatchi Canada, Tool, Pirate, Rooster and Lunch.

     

    We are likely to see more change to our industry within the next 5 years than has been seen in the previous 50.

    Additional ad agency/digital articles that may be of help:

    8 Comments | Agency Leadership, Digital, Fuel for Thought, New Business Trends | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
    Posted by Michael Gass

    Prophetic Words from David Ogilvy to Ad Agencies, Sell or Else

    October 28, 2010

    A lot of agencies are out of tune with the business of advertising and that is disastrous for new business.

    David Ogilvy, often called, “The Father of Advertising,” In 1962, Time called him “the most sought-after wizard in today’s advertising industry.” In this video Ogilvy offers some prophetic advise to ad agencies that is very relevant for today.  A reminder that we are in the business of selling.

    Ogilvy & Mather was built on David Ogilvy’s principles, that the function of advertising is to sell and that successful advertising for any product is based on information about its consumer. I have no doubt that Mr. Ogilvy would still be thriving in this new world of digital advertising and social media.

    I highly recommend David Ogilvy’s book, Ogilvy on Advertising

    1 Comment | Agency Leadership | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
    Posted by Michael Gass

    Top 10 Mistakes in Web Design That Hurt Ad Agency New Business

    October 11, 2010

    Usability is a critical success factor for websites. If yours isn’t easy to use it is a very poor reflection of your agency and prospects will simply leave it.

    I’ve written this often, a good creative rational for your agency’s website is that it should become your agency’s online brochure. It is he place where your work resides along with your agency’s capabilities and credentials. It must be user-friendly.

    Web design expert, Jakob Nielsen states that, ”Web design is not a matter of taste or aesthetics — it’s a matter of science … what we actually know from our studies is that the average user experience on the Web is that of failure.”

    Nielsen practices what he preaches. His own Website registered some 5 million hits last year, and he estimates that some 200,000 visitors read his bi-monthly column on how to make Web sites more “usable” — that is, easy to navigate and clearly organized so that visitors can find the information they’re looking for.

    Here are his top 10 mistakes in Web design:

    1. Bad Search. Search is the user’s lifeline when navigation fails. Overly literal search engines reduce usability in that they’re unable to handle typos, plurals, hyphens, and other variants of the query terms.
    2. PDF Files for Online Reading. Users hate coming across a PDF file while browsing. PDF is an undifferentiated blob of content that’s hard to navigate. Reserve it for printing, distributing big documents.
    3. Not Changing the Color of Visited Links. Knowing which pages they’ve already visited frees users from unintentionally revisiting the same pages over and over again.
    4. Non-Scannable Text. A wall of text is deadly for an interactive experience. Intimidating. Boring. Painful to read. Write for online, not print.
    5. Fixed Font Size. Respect the user’s preferences and let them resize text as needed. Read more about letting users control font size.
    6. Page Titles With Low Search Engine Visibility. Search is the most important way users discover websites. The humble page title is your main tool to attract new visitors from search listings and to help your existing users to locate the specific pages that they need.
    7. Anything That Looks Like an Advertisement. It is best to avoid any designs that look like advertisements. Selective attention is very powerful, and Web users have learned to stop paying attention to any ads that get in the way of their goal-driven navigation.
    8. Violating Design Conventions. If you deviate on your site what is commonly done on other sites, your site will be harder to use and users will leave. Jakob’s Law of the Web User Experience states that “users spend most of their time on other websites.” Consistency is one of the most powerful usability principles: when things always behave the same, users don’t have to worry about what will happen.
    9. Opening New Browser Windows. Designers open new browser windows on the theory that it keeps users on their site. But even disregarding the user-hostile message implied in taking over the user’s machine, the strategy is self-defeating since it disables the Back button which is the normal way users return to previous sites.
    10. Not Answering Users’ Questions. Users are highly goal-driven on the Web. The ultimate failure of a website is to fail to provide the information users are looking for.

    Why do Web site designers neglect to ensure usability? 2 Primary reasons:

    • “First is that they just neglect the entire issue because they think their own Web site is easy to use because they designed it so they don’t understand the need for usability testing,” says Nielsen.
    • “The second reason is that even if they recognize the need for usability, they think ‘we’ve got to bring in a team of five Ph. Ds, build a special laboratory with one way mirrors and test fifty users’ — no you don’t.”

    Nielsen also points out that there are 2 things that a site can do to improve usability:

    1. “You can run a very simple user test in three days… just get some real users in.”
    2. The second method is professional analysis, which requires an expert with many years of experience to assess a Web site’s design and structure.

    Read the full version of Jacob Nielsen’s article, Top 10 Mistakes in Web Design. See also: Usability 101: Introduction to Usability

    5 Comments | Agency Blogs, Best Practices, Digital | 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

    Status Quo Just Won’t Cut It Anymore for Ad Agency New Business

    August 19, 2010

    Bret Giles

    A conference for ad ad agency principals and partners plus media, account, creative and business development leaders that helps them get their digital house in order.

    Bret Giles, president of agencyside which offers high-quality, current training, coaching, staffing and consulting exclusively to advertising agencies. An advertising veteran of 22 years, Bret started his career at Ketchum Advertising in San Francisco.

    Bret has asked me to speak at his annual conference for advertising agencies and I asked him to share directly with you more about it.

    I ran across a great quote from Dan Wieden of Wieden + Kennedy not too long ago. He said “The hardest part of this business is to realize that what you knew yesterday and all the things that gave you a sense of empowerment and prestige and security and safety is perhaps not relevant this morning…perhaps somebody else sees something you missed because you keep thinking you knew it all.”

    Like it or not, marketing is in a sea change. What held value to your clients at the beginning of the year might not by the end. Media is increasingly fragmenting. Agencies are increasingly consolidating. Technology is increasingly converging. And that leaves principals in an interesting predicament, one which I feel we have never previously faced.

    How do we, as agencies, remain relevant in the communications channel?

    At agencyside, we started a conference called BOLO – that’s “Be On The Lookout” – an agency-exclusive, 2-day event in October focused on issues facing agencies today. It’s forward-looking, focused on arming agencies with information to thrive, not survive. With a heavy focus on digital marketing, attendees learn from four keynote addresses, dozens of breakout sessions, Q+A “salons” and interactive sessions with other attendees.

    We’ll feature the creative director on the Old Spice campaign at Wieden + Kennedy, the social media professional who effectively rebranded Mardi Gras and authors of books ranging from Content Strategy for the Web to Escape from Cubicle Nation, Whale Hunting: How to Land Big Sales and Transform Your Company to PR in a Jar.

    You can find more information about the event and other speakers at www.bolo2010.com. As a reader of Michael’s, you can use the promo code “MGass” for $100 off your registration.

    In short, status quo is boring anyway, let’s shake up the future together. I look forward to meeting you in person come October!

    Share

    3 Comments | Agency Leadership, Digital | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
    Posted by Michael Gass

    Steve Jobs: 10 Presentation Tactics for Ad Agency New Business

    August 13, 2010

    Steve Jobs has something to teach small to midsize ad agencies about pitching for new business.

    Every new business pitch should do three things: inform, educate and entertain.

    BusinessWeek.com columnist Carmine Gallo reveals the techniques that have turned Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, into one of the world’s corporate presenters. There are some helpful nuggets that will add punch to your next agency pitch.

    Here is the ‘Readers Digest’ version of his 10 Ways to Sell Your Ideas the Steve Jobs Way:

    1. Plan your presentation with pen and paper. Begin by storyboarding your presentation. Steve Jobs spent his preparation time brainstorming, sketching and white-boarding before he creating his presentation. All of the elements of the story that he wants to tell are thought through, elements are planned and collected before any slides are created.
    2. Create a single sentence description for every service/idea. Concise enough to fit in a 140-character Twitter post. An example, for the introduction of the MacBook Air in January, 2008, Jobs said that is it simply, “The world’s thinnest notebook”.
    3. Create a villain that allows the audience to rally around the hero—you and your product/service.  A ‘villain’ doesn’t necessarily have to be a direct competitor. It can be a problem in need of a solution.
    4. Focus on benefits. This is important for ad agencies to remember. Your audience only cares about how your service will benefit them so lead with benefits rather than agency credentials and capabilities.
    5. Stick to the rule of three for presentations. Almost every Jobs presentation was divided into three parts. You might have twenty points to make, but your audience is only capable of retaining three or four points in short-term memory. Give them too many points and they’ll forget everything you’ve said.
    6. Sell dreams, not your services. Steve Jobs didn’t sell computers. He was passionate about helping to create a better world. That was the promise that he sold. For example, when Jobs introduced the iPod in 2001, he said, “In our own small way we’re going to make the world a better place.” Where most people see the iPod as a music player, Jobs saw it as a tool to enrich people’s lives.
    7. Create visual slides. There were no bullet points in a Steve Jobs’ presentation. Instead he relied on photographs and images. When Steve Jobs unveiled the Macbook Air, Apple’s ultra-thin notebook computer, he showed a slide of the computer fitting inside a manila inter-office envelope. Keep your agency presentation’s that simple.
    8. Make numbers meaningful. Jobs always put large numbers into a context that was relevant to his audience. The bigger the number, the more important it is to find analogies or comparisons that make the data relevant to your audience.
    9. Use plain English. Jobs’s language was remarkably simple. He rarely, if ever, used the jargon that clouds most presentations—terms like ‘best of breed’ or ‘synergy’. His language was simple, clear and direct. So don’t use agency speak when presenting, “integration, proprietary process, etc.”
    10. Practice, practice, practice. Steve Jobs spent hours rehearsing every facet of his presentation. Every slide was written like a piece of poetry, every presentation staged like a theatrical experience. Steve Jobs made a presentation look effortless but that polish came after hours and hours of arduous practice. Agencies often are forced to rely on spontaneity to provide creative energy for a pitch because they have spent all of their time on putting together the presentation and leave little or no time for rehearsal. Most unrehearsed pitches end up falling flat.

    Click on the link for a downloadable copy of Carmine Gallo’s, “How to Sell Your Ideas the Steve Jobs Way”

    This article was based on Carmine Gallo’s book, The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs. Applying this simple formula can greatly improve any agency’s pitch and help them to stand out from the rest. It is a must read for ad agencies, PR firms and digital shops.

    Additional articles that may be of interest:

    38 Comments | Agency Leadership, Pitches, Speaking | 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

    Has Your Agency Generated New Business Through Social Media?

    July 26, 2010

    Tried and true best practices and tips can accelerate your agency’s success with social media and keep it ahead of the competition.

    Having a clear objective from the get-go is important. I would suggest that you use social media as a big part of your agency’s new business program. Social media can provide a sustainable, affordable and focused program for networking and lead generation and  also a great return on the time invested.

    I recently received this note from an ad agency president that has differentiated his agency using social media,

    “We just landed a significant project with Coca-Cola purely through our sustainable marketing niche. The best compliment we could receive was when they said our price was waaaay more than the next bid, but given our background in green marketing and sustainability, that it was worth the extra investment. Finally, a value over price purchase. Love it.”

    To be successful with social media for your agency’s new business, here are 6 tips:

    1. Identify and address a specific target audience. Face it, most agencies are afraid to put their stake in the ground and even identify who their target audience. You would never recommend a marketing campaign for a client without first identifying who they are trying to reach.
    2. Lead content and conversations with benefits. Social media helps agencies to talk in a new way. To discard the past agency speak for a language the resonates with their audience. That is focused on what are the benefits for them. “You Can Only Get What You Want, If You Help Enough Other People Get What They Want” – Zig Ziglar.
    3. Differentiate from your competitors. You wont win any significant business by showcasing how you match up with the rest of the agencies. You must unlevel the playing field. Set yourself apart. What would give a company reason to fly over hundreds of other agencies, across a number of states, to do business with your agency? Social media provides a great opportunity to for your agency to stand out.
    4. Become a specialist instead of a generalist. Our world is becoming more and more specialized. I had to have surgery a few years ago. My personal physician recommended a neurosurgeon practicing at our suburban hospital. My choice was one of the leading neurosurgeon in the country who happened head up the department of neurosurgery at an academic medical center less than 30 miles from my home. A CMO’s job could be very well on-the-line with the choice of an agency. If I were in their position, I would be choosing a specialist rather than a generalist. Wouldn’t you?
    5. Create appeal. One of the great benefits for using social media for new business is the instant feedback from your audience. It allows you to easily test your message an hone your appeal.
    6. Earn positioning as a “thought leader.” In less than 3 years, social media has created an international awareness for my personal brand among my best target audience. I have clients from coast to coast, so far this year I spoken in over 43 cities, traveled over 43,000 miles, recognition from some of our national trade publications and advertising associations. All of it through social media. What has worked for me and can also work for you and position you as a thought leader to your prospective client audience.

    Some additional tips and best practices for using social media for your agency’s new business:

     

    Leave a Comment » | New Business Tips, New Business Trends, Social Media | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
    Posted by Michael Gass

    Don’t Cap Your Ad Agency’s New Business Pipeline

    July 22, 2010

     

    An ad agency’s new business pipeline isn’t something you can just turn on and off. It needs to continually flow, constantly generating leads.

    While there are different approaches to successful agency new business development programs, they are made up of some common building blocks. The first secret to a new business program is getting started. The second secret is developing a new business program that your agency can consistently execute and sustain.

    As you create a new business plan for your agency you should think in terms of “what is sustainable when our agency is at its busiest”.

    Many well-intentioned plans are often derailed by success. When the agency starts to get busy the new business program is put on the back-burner. This creates a roller coaster effect for new business. Your new business pipeline often takes 3 to 4 months to begin generating leads so it is very inefficient to turn it on and off like a spigot.

    Often, when your agency is beginning to get busy with new business, it is the best time to step-up your efforts.  What agency wouldn’t want to be in the position of being able to turn away business. To be more selective of the type of client accounts your agency is willing to accept.

    To be consistent, any agency new business program must:

    1. Be realistically achievable within the culture and resources of the agency

    Set realistic goals. There are a lot of agencies, when asked what are their new business goals will say, ”we want to double in size” or ”we want to take our agency to the next level”. This aren’t realistic goals unless you have a plan and that plan will be dependent upon what resources of time, personnel and budget that are available for implementation.

    2. Have a manager who is held accountable for its execution

    If everyone is responsible for your agency’s new business then no one is responsible.

    Someone must be accountable, have the authority and ability to drive it. There’s a lot of pushing, prodding and poking that must be done to keep the new business program working. Someone must be responsible for keeping it focused and on track.

    3. 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. To maintain consistency, new business, must be a priority in their daily responsibilities.

    • Mandate that your agency has an integrated new business plan. Unbelievably, 62% of agencies don’t have a planned new business effort.
    • Define your agency’s positioning. This is the starting point for any ad agency new business program. It is a fundamental prerequisite for small and midsize agencies. But it is also the place where most agencies where most fail. Positioning is everything.
    • Choose a target audience. This will not deter your agency from still obtaining “other” type of clients through your personal networks and referrals within your local market, but it will go a very long way to creating awareness, appeal, differentiation and focus for your agency’s new business program. It makes new business so much easier when you do.
    • Resolve to stay the course. New business efforts are relational and take time to come to fruition.

    Some additional articles that may be of interest:

     

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

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