blogging - FUEL LINES

Nobody Reads Ad Agency Blogs

Why most agencies may be ready to ditch their blog and why they shouldn’t.

Jack Marshall, a staff writer for Digiday wrote an article that is creating lots of buzz entitled, “Agencies Ditch Blogs.” He points to a study conducted by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, that reveals that only 37% of Fortune 500 companies now maintain a blog. That is down from 50% that was reported in 2010.

Jack makes an assumption that this is that this is probably true of advertising agencies:

“It seems there’s a similar trend among agencies.

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How to Consistently Create Great Content for Ad Agency New Business

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your blog has the potential to create more web traffic than your agency’s website ever could.… Continue reading

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

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.

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

Tim Volk, President of Kelliher Samets Vok

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

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

1. Creating

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

Write to a specific target audience and provide answers to their advertising/marketing challenges.

10 Tips for Creating an Ad Agency Blog for New Business

The following 10 tips are my suggestions for creating an ad agency new blog with the objective of generating inbound new business leads while simultaneously building social media capabilities and credibility:

1. I recommend that you do not incorporate your blog into your agency’s website

Online inbound lead generation is like fishing. You should fish for a particular fish (your target audience) with a particular bait (an appealing positioning that differentiates your agency from the rest) and do your fishing away from the boat (the agency’s website) so that you don’t scare away the fish.… Continue reading

Ad Agency CEOs: Social Media Philosophy and Tips for New Business

These are my personal observations, opinions, philosophy and tips from my experience working with social media honed and refined through my personal use and my work with over 50 ad agencies, PR firms, interactive and design shops over the past three years.

My work with social media, from the beginning, has been from a new business perspective to grow inbound lead generation and personal networks.

I’ve tried to develop the kind of practical new businesses processes, incorporating social media, that make sense within the environments of small to mid-sized agencies to overcome a commonality of problems such as:

No primary target audience
No point of differentiation
No strong appeal
No time left to create a “consistent” new business pipeline

My philosophy and personal opinions for using social media for ad agency new business:

Social media “teaches” agencies to promote themselves the way they should have been doing new business all along; to lead with benefits instead of agency capabilities and credentials.

Copyblogger: Content Marketing for Ad Agency New Business

Blogging has become a smart strategy to be found by your agency’s best prospects. Everyone has a desire to work with others that they know, like and trust. A blog provides a great way to network and generate new business leads, by plain written words designed to focus on the needs of your readers.

One of my favorite resources that has helped hone my online writing skills is Copyblogger. This blog writing resource was founded in January of 2006 by Brian Clark.… Continue reading

Milestones Reached for Ad Agency New Business

This past month marked a few milestones for me. First, November was my first year anniversary for Michael Gass Consulting. It has been a year beyond my wildest dreams. Secondly, I’ve written and published my 200th post for FUEL LINES.

I have to agree with business guru, Tom Peters, nothing in the last decade of my professional life has positively impacted me more than blogging. Reflecting upon this past year, here are a some of the things blogging has done for me: