Ad Agency New Business 101: Conduct a SWOT Analysis

October 20, 2011

Photo Credit Pshegubj

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

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

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

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

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

Ask yourself the following questions from a new business perspective:

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

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

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

Step 1 – Collect the Information

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

Step 2 – Prepare a Plan of Action

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

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

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

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

Step 3 – Benchmarks for Measurement

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

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

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

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

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

Additional articles that may be of interest:

6 Comments | Best Practices, New Business Plans, New Business Tactics, New Business Tips | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

8 Reasons Why This Is Such An Exciting Time for the Smaller Ad Agencies

October 5, 2011

Big Fuel

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

These are certainly unconventional times that we live in. A recent IBM study states that we will see more change in the next 5 years than in the previous fifty.

We are still in the midst of the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression. The recession that began in 2008 still isn’t over and economists are forewarning the possibility that this could be a double-dip recession.

The rise of social media as another communication’s channel, has impacted our society and the way we do business. Social media marketing best practices are quickly evolving. But as soon as you start to get comfortable using Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, a new social media platform is introduced, such as Google Plus, and it’s back to school all over again.

Smart phones and tablets further impact our culture and how we communicate.

New business professionals for ad agencies and PR firms, who were once good at what they did are now struggling.  The way new business is acquired is changing rapidly. The interruption type tactics, which were successful in the past, are becoming less and less effective.

With all of the upheaval and uncertainty for our industry, this is certainly an exciting, revolutionary time to be in advertising. Particularly for the small-to-midsize advertising or public relations agency.

8 reasons why this is such an exciting time to be in advertising, particularly for the smaller agencies:

  1. They have the opportunity to build awareness well beyond their local markets.
  2. A real opportunity exists to work with bigger clients and nationally known brands.
  3. Agencies can generate more appeal by creating a narrower niche. They can hyper-focus on a specific target audience, category or discipline or a combination of these.
  4. Increased revenue by being better positioned for their advertising and marketing expertise through category or target audience experience or through a particular discipline.
  5. Network and referral business becomes more efficient.
  6. Inbound lead generation is proving to be less expensive than traditional outbound leads.
  7. Allows agencies to work with the clients that match up well with its core strengths.
  8. More new client accounts can be won without pitching.

9 Comments | Fuel for Thought, New Business Tips, New Business Trends | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

10 Prime Time Benefits of Blogging for New Business

September 22, 2011

Prime Time for New Business

Photo Credit zoutedrop

The majority of ad agencies have yet to comprehend what huge benefits a blog can make and why it deserves to be “prime time” for new business.

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

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

Here’s the story of how my blog helped launch my business

I started my consulting business just prior to The Great Recession. We had three kids in college at the time. I didn’t have a lot of funds to promote my services nor the time to play around with social media. But, I sensed the potential of social media for building awareness quickly and creating new business opportunities. So I jumped in, immersing myself in it as if I were back in grad school. From early mornings until late at night and even weekends, I spent time trying to get my head around this new communication channel but always from a new business perspective.

From the start I was compelled to monetize social media, forced to press the envelope beyond the way the early adopters of social media had intended for it to be used. Within a short three months I was already securing new clients as well as an income that matched my previous salary.

From the beginning, the centerpiece of my social media strategy was my blog

My blog, Fuel Lines, literally launched my consultancy. If I had promoted my business using traditional methods, there is no doubt in my mind that I would have spent a substantial amount of money and it would have taken much longer for my consultancy business to be where it is today.

Once I created my blog it became a never-ending cycle of content development and learning curves based on the fast progression of social media. It has been a process of “learn as you go”. I came upon an old adage in the early days of my writing, “you don’t know what you know until you write it down”. This is so true. My blog has served as a key tool for my personal continuing education program. It brought focus to my reading and writing along with the discovery enriching online resources that fuel both content created from other sources and original content.

Content marketing, through my blog, quickly became one of my most effective marketing tools. Instead of the typical “once and done” traffic of a website, my blog has provided a much better platform for repeat traffic and search visibility.

Here are the benefits that I hope will give you reason to devote Prime Time to your agency’s blog: 

1. Generate more online traffic

“Businesses (agencies) that blog, get 55% more website traffic than those that don’t,” According to a social media study by King Fish Media, HubSpot and Junta42

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

Blogs develop more visitors by:

  • Search visibility – blogs are organized to be search engine friendly. Plus the more content you have (well-linked), the more chances there are of attracting search traffic.
  • Click-through traffic - by posting interesting articles, a blog gives a reason for other people to link to you.
  • Repeat traffic – regularly updated content and comments bring visitors back … and back … and back. Most agency websites are not conducive to repeat traffic, particularly if your website hasn’t been updated in 5 years.
  • Personality - Put a face with your agency. Create a blog around a person(s) and let your personality shine through. People will be attracted to you. People like to associate and work with people they know, trust and like. It’s hard to make friends with a business, but easy to warm to an individual with a welcoming personality.
  • Viral effects – you create something cool and visitors share it with their friends, who share with their friends … and so on.

2.  A blog is a great place for your best prospects to easily find you

MarketingSherpa reported that a CMO Study, 80 percent of decision makers said they FOUND their vendors (not the other way around).

New business for ad agencies has been going through a paradigm shift; instead of chasing after prospective clients, it’s now more important for your prospective clients to find you. Blogs allows you to take full advantage of this paradigm shift for new business, shifting a good portion of your time and energy from outbound lead generation to implementing an inbound lead generation strategy.

A content marketing strategy is a major feature for inbound lead generation and a blog is a central component.

3. A positioning tool

Most ad agencies struggle with narrowing their target audience and thus have great difficulty in positioning and differentiating themselves. A blog is a tool that allows agencies to more easily define and adopt a differentiating new business strategy. Agencies are more comfortable with a narrower niche through a blog than they ever would be with their website.

Here are some examples of agency blogs with a strong target focus and differentiated positioning:

4. Your own focus group for new business

I have been enriched by having this online, ongoing, personal “focus group” that has provided real-time feedback and insights. My blog readers provide me with an ongoing education. They help me to help them. They let me know whether or not I’m clearly communicating with them.  They help me to take my experience and expertise with agency new business and social media and become better at meeting their specific needs.

5. The recycling of older content for a greater ROI

You will continue to generate a great return on your time investment, writing for your agency’s blog, by recycling older content. As you write your posts, learn to write “ever-green” to give the content a long shelf life.

Here are some ways to repurpose your blog content:

  • Twitter: This isn’t like your email inbox. People are on and off Twitter rather quickly. Often they are scanning for helpful resources to their advertising/marketing challenges. The odds that the majority of your followers would see a post that you published at 11 am on a Thursday is remote. It’s about reach and frequency. SocialOomph is a great program to assist with repurposing content through your Twitter account and allows you to control your publishing schedule knowing what post is being published when.
  • Email Newsletters: Posts from your archive will find new life by way of your newsletter. You can group older posts around a particular category or theme. Highlight the “best of” your online content. Here are a couple of examples: Fuel Lines, Convince and Convert’s Vault
  • Facebook and LinkedIn: Another way to repurpose content is through other social media platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn. These are not with the same frequency of posting as you would with Twitter.

6. A pipeline for consistent lead generation

You can keep your prospective pipeline full even when your agency is busy with client work or you are away.

At the beginning of the summer, while my wife and I were vacationing in Key West, I wrote a post and published it along with a photo while on the beach. I wrote,“Vacationing with Social Media and Still Generating Ad Agency New Business,” to illustrate how content marketing through a blog can keep your new business pipeline full even when you are away.

7.  Leading with client benefits instead of agency capabilities

Blogging keeps your agency focused on what is important to your prospective clients. It’s not about YOU it’s all about THEM. It forces you speak to their benefit instead of talking about your agency.

If you don’t have a passion to help your audience succeed, you wont success with blogging. As soon as you start to “sell” your agency or brag about your credentials and awards, you will lose your credibility along with your audience. Instead, provide content that helps your prospects with their marketing challenges and build trust. Then new business will come.

8. A professional enrichment tool

Blogging will enrich your professional life, keep you up to date with the freshest thinking and help you to be acquainted with the newest and best trends. Writing to a specific audience to help them with their needs will focus your reading and your writing. You have direction to begin each day and that makes blogging easier.

9. Enhances Network and Referrals

A survey of advertising agencies conducted by Fuel Lines, reveals that 50% of the 430 responding agencies generated new business from two primary sources last year: referrals and networking.

Agencies have long understood the importance of individual connections to generate new business. It has always been the lifeblood of small to midsize agencies. Thankfully, albeit slowly, agencies are starting to understand the potential of social media to enhance networks and referral opportunities.

A blog, as the centerpiece of your social media strategy, will greatly enhance your capabilities of networking within your local market plus far beyond it.

Over the summer, I wrote a post from my hotel room in London, England. I was reflecting on how far I’ve come since I created my blog. I have worked with new clients all across the United States from Costa Mesa, CA to Port Clyde, Maine and this year had my first overseas client in the UK. I’ve recently been invited to speak to agencies across South Africa in the cities of Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg.

I’ve generated these personal networks and referrals by blogging from my home office which is located above my garage in Alabaster, Alabama. It’s absolutely amazing.

10. A Call-to-Action converting blog visitors into new business opportunities

A strong call to action is a clear, simple and compelling offer that persuades your readers to take the action you want. Just having a “Contact Us” form on your blog site is not very appealing to your blog’s visitors. It doesn’t count as your call to action.

I would suggest creating an offer for a particular service, usually a first-step that you normally conduct with every new client, like a brand or marketing audit. Price it in lower than normal, a clear value to the prospect. This will do 3 things:

  1. Render a quicker decision from your prospects. They are not having to make a major financial commitment at this point. They’re just committing to take a small initial step.
  2. Identify the true prospect from those that just want to pick your brain for free and will never pay for your services.
  3. Pay you, at least for a portion of your time, for important face time with your prospective clients.

3 Comments | Agency Blogs, Fuel for Thought, New Business Trends, Social Media | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Ten Toughest Content Marketing Challenges for Ad Agency New Business

August 28, 2011

Original content is by far the most difficult  and important tactic to fuel ad agency new business through social media. 

Speakers for Content Marketing World 2011, recently shared some of their biggest content marketing challenges in a pre conference Q&A orchestrated by  Content Development Director of the Content Marketing Institute. I’ve pulled some of the best challenges and insights from among these speakers.

Here are the top 10  to help with your content marketing challenges:

1. Quality Content

‘The very act of staying focused on quality is one of the most important things you can do if you’re serious about your craft.” Susan Blue, @susangrayblue.

Lots of agencies soon become lazy in content creation. If you can’t see the value and won’t commit the time you won’t have success with content marketing for new business.

2. Understanding Your Audience

Understanding your customers well enough to develop content that is useful and relevant for them. Allison Bolen, @alisonbolen.

One of the first things you MUST do is to identify who your audience is. Most agencies are generalists. They want to appeal to EVERYBODY. If you try appealing to everyone you won’t appeal to anyone. No appeal, no online traffic = no new business leads.

3. Keeping Your Objective Top of Mind

It is critical to always keep your business objectives top of mind and use them to guide your content strategy. Cam Brown, @CamBrown1.

If you want to greatly boost agency network and referral business, social media is key and the cornerstone for your social media initiatives should be in content development. If not, social media can be a great waste of time.

4. Empowering the Time and Resources

Being allowed by their superiors to take the time, energy, and resources to do it right. CC Chapman, @cc_chapman.

Agency principals must first be convinced of the value of content creation for agency new business, then be willing to commit the right person(s), time and resources toward it.

5. Resources and Focus

Unless a marketing organization has the resources and focus to get content created, it will always be difficult to accomplish content marketing goals. Pawan Deshpande, @TweetsFromPawan.

The tighter your niche, the easier content creation will become. Less time, a better focus and a greater return on the time invested.

6. Creating an Internal Process

With content, and the evolving forms of content for customer engagement, it’s critical that there’s a process internally that enables successful creation and delivery.  Barbara Gago, @BarbraGago.

Content creation will require a system for your agency to have success.  Create and implement a plan of action: One person who is responsible, realistic goals and objectives set, resources gathered and organized, plan your work and work your plan.

7. Having an Initial Base of Content

It’s incredibly difficult to develop interesting and relevant campaigns if you’ve not built a library of content that you can pull from throughout the fiscal year. Nate Riggs, @nateriggs.

When I consult with agencies, creating a new business program fueled through social media, the first thing I have them do is create 60 blog posts in 60 days. It then gives us our library of content that we can repurpose through many other channels and have a base that fresh content is consistently being added. Also, when you create this initial library of content within a short time frame, helps to work out the bugs of your internal processes.

8. Writing Content that Will Relate 

Learning to write and communicate in a way that is completely and utterly on the level of their audience, not the level of the industry professional.Marcus Sheridan, @TheSalesLion.

Agency’s are bad about using agency speak, when talking and presenting to prospects. Agency speak doesn’t resonate with prospects and isn’t very appealing. They tend to carry over this habit when creating online content. They will need to learn to write in a manner that is reflective of the audience you are trying to reach.

9.  Just Doing It

Most people seem to know what they should be doing; the trouble is actually getting it done. Consistency counts for everything.Todd Wheatland,  @ToddWheatland.

If you can’t be consistent, your efforts are going to be in vain. As you create a program for content creation you should think in terms of “what is sustainable when our agency is at its busiest”. So begin this process with an action plan, using the K.I.S.S. principle. A plan is just a plan until its executed, so set dates and get started.

Consistency is much more important than perfection. It will be much easier to make changes if you get the process moving.

10. Presenting the Right Content, to the Right Audience in the Right Ways

Consistently coming up with new, timely, interesting ways to present the right content to the right audiences. Arnie Kuenn, @ArnieK

Currently an agency blog is one of the best platforms for delivering content to your prospective client audience. This will evolve and change over time. Other ways that you can disseminate content landing pages, email newsletters, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google +, etc.

For additional information and helps, click on the following link to read Michele Linn’s article, Content Marketers Reveal Their Toughest Challenges, written for the Content Marketing Institute. I would also encourage you to explore the Content Marketing, a great resource for how-to of content marketing.

Additional articles to help with your agency’s content creation:

Image credit: Hubspot

9 Comments | Best Practices, Content Marketing, SEO, Social Media | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Steve Jobs’s 10 Best Quotes for Advertising Agencies

August 27, 2011

Photo Credit Annie Bannanie 06

Steve Job’s serves as an example of doing agency new business the right way.

Steve Jobs has stepped down as CEO of Apple.  When it comes to presenting and salesmanship, there’s no one better.

His tenure as CEO should serve as inspiration for advertising agencies that seem to still be in a state of flux in this technology driven communication’s revolution.

Below are some of the best Steve Jobs’s quotes to inspire us to think differently and  up our game through innovation, collaboration: 

 

  1. “The cure for Apple is not cost-cutting. The cure for Apple is to innovate its way out of its current predicament.” Apple Confidential: The Real Story of Apple Computer
  2. “For something this complicated, it’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” Bloomberg Businessweek
  3. Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people. Wired
  4. “That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” BusinessWeek
  5. “Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.” CNNMoney
  6. “When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex, and most people stop there. But if you keep going, and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can often times arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions.” Newsweek
  7. “We made the buttons on the screen look so good you’ll want to lick them.” Fortune
  8. “Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.” Wall Street Journal
  9. “You’re missing it. This is not a one-man show. What’s reinvigorating this company is two things: One, there’s a lot of really talented people in this company who listened to the world tell them they were losers for a couple of years, and some of them were on the verge of starting to believe it themselves. But they’re not losers. What they didn’t have was a good set of coaches, a good plan. A good senior management team. But they have that now.” Businessweek
  10. The system is that there is no system. That doesn’t mean we don’t have process. Apple is a very disciplined company, and we have great processes. But that’s not what it’s about. Process makes you more efficient … But innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that shoots holes in how we’ve been thinking about a problem. It’s ad hoc meetings of six people called by someone who thinks he has figured out the coolest new thing ever and who wants to know what other people think of his idea.”  Businessweek  

Additional Steve Job articles that may be of interest:

23 Comments | Agency Leadership, Fuel for Thought | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

7 Tips for Emailing Busy Prospects for Ad Agency New Business

July 28, 2011

E-mail is still relevant as a tool for ad agency new business but use it wisely because prospects are extremely busy just like you. 

With the popularity of my blog, I receive a large number of emails daily. I’ve learned to better filter all of the invitations to review, speak, advise and consult as well as the emails that pitch products, services and other opportunities. It isn’t unusual to receive well over a hundred of these type of emails daily.

What I’ve learned from my own experience, the type of email pitches that enlist my response, have helped me to be more effective in using emails for ad agency new business.

Below is an example of a great emailed invitation/pitch. One of the few that I personally responded to almost immediately. 

Dear Michael

I run a small events company in Johannesburg South Africa and we have had it on our radar to run an Advertising Innovation Day for some time, we have had good success with events dealing with Social Media and we have had surprisingly a number of delegates from advertising agencies attend a few of them. Please see our website www.classicevents.co.za to give you an idea of what we have run before, please excuse our site – it is due for an upgrade which I am busy attending to now.

I believe there would be a market for talks in Johannesburg and Cape Town and possibly Durban as well, these are the tree main centres where there are a number of agencies, the bulk of the agencies are Johannesburg and Cape Town based but Durban does have some smaller agencies and offices of the larger agencies. I could do some research for you and share lists of agencies here and possibly conduct a test to see if agencies are keen to attend.

Do you have standard speaker fees or would you entertain a profit share or delegate rate share. Please could you also give me an idea of when you could come across for a week or so, I’m guessing you’d surely want a couple of days to relax and see some of the country whilst here.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Best regards

NIGEL BROWN

Here are the reasons why this is such a good email that hopefully will provide some helpful tips as you reach out to your prospective clients using email. 

  1. Use a person’s first name. Personal is always better than formal when you are reaching out through email. Formal seems cold and indifferent, often appears spammy. Nigel starts off his email pitch to me simply with “Dear Michael.”
  2. Create a pitch letter that is concise and brief. My heart always sinks we I get a long email from someone. Even though it is much easier to bang out a lengthy email but it is also discourteous. Being short and concise take effort on the part of the sender but it is always appreciated and leaves a positive impression upon the person you are trying to reach out to. Nigel condensed his email down to 3 short paragraphs – perfect!
  3. The request is very clear as well as the invitation on how he would like me to respond.
  4. I can’t tell you the number of times that I receive requests like this and have to search for the contact info info. That is discourteous and leaves a negative impression. But it occurs more often than not. Nigel made it easy for me to follow-up by including all of the various channels that I can make contact with him. Though I didn’t list them here for obvious reasons, Nigel provided me with his email address, cell phone and direct dial office numbers, fax and Skype numbers and an active link to his company’s website.
  5. Don’t over pitch in the subject line. Nigel’s subject line was very effective in getting my attention: Query to explore you coming to South Africa for a series of talks. Who wouldn’t want an opportunity to visit South Africa. But also, Nigel’s invitation wasn’t salesy. It was a simple invitation to explore the possibility, a gauge of my interest. He left the response totally in my court. He didn’t use it as a precursor for a “warm call” that he would initiate.
  6. Nigel was proactive in providing information about his company. In the email he provided me with a hyper link to his company’s website knowing that I would want to investigate credentials.
  7. Don’t overuse flattery. The owner of the first ad agency that I ever worked for, used a lot of flattery in conversation’s with prospects.  It always came off as insincere, almost sleazy. Most of the time flattery can be implied without even stating anything and is more effectual.

Photo credit: Frank Gruber

2 Comments | Digital, Fuel for Thought, New Business Tips | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Cause Branding: It is Now B-2-WE for Ad Agency New Business

June 8, 2011

WE -habilitating Capitalism – How valuable your agency will Be to ME no longer depends on b2c or b2b but on b2we

Simon Mainwaring is founder of We First, a social branding consulting firm that helps companies use social media to build communities, profits and positive social impact. A highly recognized creative director, he has worked at many of the world’s top creative advertising agencies in Asia, Europe and the U.S. including Wieden & Kennedy, Portland, on Nike and as Worldwide Creative Director for Motorola at Ogilvy, Los Angeles.

Simon’s first book, entitled We First, presents a new vision for business. An answer to Bill Gate’s “Creative Capitalism” challenge,  a practical and actionable plan for how brands and consumers use social media to create a partnership that provides sustained prosperity for business and our world.

Ad agencies could learn much from Simon’s approach where clients are expecting their agency partners … to contribute to the social good, where the future of profit is purpose and agencies that thrive … will be will be those that put the well-being of their brand community and the world at large first.

Enjoy the We First video, how brands and consumers use social media to build communities, profits and positive impact. WE-defining Me written and performed by Sekou Andrews (sekouworld.com). Design and animation by Troika (troika.tv). Original music and sound design by Machine Head (machinehead.com).

Edelman Goodpurpose Survey measures consumer attitudes about corporate responsibility. The survey was conducted in 13 countries among more than 7,000 adults. It is the only global study of its kind. Here are some highlights from that report:

  • 71% believe “brands and consumers could do more to support good causes by working together”
  • 65% say they “have more trust in a brand that is ethically and socially responsible.”
  • 73% agree government and business need to work together more closely to ensure the environment is protected
  • 62% would “help a brand to promote their products or services if there is a good cause behind them. (compared to 53% in 2008 and 59% in 2009)
  • 62% of global consumers “would switch brands if a different brand of similar quality supported a good cause”
  • 64% believe it is no longer enough for corporations to give money; they must integrate good causes into their everyday business

3 Comments | Agency Branding, Agency Leadership, Fuel for Thought, New Business Trends, Positioning, Social Media | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

28 Stimulating Digital and Social Media Marketing Quotes

February 23, 2011

Write something memorable, that stands out and provides inspiration to others.

I’m reading constantly and often find and keep the most memorable quotes from my daily reading. Here’s a collection that I thought would be of interest as they relate specifically to digital and social media marketing. I hope you find inspiration, a spark for your creativity and to take the time to write something memorable.

Here are my favorite digital and social media marketing quotes:

  1. “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
  2. “We have technology, finally, that for the first time in human history allows people to really maintain rich connections with much larger numbers of people.” –  Pierre Omidyar, founder, eBay
  3. “The Internet has been the most fundamental change during my lifetime and for hundreds of years.” – Rupert Murdoch, media mogul
  4. “Online advertising doesn’t have to be a “wild west.” – Benjamin Edelman, Harvard Business School
  5. “Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.” -  Jimmy Wales, founder, Wikipedia
  6. “Social media is a savior not a nemesis, an asset not a liability, a time saver not a time killer for ad agency new business” – Michael Gass, new business consultant for advertising agencies
  7. “In the 21st century, the database is the marketplace.” - Stan Rapp, MRM Partners Worldwide
  8. “Content Doesn’t Win. Optimized Content Wins” – Li Evans, search marketing guru
  9. “Finding new ways, more clever ways to interrupt people doesn’t work.” – Seth Godin, best selling marketing author
  10. Content marketing is a commitment, not a campaign. – Jon Buscall
  11. The rule of 5 is that each and every content development undertaking should produce content assets that can be used at least 5 different ways. – Ardath Albee
  12. “Think like a publisher, not a marketer.” – David Meerman Scott, marketing and leadership speaker
  13. “What happens when you combine blogs, Google and millions of dissatisfied customers? An e-mob.” –  Bob Garfield, advertising author
  14. “The web attacks traditional ways of doing things and elites, and this is very uncomfortable for traditional businesses to deal with.”– Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO, WPP Group
  15. “SEO is a marketing function for sure, but it needs to be baked into a product, not slapped on like icing after the cake is baked.” - Duane Forrester, author and conference speaker
  16. “You can buy attention (advertising). You can beg for attention from the media (PR). You can bug people one at a time to get attention (sales). Or you can earn attention by creating something interesting and valuable and then publishing it online for free.” – David Meerman Scott, marketing speaker
  17. “Blog policy at Microsoft is just two words: Blog Smart.” – Lawrence Liu, senior technical product manager, Microsoft
  18. “Don’t measure what you can. Measure what you should.” – Philip Sheldrake, blogger, marketer, web analytics specialist
  19. “People influence people. Nothing influences people more than a recommendation from a trusted friend. A trusted referral influences people more than the best broadcast message. A trusted referral is the Holy Grail of advertising.” - Mark Zuckerber, Facebook
  20. “In our business, whenever there’s a disruption, our clients need guidance.” – Michael Roth, CEO, Interpublic Group
  21. “Almost overnight, the Internet’s gone from a technical wonder to a business must.” –  Bill Schrader, businessman
  22. “Clients don’t care about the labor pains; they want to see the baby.” –  Tim Williams, founder of consultancy Ignition
  23. “It’s hard to find things that won’t sell online.” – Jeff Bezos, founder, Amazon
  24. “An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field” Niels Bohr, Danish physicist
  25. “Facebook Fan Pages are email newsletters with smaller pictures.” – Jay Baer, author, social media strategist
  26. “Our power has been matched and, in some categories, rivaled by user influence,” Nick Brien, CEO of Interpublic Group’s McCann
  27. “It’s been said that advertising agencies aren’t changing, they are being changed.” – Unkown
  28. And my favorite: “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, author, professor
Additional articles that may be of interest, “16 of the Top Quotes from Fast Company’s The Future of Advertising” and “50 of the Best Insights from Ad Age’s First Ever Small Agency Conference”

9 Comments | Digital, Fuel for Thought, Social Media | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Study: 50% of Ad Agencies Generate New Business Through Networks and Referrals

January 25, 2011

Most ad agencies are still generating new business the old-fashioned way, networks and referrals, but there’s a way to boost those personal networks nationally.

A soon to be released survey of advertising agencies conducted by Fuel Lines, reveals that 50% of the 430 responding agencies generated new business from two primary sources last year: referrals and networking.

Agencies have long understood the importance of social networks and individual connections to generate new business. It has always been the lifeblood of small to midsize agencies.  Lots of activities went into building these personal networks to generate business within an agency’s market.

Thankfully, albeit slowly, agencies are starting to understand the potential of social media to enhance networks and referral opportunities. What will make the social media pill easier for them to swallow is to understand the multiplicity of benefits it provides:

  • You can realistically build awareness among your best target audience well beyond your geographical location. Small to midsize ad agencies can affordably build a national awareness.
  • Everyone has a desire to work with someone they know, trust and like. Social media greatly accelerates and expands networking opportunities.
  • Creating and managing social networks is more efficient online than generating networks offline.
  • It’s hard for people to socialize with an entity such as an ad agency. Social media is about people. It puts a face to the agency.
  • Even though social media is very time intensive in the beginning, as you get up to speed, it becomes an extremely efficient use of your time. You are not constantly having to chase new business.
  • Social media isn’t that complex. It’s not hard to get your head around it once you are a participant. Just remember to use your offline personal networking skills online.
  • Social media allows agencies to differentiate themselves, to be more narrowly focused and niched than they would have been comfortable with otherwise.
  • Through social media prospects have an opportunity to check under the agency’s hood, kick the tires, examine the upholstery within their own timeframe.

“You need to look at social media as a savior not a nemesis, an asset rather than a liability and time saver rather than time killer for ad agency new business.” – Yours Truly

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

3 Comments | New Business Trends, Social Media | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Big Ad Agencies Now Requiring the Development of Digital Skills

January 10, 2011

Small to mid-size ad agency owners and executives need to be better equipped with digital technology. It will not only impact agency business but also new business development.

I having a discussion with the creative director of a small agency who is in his early 50′s. He was expressing his frustration with changing digital technology and its impact upon his agency and the advertising industry.

He said,  ”I have no problem creating a print ad but I don’t know where to even start to create an ad for something like the iPad.”

I asked him if he was ready to retire. His answer was no. Then, I raised the question, “what are you going to do to get up to speed?” He didn’t have an answer.

Big agencies know that digital training is now critical. Rising to meet the escalating demands for digital, most of them are now requiring that almost all of their employees develop digital skills. According to a recent Wall Street Journal article,  the bigger agencies are spending roughly $750,000 to $1.5 million on digital training programs this year.

“We can no longer just acquire [digital] firms; it’s just not good enough,” says Bob Jeffrey, JWT’s chief executive.

WPP’s Ogilvy & Mather has upped their digital training by 150% this year through the following programs to help to help workers acquire digital skills:

  • Hyper Island—A workshop for senior executives including client services, creative, planning and production on the implications of digital on the business.
  • Digital Acceleration—A content-driven training program that provides in-depth learning on key new digital trends/offerings such as Internet search, customer relationship management, mobile marketing, analytics, etc.
  • Digital Boot Camp—aka “Digital 101,” an agency-wide program offered monthly that covers the basics of digital channels including social media, digital production, etc.
  • Associates Program—A training program for entry-level employees that provides them with cross-training across agency disciplines with digital as a key component.
  • Ogilvy Digital Lab—Special events featuring emerging media and innovation. Includes bringing in industry experts in specific digital areas—such as, Mobile Social Day, Google Day, Out of Home Innovation, etc.

Read the full WSJ article, ‘Kids Lend a Digital Hand: Ad Agencies Seek Help From Students, Even Preteens, to Get Up to Internet Speed’

I love this quote by author Clay Shirky, particularly as I think about how the rapidly advancing digital technology is impacting our industry:

“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.”

What are you doing to prepare your agency for this digital revolution?

Additional articles that may be of interest:

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

2011 Forecast: 100 Global Trends That Will Drive Consumer Behavior

December 27, 2010

Concise and helpful information for prospective clients regarding the trends that will impact consumer behavior in 2011 and positioning as an advertising leader for JWT.

JWT has released its sixth annual year-end forecast of key trends that will drive or significantly impact consumer behaviour in the year ahead. The result of quantitative, qualitative and desk research conducted throughout the year and pulling from the input of more than 50 trend-scouts around the world.  JWT is a believer in scoping out trends through its JWT Intelligence unit.

In their sixth annual year-end forecast of trends for the near future, technology is the overriding theme, driving many of our trends and at the center of others. The economy also continues to be a common thread. As a companion to their 88-page report, JWT created a 2-minute teaser video that gives a quick rundown of the top 10 trends for 2011.

Headquartered in New York, JWT is a true global network with more than 200 offices in over 90 countries. They employ some 10,000 marketing professionals.

JWT consistently ranks among the top agency networks in the world and continues its dominant presence in the industry by staying on the leading edge—from producing the first-ever TV commercial in 1939 to developing award-winning branded content for brands such as Freixenet, Ford and HSBC.

Check out JWT”s slideshow of  ’100 Things to Watch in 2011,’ or to download the presentation with fully functioning links, click here.

8 Comments | Agency Leadership, New Business Trends, Positioning, Promotion | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Mine Social Networks for Ad Agency New Business

November 29, 2010

Data mining is an increasingly important tool for ad agency new business transforming data into rich business intelligence, giving your agency an informational advantage.

“The real money in social media might not reside in the ads that sit on Web sites like Facebook and Twitter, but in the data produced by users’ frantic friending and sharing.

Internet users are now spending 22 percent of their time in social media, and Internet activity leaves behind a trail of data: what people like, what they share, and who is connected to whom with similar tastes.

Brian Morrissey, Social Media Data: The Benefits of Friends

There is a shift in focus from social network sites to the data they provide. Mining data from social media sites is not only great for your clients it provides excellent intelligence and important data for you to effectively reach out to your prospective clients.

With 400 million users spending a considerable portion of their online time on site, social networks would appear to be an agency new business director’s dream.

Our accounts on Facebook contain a wealth of data about us, whereas an online merchant’s account contains only a credit card number, address and buying history.

Social Media data that can be collected by any listening platform like a Radian6 or a Networked Insights. But in reality it’s what you do with that data that makes the big difference.

Amazon knew your preferences and that was a good thing because they made your shopping experience better. Netfix knew that one person’s recommendation was 67% likely to be a good recommendation for you, and that was a good thing.

I recently read a brilliant article by Tac Anderson, The Cloud Opened Up and Rained Marketing Data. Here’s s snip-it from Tac’s article, how our personal information and interactions fills data-centers:

“… those data centers process that information in real-time as you move through the Webbed World. It re-calculates your personal algorithm with every click and new event, with each bit of new information you shared on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, your blog, your online and publicly available offline behavior.

There aren’t many other options really. Most people don’t think about it. They refuse to believe the degree of accuracy these machines have. You could do as some have done those who radically removed all convenience from their lives. You could be anti-social.

Even still most people don’t realize the level of slavery they are in. We know exactly what to offer you, when and at what price. We know how often to advertise to you, in what sequence and what frequency is most effective for preparing you to buy, vote or convert.” Tac Anderson, The Cloud Opened Up and Rained Marketing Data

The shift in focus development and growth of social network data opens up new possibilities for ad agency new business. The power to personalize your agency and it’s services is much greater.

When one has access to this rich, new set of data, the ability to target the individual needs of a particular visitor grows considerably.

When one has access to My data, My media, My connections, and My influence, one can truly create a “market of Me,” where the market is customized to my needs and enhanced by my actions.

Accenture’s, Social Networks: Enabling the Market of Me

Get ahead of the curve, learn the potential for data mining for agency new business, the companies and tools that will help you make strategic sense of the data.

Another article that may be of interest: “Five Things You Didn’t Know About Social-Media Tracking”

“A recent test of 101 popular smartphone games and applications for iPhone and Android phones finds that more than half secretly sent user information to other companies”

Additional articles on the subject of advertising and data mining:

1 Comment | Digital, New Business Trends, Social Media | 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

Social Media for Agency New Business is Networking on Steroids

June 4, 2010

Everyone has a desire to work with someone they know, trust and like. Social media greatly accelerates and expands networking opportunities.

I’ve heard many agency principals say that they have better things to do than write blog posts, Tweeter, update their status on Facebook or LinkedIn. They clearly do not understand the power and efficiency of social media to generate new business for their agency. Social media for agency new business is networking on steroids.

Creating and managing social networks is more efficient online than generating networks offline. From my office, above my garage, in the quaint community of Alabaster, Alabama I can and have created personal networks globally. The return on my time investment pays huge dividends and that is what compels me to consistently participate in this space.

An important lesson for using social media for ad agency new business, first build a relationship.

I previously owned a houseboat docked in Nashville, TN. A friend of mine, the marketing director for a houseboat manufacturer, had a boat slip near mine.

One weekend I invited to take a couple out on my boat. They were interested in purchasing a houseboat but had not spent much time on one. I told my marketing friend the time we should be returning to the marina and suggested that he hang around and I would introduce him to the couple. They would be a great prospect.

Pulling into my slip, my friend lost the sale before we ever stepped off the boat. He was standing at the end of the pier with sale brochures in hand. The couple’s defenses went up immediately.

If he had only established a relationship first. The couple would have learned that he worked for a houseboat manufacturer. He could have even invited them on a private tour of his companies plant where the couple could have seen first-hand how well their boats were made. But he was too quick to sell and didn’t have the patience to establish a relationship first. A missed opportunity.

Here are some additional lessons gained through using social media for ad agency new business:

  • It’s hard for people to socialize with an entity such as an ad agency. The agency needs a face, people must be involved and it needs to begin with the agency’s principal(s).
  • Social media isn’t that complex. Use your offline personal networking skills online.
  • Always lead with benefits rather than agency’s capabilities. It’s all about your audience. The moment you try to “sell” your agency’s services will be the moment you lose your audience.
  • You can realistically build awareness among your best target audience well beyond your geographical location.
  • Be transparent. The success of your audience must be more important than your own. But it goes without saying if you can help your audience with their success you will be successful.
  • It is a powerful when you can personally demonstrate how you are using social media.

Even though social media is very time intensive in the beginning as you get up to speed, it becomes an extremely efficient use of your time.

Prospects have an opportunity to check under the hood, kick the tires, examine the upholstery within their own timetable. When the need arises and they are ready to do business, they will even initiate the call and that first conversation is going to be much further down the road than if you had made a  cold call. You skip the dating process and move on to the engagement, they are usually ready to do business.

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4 Comments | Agency Leadership, Best Practices, New Business Trends, Social Media | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

6 Tips to Blog Successfully for Ad Agency New Business

April 29, 2010

If you agency has a blog but very little traffic and no new business leads, here’s some help.

A blog should be central to your agency’s social media strategy for new business. What fuels the engine to this strategy is good content.

You must consistently feed your inbound marketing machine with rich content or you will see a slow-down in traffic, search engine results and prospective client leads.

Here’s my 6 tips to be more effective with your blogging:

  1. To be successful you need to write a lot. The more posts you add to your blog, the more traffic you’ll get. The more content can also fuel repurposing content through other social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. No content = no fuel =no traffic=no new business leads.
  2. Be consistent. To keep writing I visualize someone walking to the end of their driveway to pick up the morning paper, only to discover there’s nothing there. That helps me to stay motivated to write 4 to 5 posts per week. My readers know what to expect. I want to give them  a reason to consistently come back.
  3. Write concisely. People are busy. They need your content to be easy to digest. Provide them with the readers digest version. Make your content easy to scan, provide bullet points and numbered lists. People will be much more interested in what you have to say if you don’t try and fluff it up.
  4. Use your analytics. Know what your readers care about and what they respond to. It will help you to connect with you audience. They’re the judge and jury of whether your content is relevant or not. I know daily where my readers are coming from, what post titles and content generates the most traffic, what search terms they are using,
  5. Use your writing to learn. When I first started blogging I was reminded of the old saying, “you don’t know what you know until you write it down.” It’s true. Writing strategizes and invigorates my learning. It can get me ahead of the learning curve and provide me with a system to stay there.
  6. Keep focused. If your blog is broad you will not generate any significant traffic. Narrow your focus. Think narrow and deep rather than wide and shallow. Know who you are writing to, what you are writing about, know the categories you will be writing to, the key words that you want to dominate for search.

Here is a collection of agency blogging resources:

 

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

85 social media infographics for ad agency new business

April 27, 2010

Infographics: A great way to connect with prospective clients for new business.

Infographics (information graphics) are visual representations of information, data, or knowledge. They are mostly image-based with little text.  Infographics is a good way to illustrate social media to clients as author Erik Qualman did with Social Media ROI: Socialnomics.

A good example of infographics used in a video to specifically reach prospective clients: She-conomy, A Guys Guide to Marketing to Women.

Jesse Thomas continues to do a masterful job in social media data visualization.  He is the CEO and Founder of JESS3, a young creative interactive agency. Jess creative this infographic video that positions him as a “thought leader” to prospective clients, “ The State of the Internet.”

The Manhattan based agency, Big Fuel, has pulled together a very helpful collection of 85 social media infographics that should be a great resource and spark some fresh ideas to illustrate social media for our clients.

Big Fuel also provides some great examples of infographic videos that they have created for new business:

Additional articles that may be of interest:

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7 Comments | New Business Trends, Promotion, Social Media | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

A Tool for Securing Your Ad Agency’s Brand Name Across 350 Social Media Networks

March 22, 2010

Grab your name and secure your brand before someone else does.

One of the first things I have an agency and/or agency principals to do, secure their brand name across a large number of social media networks. This can be a very time intensive effort but fortunately there are tools available that will save a lot of time.

To tool that has been the most helpful to me is, KnowEm. It allows you to check for the use of your brand, product, personal name or username instantly on over 350 popular and emerging social media websites across 15 categories. You can do this for free from the dashboard of their web site, which still saves a lot of time. If you want to conserve even more time,  you can choose to have KnowEm register your username and/or company for you through their different priced packages.

CHECK IT to see where your username is still available.

I would recommend that you secure at least these sites:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
  • SlideShare
  • Flickr
  • StumbleUpon
  • Delicious
  • Digg
  • Alltop
  • Brightkite
  • Foursquare
  • Mashable
  • Technorati
  • Wikepedia
  • Yelp

It would be a good idea and “proactively” offer to do this as well for agency clients.

Additional articles that may be of interest:

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6 Comments | Best Practices, Social Media | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Ad Agency Draw 63,000+ Twitter Users for BrandBowl 2010

February 9, 2010

A great idea for building agency awareness …

The Mullen advertising agency, and Radian6, a leader in social media measurement, created BrandBowl2010, a Twitter/Super Bowl experience that combined tweeting, ad reviews and a host of metrics to let viewers generate and view real time ratings of the TV commercials that ran on the big game.

“According to the 63,000+ Twitter users whose comments were captured in BrandBowl2010, Doritos was the most effective brand to advertise on the Super Bowl telecast on CBS this year. Budweiser Select55 was the least effective brand.

The results were determined from a total of 98,656 Tweets collected at BrandBowl2010. The site provided an overall ranking of the brands advertising on the game based on a composite score that takes into consideration both volume of tweets and sentiment (positive or negative).” Brandbowl 2010

A great idea for ad agency new business …

Mullen offered the last place finisher in BrandBowl2010 — Budweiser Select55 — free creative services to help them make a better Super Bowl commercial next year and they are serious with their offer.

Additional articles regarding ad agency promotion:

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3 Comments | Agency Leadership, Best Practices, Promotion, Twitter | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

10 New Business Problems and Solutions for Ad Agencies

January 13, 2010

 

For ad agency new business, why no try doing the opposite of what you’ve been doing in the past.

“The Opposite Episode” of Seinfeld, George comes to the realization that he should try to do the opposite of everything, so he does, his luck changes and everything begins to go his way including getting a girlfriend, a job with the Yankees and moving out of his parents’ house.

Almost my entire career in advertising has been spent in business development. Working with a lot of advertising agencies through the years, I’ve found they all have common problems when it comes to new business:

  1. The overwhelming majority have no target audience
  2. No point of differentiation
  3. Don’t use the marketing tools they recommend their clients use
  4. Have no new business strategy beyond personal networks and referrals
  5. Inconsistent new business practices
  6. Are their own worst client
  7. Use the same descriptive language that other agencies use to describe themselves: Great creative, strategic, outside-the-box thinkers, fun to work with, proprietary process
  8. Poor at promoting themselves
  9. Are always in a mode of redesigning their Websites
  10. Stay in a perpetual state of rebranding themselves

When business is good, new business practices are usually shelved and only pushed when more business is needed which causes a roller coaster effect. Turning the lead generation pipeline on and off like a faucet. This creates a a major problem because it generally takes months of consistent effort to generate leads from the agency’s new business pipeline.

How do you correct these problems? Do the opposite:

  1. Choose the best target audience for your agency. You can’t be everything to everybody.
  2. Create an appealing point of differentiation.
  3. Use the social media marketing tools you recommend to clients.Be an active participant.
  4. Have a written social media strategy for new business success.
  5. Be consistent in implementing your new business strategy. Keep processes simple and gauge them by what it would take to maintain when your agency is at its busiest.
  6. Allow your agency to become your best client.
  7. Social media can help your agency redefine itself with a language that resonates with your prospective audience.
  8. Practicing what you preach, using the tools recommending to clients and learn to promote your agency the right way. Don’t throw away your marketing mind when it comes to your own agency.
  9. Allow your agency’s Website to become the agency brochure. This will be the place to show your work, present your credentials and capabilities. In social though, always lead with benefits.
  10. Social media is the best tool I have ever used for agency branding. By incorporating all of the above.

I started my agency new business consultancy just prior to social media becoming mainstream. I soon discovered that social media can actually teach agencies how to do new business, the way they should have been doing new business all along.

Check out this article: “Social Media Teaches” Ad Agencies to Promote Themselves the Right Way”

Additional articles that may be of interest:

 

7 Comments | Agency Branding, Best Practices, New Business Tactics, New Business Tips, New Business Trends, Promotion, Social Media | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

16 Risks Small-to Mid-size Ad Agencies Can’t Afford to Take

November 19, 2009

The only constant in advertising is change. To maintain success, you have to keep up. That isn’t easy. Especially with this revolutionary change we’re experiencing in communications.  I try to learn something new every day. I know that to do so is essential for my ability to survive, let alone succeed.

“In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.”

Eric Hoffer, American Social Writer

I have great respect for Tim Williams. He is the author of the book Take a Stand for Your Brand, an important read for every small-to mid-size agency CEO. In a recent AdvertisingAge article he writes,

“… we’re at the nexus of the Great Recession and the Great Transformation of Marketing. In circumstances like these, a strategy of “just try harder” won’t take you very far.”

Tim shares 15 things your agency can’t afford to risk during these current times of change:

  1. A skill set built mostly around interruption instead of engagement.
  2. A digital department in place of a digital competency.
  3. Core competencies focused on “one to many” instead of “one to one.”
  4. Creating brand-to-consumer communications at the expense of consumer-to-consumer communications.
  5. Lack of analytics and tools to measure effectiveness.
  6. Production systems that are linear instead of organic.
  7. Developing media plans instead of channel plans.
  8. Placing media instead of creating media.
  9. Creating brand transactions instead of brand relationships.
  10. Focusing on “the big idea” instead of “big multichannel ideas.”
  11. Traditional production staff instead of “producers.”
  12. Expecting account executives to be both strategic leaders and project managers.
  13. Continuing to allocate client budgets to media instead of creative.
  14. A business strategy that attempts to support high-value offerings (strategy and ideation) as well as increasingly low-value offerings (basic production and execution).
  15. Selling hours worked instead of value created.

I would add a 16th risks that agencies can’t afford to take:

Beginning 2010 without a written new business strategy, that includes social media as a primary component, to generate inbound leads.

Read the entire article, Agencies: 15 Risks You Can’t Afford Not to Take

Social Media is also impacting ad agency new business …

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3 Comments | Agency Leadership, New Business Trends, Social Media | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

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