How to Consistently Create Great Content for Ad Agency New Business

February 22, 2012

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.

The graphic is based on 21 Ways to Create Compelling Content When You Don’t Have a Clue by Copyblogger guest writer Danny Iny.

22 Ways to Create Compelling Content - Infographic

Like this infographic? Get more content marketing tips from Copyblogger.

Additional content marketing articles that may be of interest:

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Posted by Michael Gass

SlideShare: Presentation Trends For Ad Agency New Business

February 8, 2012

The Biggest and Best Uses of SlideShare for Ad Agency New Business.

Here’s a brief synopsis if you are unfamiliar with SlideShare. Launched in October of 2006, it is a slide hosting service, often called the “YouTube of presentations”. SlideShare claims to be the world’s largest professional content sharing community.

Ranked as one of the top 150 sites on the Web, SlideShare has more than 60 million visitors and 3 billion slide-views a month. The traffic comes from organic search, social networks and other SlideShare content.

SlideShare is an invaluable promotional tool for your agency and  provides many creative ways for businesses and agencies to use it in their new business strategy. Here are just a few:

  • You can easily embed presentations in other social media sites, such as your agency’s Facebook Fan Page or  you can add a SlideShare presentation to your agency’s website or blog. This is a great way to increase your site’s traffic.
  • Social share buttons allow your SlideShare presentations to become viral.
  •  A track-back feature allows you to monitor how many people have viewed each presentation.
  • You can engage viewers through the comments they add once a presentation has been published. Comments also allow you to revise and improve the presentation.
  • You can leverage SlideShare to gain rank in search engines.
  • Use SlideShare to let people know more about your agency. Create a presentation that tells your agency’s story.
  • Visualize some of your best articles and posts using SlideShare.

SlideShare also collects a wealth of data that is helpful information on current presentation trends and best practices. SlideShare’s The Optimal Presentation is derived from data on thousands of presentations hosted on its site. It includes these 3 key insights:

  • Keep presentations short and sweet. The average number of slides per presentation is 19.
  • Be visual. The average number of pictures per presentation is 19.
  • Get to the point. The average number of words per slide is 24.

Annually, SlideShare analyzes metrics from the previous year and shares a summary in a presentation they call Zeitgeist 2011. This report also  highlights the Top 10 Most Popular Business Presentations. This is helpful information to stay up to speed on what’s happening in the world of presentations.

Additional articles of interest:

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Posted by Michael Gass

Ad Agencies Need More Content for New Business

February 7, 2012

All ad agencies need more content as part of their promotional strategy to create and keep a relevant and positive engagement with their best prospects 24/7.

Coca Cola has always been at the forefront of innovation. The company recently announced they were committing to a different marketing strategy that no longer relied on traditional advertising to build their business. Coke will be the first major brand to place a major emphasis on content marketing.

In the videos below, Jonathan Mildenhall, Vice-President, Global Advertising Strategy and Creative Excellence at The Coca-Cola Company is the person leading the global strategy for the Company’s portfolio of global brands. In these two videos called Content 2020, he explains Coke’s new content marketing strategy.

I would urge you to take the time to not only watch these two videos but digest them. Many advertising agencies and companies have yet realized the power of content marketing for their own business. I hope these videos will help give you a better understanding of the importance and potential to drive new business opportunities for ad agencies, PR firms and digital shops.

 

 

 

 Chapter 7 describes Coca-Cola’s 70/20/10 plan for content distribution and creation which I think you will find helpful:

  • 70% of content – low risk “bread & butter” content . 50% of time investment. Low risk content will require less time resources to create.
  • 20% of content –  innovate off what works to a more specific audience.
  • 10% of content – high risk content, brand new ideas

Here’s the outline for Coca Cola Content 2020:

Chapter 1: How does content excellence approach “liquid and linked content development”?

Chapter 2: The Case for Change – On demand culture

Chapter 3: The Evolution of Storytelling

Chapter 4: Baking Live Positively Into Our Storytelling Plans – a huge creative opportunity

Chapter 5: From Insights To Provocations, The Big Fat Fertile Creative Brief

Chapter 6: Developing Liquid Content – the creation of stories that are expressed through every possible connection. Different processes but the same principles

Chapter 7: Applying the 70/20/10 Investment Principles for Liquid Content

My Story

Since 2007, my new business consultancy for small to midsize ad agencies was built through content marketing

I worked in new business development almost my entire advertising career, but only at agencies in either Birmingham, Alabama or Nashville, Tennessee. There were very few agencies outside of these two states that even knew who I was. But through creating helpful content for my blog, Fuel Lines, I was able to quickly build awareness for my services from my home base in Alabaster, Alabama. One of my first agency clients was 2,058 miles away on the West Coast, in Costa Mesa, CA.

I’ve now worked with over 100 agencies in almost all 50 states,  as well as agencies in Canada and the UK. Plus I’ve been able to do generate these new business opportunities without having to rely on distributive outbound marketing tactics such as direct mail and cold calling.

What has worked for me will also work for your agency’s new business.

Additional Content Marketing Resources:

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Posted by Michael Gass

19 Tips for Building an SEO Strategy for Ad Agency New Business

January 4, 2012
SEO, ad agency blogs, agency new business

Photo credit: marciookabe

Having a search engine optimization strategy, or SEO, is important to support lead generation for ad agency new business.

Most agency business development directors have a marketing strategy and are becoming competent with an inbound lead generation strategy that has as its centerpiece – content marketing. Understanding search engines is an important part to content marketing and blogging. Therefore, it is important for business development directors to become familiar with how search engines work and keep up with what is going on.

Recent changes to Google’s search engine ranking algorithms are already having an impact. Google’s own site, www.blogger.com, has seen a 20% drop in search traffic. 

How do you become more knowledgeable, reduce the impact of these inevitable changes and create an SEO strategy for new business? 

1. By understanding Google’s bottom line. It is important that you be natural and authentic so you will be less likely affected by Google’s ongoing improvements to its algorithms.

Over 90 % of all Internet users are using search engines and they are the main sources of online traffic. The primary search engine is Google. Google’s goal is, they want their users to find specifically what they are looking for because if they don’t, they will be looking for alternatives.

“The perfect search engine would understand exactly what you mean and give back exactly what you want,”  Google’s cofounder and CEO, Larry Page

2. You can also decrease the impact of these inevitable changes, as Google strives to get better, by focusing your content marketing efforts on the basic elements of SEO. These are the key elements of SEO that also will be less likely affected by Google’s changes.

Here are some basic blog SEO tips to help get you started:

  • Start with a benchmark. Know what your current page rank is and continue to monitor it with tools like Alexa and the Google toolbar.
  • Your blog’s theme/template can help or hurt your SEO, so review and choose carefully. Most designers are more concerned with good design and less concerned about SEO. The navigation structure of your blog’s template plays a critical role in how it is indexed and crawled by the search engines. Use a navigation structure that enables every page reached within three clicks.
  • Check your blog’s referer log regularly to track where your visitors are coming from and the search terms they are using to find your site.
  • Find your ‘niche’ key words. Choosing the most popular search terms will make it nearly impossible to get to the top spot in search. Instead use niche key words that are relevant to your target audience. Place these keywords throughout your blog site: your titles, content, URLs, and image names. Note: the title tag and page header are the two most important spots to put keywords. You can use Google keyword tool to find keywords relevant to your blog.  Just be sure not to overdo by stuffing key words, a Black Hat SEO technique that search engines do not approve and will get your site penalized.
  • You should make it standard to build internal links back to your archives when creating new content. I invite readers to check other articles that might be of interest, at the bottom of almost every post article that I write. Also remember to always link back to sources cited in your post articles as it is bad etiquette not to do so. You will build quality ‘back-links’ by creating link-worthy content.
  • Choose a meaningful title and add a descriptor statement that is included in the metadata and under the description title. Mine is “Fueling ad agency new business through social media.”
  • Pick the right domain name. Try to pick a domain name that says something about your blog site’s content.
  • The single most important thing you can do is to consistently provide high-quality content on your blog. Google has become good at weeding out poor quality web pages.
  • Add URL to Google. Improve your site’s visibility in Google search results. It’s free. To get started, simply add and verify your site and you’ll start to see information right away.
  • Be sure and send a Sitemap using Google Webmaster Tools. A site map is a page listing and linking to all the other major pages on your site and makes it easier for spiders to search your site.
  • Make your URLs more search-engine friendly by naming them with clear keywords.
  • Be sure to include the alternative text descriptions for all photos, images and videos. Spiders can only search text, not text in your images. Start with your image names: adding an “ALT” tag allows you to include a keyword-rich description for every image on your site.
  • Take the time to include blog post tags. Tags are one or two words that briefly describe what your article is all about. I also include any person, entity or publication mentioned in a post. Search engines use tags to index and find your posts faster.
  • SEO and social media marketing have become intrinsically intertwined so be sure you are utilizing social media. You should grow your social media community and using social media platforms and tools to ‘push-out’ new content and pull-in website traffic.
  • Your content should be fresh. Updating your content regularly and often is crucial for increasing traffic. The more recent Google update, dubbed the “Freshness” update, designed to rank newer content higher in search results.
  • Google has started adding Google+ brand pages in search results and some predict that Google will make it harder to do SEO without Google + . I would recommend that you get started by setting up your Google + account and take part.

It would be helpful for you to know how Google finds web pages matching a search query and determines the order of the results.

How does Google find web pages matching your query, and decides the order of search results? Check out this helpful summary of Google Basics. Another helpful resource is Google’s Webmaster Guidelines to help Google find, index, and rank your site. Here’s also a handy, downloadable Search Engine Optimization Startet Guide. Look up unfamiliar SEO terms using the  Search Engine Marketing Glossary

This is an excellent guide for WordPress bloggers: Must See SEO Guide for All WordPress Bloggers

Additional articles that might be of interest:

Photo credit: marclookabe

6 Comments | Content Marketing, New Business Tips, SEO, Social Media | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

The Top 10 Articles of 2011 for Ad Agency New Business

December 29, 2011

www.funphotobox.com

How new business is being acquired for ad agencies is currently undergoing a paradigm shift; instead of pursuing clients, it’s now more important for your prospective clients to find your agency. 

I’m sure that you are well aware of the changing marketing landscape and the need to make fundamental changes to the traditional methods for business development.

  1. Data Explosion - 90% of the world’s data was created in just the past two years. Content marketing has become a key element in building awareness for agencies.
  2. Social Media Eruption - social media is now mainstream and is as a key engagement channel for prospects.
  3. Channel and Device Boom - The growing number of new marketing channels and devices, such as smart phones and tablets, are quickly becoming a priority for reaching prospective clients.
  4. Expanding Markets - Small to midsize agencies have a new window of opportunity to reach a larger market than ever before through new media. There are even international opportunities for agencies.
  5. New business Professionals Struggle - Those who were once good at acquiring new business are finding it to be more complex and changing rapidly. Many are struggling. The interruption type tactics, which were successful in the past, are becoming less and less effective.

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

For those charged with developing a new business program for a small to midsize ad agency, PR firm or digital shop, the following resources are for you. I’ve pulled together a list of the “best of” FUEL LINES agency new business articles based upon analytics of site visitors and their comments. These articles include some of the latest trends, tactics and tips for business development as well as articles that hopefully will give you inspiration.

The Top 10 New Business Articles of 2011:

#1 Steve Jobs: 10 Presentation Tactics for Ad Agency New  Business

#2 Steve Jobs’s 10 Best Quotes for Advertising Agencies

#3 Forbes: 20 Best-Ever Social Media Campaigns

#4 Top 10 Benefits of Social Media for Ad Agency New Business

#5 The Top 14 List of Advertising Agency Networks for New Business

#6 New Roper Study: 9 in 10 CMOs See Value in Content Marketing

#7 2011 Forecast: 100 Global Trends That Will Drive Consumer Behavior

#8 28 Stimulating Digital and Social Media Marketing Quotes

#9 16 of the Top Quotes from Fast Company’s The Future of Advertising

#10 The 10-20-30 Rule for Keynote Presentations for Ad Agency New  Business

Here are some additional new business resources by category:

Leave a Comment » | Best Practices, Compensation, New Business Tactics, New Business Talents, New Business Tips, New Business Tools, New Business Trends | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Content Marketing is Hard Work: 4 Tips to Make it Easier

December 15, 2011

Content marketing is the wave of the future for ad agency new business, but to have success you will need to make advance preparations to consistently deliver quality content.  

I’ve recently written my 650th blog post article. I have a sense of jubilation mainly because I had been battling one of the most serious bouts of “writers block” since starting my blog. I had dealt with this dreaded writers malady in the past but I have never had this much trouble overcoming it.

Writer’s block is a condition, primarily associated with writing as a profession, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work. The condition varies widely in intensity. It can be trivial, a temporary difficulty in dealing with the task at hand. At the other extreme, some “blocked” writers have been unable to work for years on end, and some have even abandoned their careers. Wikepedia

If you are discovering just how difficult it is to write and create quality content, you aren’t alone. Here’s a collection of notable quotes on the challenges of writing:

  • “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” Red Smith
  • “I’m writing a book. I’ve got the page numbers done.” Steven Wright
  • “Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.” Gene Fowler
  • “I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.” James Michener
  • “Every writer I know has trouble writing.” Joseph Heller
  • “When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing.” Enrique Jardiel Poncela
  • “I do not like to write – I like to have written.” Gloria Steinem
  • “Writing is the flip side of sex – it’s good only when it’s over.” Hunter S. Thompson
  • “Being a good writer is 3% talent, 97% not being distracted by the Internet.” Anonymous
  • “Easy reading is damn hard writing.” Nathaniel Hawthorne

There is nothing mystical about writing, it is simply hard work. It begins with deciding on the purpose of your writing and who you are writing for. What is the benefit to your readers? What is the benefit to you?  It’s also about making a serious time commitment and then grunting the work out until you get it done.

Here are some tips that I would suggest to make content creation easier:

  1. Know your audience: One of the first things you MUST do is to identify who your audience is. Then you must focus your content toward their marketing challenges and needs. Use your analytics for instant feed back to know what content is appealing and what isn’t. Your audience will become the guide for your writing.
  2. Keep your objective top-of-mind: You are writing with a purpose. Use content marketing to generate new business opportunities for the agency by building awareness, lead generation, referrals and positioning as a thought leader. If you don’t have a clear objective you will be wasting your time.
  3. Commit to create original content: Many agencies are trying to take the easy way out by only curating the content of others. There is a place for curating content, but note that original content is in great demand. You will get the best return of your time investment if you are the one that is creating the content that others are curating. That’s where the gold is.
  4. Develop a process for delivering content consistently: Small to midsize agencies should develop a content marketing team, but be sure to name the team leader. If everyone is responsible then no one is. A designated person should be responsible for setting up and managing the editorial calendar and edits as well as managing the content delivery process. I’m hearing from many agencies that have recently created a position of Content Director who oversees the creation of content on behalf of the agency as well as agency clients. I think this is a smart move. Agencies can also hire a freelancer to oversee and manage the process remotely.

Here are some additional articles to help with your agency’s content creation:

7 Comments | Content Marketing, Creating Content, New Business Trends | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Study: 69% of Businesses Increased New Business Leads Through Blogging

September 30, 2011

Blogging greatly improves search engine optimization, which has proven to be a key lead generating factor for new business.

How new business is being acquired for ad agencies is currently undergoing a paradigm shift; instead of pursuing clients, it’s now more important for your prospective clients to find your agency. Blogs make their search easier.

2011 HubSpot ROI Study

In a recent 2011 HubSpot ROI Study,  69% of businesses surveyed said that blogging attributed their lead generation success. The study also found that 75% of businesses believed SEO was a primary factor. The study shows companies that blog attract 55% more website visitors than non-blogging companies.

Blogs generate far 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 - through 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 - create a blog around your agency’s culture and let your personality shine through. People will be attracted to you. People like to associate with people they 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 tell their friends, who tell their friends … and so on.
  • Authority/credibility – blogging allows you to become an expert in the minds of your prospective clients.

Ad Agency Website | Blog

Your agency’s website functions well as an online brochure, a place for agency credentials and credibility. A website doesn’t have the potential that an agency blog has for significant online traffic and provide prospects a reason to visit often. A blog can be the gateway to your agency. Through content marketing, focused toward a specific target audience, an agency’s blog can become a great lead generation tool for new business.

Your agency’s website is about YOU but your blog should be about THEM. Blogging keeps your agency focused on what is important to your prospective clients. It forces you speak to their benefit instead of agency credentials and capabilities. Blog content, if developed correctly, will have more appeal to your prospective client audience because it is focused on their marketing needs and challenges.

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

A 70 Point Checklist for Jump-Starting or Tuning-Up Your Blog for New Business

September 29, 2011

You should evaluate your agency’s blog to optimize its potential as a tool for lead generation, referrals and networking.

There is a dramatic paradigm shift for acquiring new business opportunities for small to midsize ad agencies. 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 and unsolicited direct mail, which consumers are responding to less and less.

Creating new business opportunities through social media is growing. In a recent Ad Agency New Business Survey that I conducted, 64% of the 430 responding ad agencies said they now have a blog. Unfortunately, a number of these blogs are not optimized for new business.

I’ve compiled the following 70 point check-list to help “jump-start” or “tune-up”agency blogs for new business:

  1. Identify your audience. This will help to make your writing easier and more focused.
  2. State the purpose of  your blog. Create a descriptor statement in the blog’s Header. A one sentence summation of the purpose for your blog. Expand upon the descriptor statement in a “Welcome” section in your blog’s sidebar.
  3. Make sure that your blog’s benefit to your visitors is crystal clear.
  4. Reading fuels your writing. You need a good strategic reading program with a clear focus that is centered upon your audience’s interest and needs.
  5. Have calls-to-action that are clear. What do you want your audience to do? They can subscribe to your newsletter, inquire about your services, download a white-paper or eBook, email you their questions, etc.
  6. Create each post title with the keywords you want to dominate through search (i.e. “ad agency new business”). It is also helpful to flag a targeted audience through Twitter and let them know the content is specific to their needs.
  7. The first sentence of your post should be the “takeaway or benefit statement”. Just simply answer the question, what will be my takeaway or benefit if I commit to read this post?  Lead with the conclusion.
  8. Have a distinct point-of-differentiation.
  9. Remember that online readers prefer writing that is concise, easy to scan, and objective (rather than promotional) in style.
  10. Focus on providing quality information over the quantity of posts being generated.
  11. Build relationships with your readers by integrating your blog with Facebook, Google +, Twitter and LinkedIn.
  12. Your blog should become a repository of valued information for your audience. This means that it’s not all original content. I recommend writing 1 original post for every 4 or 5 resource posts.
  13. Use bulleted or numbered lists often. Readers love them.
  14. Highlighted keywords (hypertext links serve as one form of highlighting; typeface variations and color are others).
  15. Publish on a regular schedule. Be consistent in delivering at least 3 to 5 posts per week. This will keep your readers coming back for more. Also, frequently updated content makes search engines happy.
  16. Build credibility and authority for your niche.
  17. Highlight your successes through a featured page such as Press, Awards or your Profile page.
  18. Write headlines that are benefit driven.
  19. Evaluate and improve your writing so that it stands out among the crowd.
  20. Make your posts easy to find and your blog simple to navigate.
  21. Highlight popular posts.
  22. Provide links to additional resources. I almost always provide “Additional articles that may be of interest” at the end of most of my post, linking to similar content from my blog and other sources. It also will keep your visitors on your site longer and improve their experience.
  23. Half the word count (or less) than conventional writing. Usually 350 to 450 words.
  24. Demonstrate how you stand out in your niche. Provide testimonials, comments, featured articles, endorsements, and statistics—in text, audio, and video format through additional linked blog pages or specialty pages.
  25. Provide one call-to-action with clear instructions above the fold.
  26. Avoid jargon and agency speak.
  27. Provide headlines and sub headlines that make it easy for readers to skim your piece before reading the entire article.
  28. Don’t use white writing on black or colored background that makes it hard for people to read.
  29. Create or choose a blog layout that isn’t cluttered or confusing.
  30. Provide captions (where appropriate) on photos that are keyword rich and benefit-driven.
  31. Don’t use too many fonts, colors, and sizes.
  32. Check to see that  your blog is quick to load.
  33. Have a clean, simple, banner at the top of your blog that creates the right feeling on your site. A personal rather than corporate feel.
  34. Break-up long text with sub-headings, bullet points, italics, indention, photos and graphics.
  35. Your opt-in should be above the fold.
  36. Provide an incentive for visitors to give you their name and email.
  37. Only ask for opt-in information that you intend to utilize.
  38. Don’t adhere to the belief that if you “build it and they will come”.
  39. Test, monitor and fine tune your blog regularly.
  40. Use offline-to-online marketing to further promote your blog.
  41. Collect blog stats on results weekly, or per campaign.
  42. In the early phase of promoting your blog, consider paid traffic, Facebook PPC and banner ads.
  43. Build or buy email lists as you build your opt-in list for your niche. A good resource would be The List out of Atlanta, GA.
  44. Write guest articles for other blogs in your niche and even other niches.
  45. Submit your blog post to online directories.
  46. Facilitate referral opportunities through your blog.
  47. Interact regularly through social media—Facebook, Google +, Twitter and LinkedIn.
  48. Run competitions. I’ve generated a lot of traffic to my blog through an “Agency Blog of the Month” contest that culminated into an “Agency Blog of the Year”.
  49. Conduct online surveys and polls through your blog at least quarterly and share results in a post article, PRWeb or PR Newswire.
  50. Create partnering and promotional opportunities with online thought leaders in your niche.
  51. Find ways, through your blog, to help your readers engage with one another.
  52. Write with an “evergreen” style that allows your blog posts to have a long shelf-life and provide a greater return on your time investment.
  53. Write for fast comprehension.
  54. Be sure to include a photo or graphic for each post to add some additional flavor. Use only images that you have rights to or  Creative Commons-licensed content that you can find through photo sharing service such as Flicker.com.
  55. Repurpose content. Someone that finds one of your blog post through search might click-through to another post because you have repurposed it through an email newsletter, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Google +.
  56. Carefully think through your blog’s heading. A “heading” is a stand-alone phrase that describes your blogs content that appear below it. I usually advise clients to create a blog descriptor statement for the header that lets a reader and search engines know the purpose and intent of the content such as “Fueling Ad Agency New Business Through Social Media.”
  57. Write consistently: This is important to creating regular readership. Write at least 3 to 5 posts per week.
  58. Make sure that your blog’s content stays focused and relevant to your target audience. Especially when developing curated content.  Curation is essentially the organizing and sharing (some might even say “repackaging”) of content in ways that are meaningful to a specific target audience. There is a lot of great information you can glean from online that is not related to your readership, but you can easily make them relevant.
  59. Be sure you own your domain name. A person that still has “wordpress or blogspot” in their domain won’t be able to change blogging platforms without losing traffic. This is a huge mistake.
  60. Be sure your site is indexed with Google. If your pages are not indexed, then Google is not crawling them.
  61. Build quality inbound links.There are many online business directories where you can just submit your URL, agency’s name and a description of your services.
  62. Make sure your content can be easily shared on Facebook, Twitter, Linked, as well as social bookmarking sites such as Digg, dell.icio.us and StumbleUpon with Share buttons.
  63. Jump-start traffic by repurposing your blog’s content through an email newsletter that is sent every-other-week. Don’t assume that because you’ve written a post, everyone has read it. You should always assume just the opposite.
  64. Build a sizable Twitter following that is targeted using TweetAdder and repurpose your blog content to your Twitter account using a program such as Social Oomph. Twitter can become your blog’s number one tool for generating targeted traffic.
  65. Invite others to guest post for your blog but be selective.
  66. Be proactive in facilitating speaking opportunities by creating a “Speakers Page” for your blog, list the topics and titles that you can speak to.
  67. Place your RSS Subscription Feed button above the fold, near the top of you blog’s homepage.
  68. Also place a subscription for your email newsletter within your blog’s sidebar to create Opt-Ins from site visitors.
  69. Review your blog site’s analytics daily to see what posts are generating the most traffic, what search terms are being used, where traffic is coming from, who is linking to you, links readers clicked on, page views, etc.
  70. Create a first-step call-to-action for your readers to know how to initially engage with your services. This could be a market or brand audit, or a workshop. Whatever it is, make it something simple and of good value . Price it low so that it doesn’t require a lot of time to consider. It will at least pay for your time in front of a prospect and lead to more new business opportunities.  A call-to-action will also help separate your qualified prospects from those that just want to pick your brain for free.

Some additional agency blogging resources:

7 Comments | Agency Blogs, Content Marketing, Creating Content, New Business Trends, Social Media | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

5 Ways Social Media Marketing Makes New Business Easier

September 23, 2011

Photo Credit NCinDC

For agency new business, you need to look at social media as a saviour not a nemesis; an asset rather than a liability; a time saver rather than a time killer.  

Having spent most of my advertising career in new business development I can tell you that social media marketing is the most efficient new business tool that I have ever used.

Here are 5 ways social media marketing makes agency new business easier:

1. Social media marketing allows agencies to easily define and adopt a differentiating new business strategy

The FOUNDATION of an ad agency’s new business program is its positioning.

When you have the right positioning, it’s like fishing for a specific fish, using  a particular bait. You know where the fish are, what bait is most appealing to them, the right equipment to use and you have developed the expertise to catch the real trophies.

Small to midsize agencies have been reluctant to name what they stand for. Social media marketing allows agencies to adopt a narrower niche and a more differentiating strategy than they would be comfortable in doing through their website.

“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 waaay 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” – Park Howell, president of Park & CO

“Just thought I would let you know. We are participating in a pitch tomorrow for another national account. This opportunity is 100% related to our agency’s new positioning through our blog, She-conomy: A guy’s guide to marketing to women” – Stephanie Holland, president, Holland + Holland Advertising

Holland + Holland advertising, through their blog,  She-conomy, has now been invited to 3 national pitches as a result of their differentiating positioning. Nothing like this had ever happened before in their 25 year history. They even had trouble with local press coverage of their anniversary. But through social media, they have been recognized by Forbes, The Wall Street Journal and NPR radio.

Stephanie had never been comfortable stepping out with this positioning prior to social media. She was like other agency principals who felt that they would be missing opportunities.

Here are a couple of other examples:

  • The Littlefield ad agency, Tulsa, OK,  is carving out a niche through their The One Thing blog: The casino marketers guide to understanding gamers, written by the agency’s new business director, Kelly Fiddner.
  • MAX Advertising, Atlanta, GA, has created The Matte Pad, Marketing know how for the legal profession, written by its CEO, Tom Matte.

The way these agencies are using social media as a differentiating tool doesn’t impact the way the have obtained new business in the past. It doesn’t impede the networking and referral business that is generated offline. MAX advertising will still obtain new business outside of legal marketing and even though Littlefield is focused on casino marketers, it doesn’t impact winning a sizable local bank as a new client.

Why would a prospective client, outside of your market, want to work with your agency? Why would they pass over hundreds of other agencies to work with yours? Through a differentiating social media marketing strategy you can give them a reason.

2. Social media marketing provides an easy system to create intellectual capital and share your area of expertise

Social media marketing is effectively driven by content development and curation. This in turn provides a customized continuing education program for your professional enrichment, keeping you ahead of the learning curve and positioning as a thought leader.

An added plus, social media marketing pays for you to go back to school! What you do for professional enrichment will also provide your FUEL for new business.

3. Social media marketing lessens dependency upon new business tactics that rely on interruption tactics

I’m a cold caller from way back and have had much success with it in the past. But times are changing rapidly. Cold calling isn’t what it use to be and it isn’t an efficient or effective method for agency new business. You make dozens of calls to find the right prospect and the right time but you still have to go through the “dating process”.

Social media marketing has the potential for building prospective client relationships much faster than cold calling. 

Can you imagine a prospective client picking up the phone and initiating a call for the first meeting with your agency? It doesn’t happen very often. That’s not the norm. The vast majority of the time, small to midsize agencies, PR firms and digital shops are chasing after new business opportunities.

Having steadily grown my consultancy over the past 4 years, I have yet to make an initial call for any new business. I strategically built awareness and appeal through my social media networks.

Prospective clients call and  those initial conversations are much further down-the-road. They talk to me as if they know me, because they do know me. I’ve built a relationship with them online through the use of social media and when they make that call, they are usually ready to do business. You skip the dating process and move straight to the altar. 

Why? People want to work with other people that they KNOW, TRUST and LIKE. Social media is an efficient and effective communication channel that allows relationships to be built much faster than they could be offline.

For instance, to have a physical, initial meeting here in my home town of Birmingham, Alabama would take much longer and is less efficient than the way I generate new business opportunities online through my social media networks.

I can be building a relationship with an agency in Costa Mesa, California while simultaneously I’m doing the same with an agency in Portland, Maine and Miami, Florida. I am doing this while I’m networking internationally through a network of agencies in South Africa and a couple of agencies in London.

All of this networking is taking place from my home office located above my garage in Alabaster, Alabama or from where ever I happen to be.

4. Social media marketing allows agencies to broaden their market 

Small to midsize ad agencies can affordably build a national awareness.

Prior to using social media for new business, The Russo Group in Lafayette, LA, 94% of their new business came from within their market. Since implementing social media, 94% of their new business has been generated outside their market and has extended their  business in over 9 different states.

The growth clients well outside of their market of Lafayette had never happened before. Social media marketing made the difference.

Not long ago I received this message from a midsize agency located outside of Cleveland, Ohio:

“Kudos to all! Our social program is generating leads and business from around the world. Earlier this year got a client out of Australia and currently talking to a company in Japan that follows me on twitter” – John Sonnhalter, CEO, SONNHALTER

This agency has a very narrow niche, manufacturers who target professional tradesmen, plumbers, electricians, contractors. They’ve been able to play to their strengths because social media marketing broadens their business opportunities.

5. Social media marketing helps create consistent new business practices

You can keep your prospective pipeline full even when your agency is at its busiest. Once you develop your social media marketing strategy and get it in place, it will take little effort to keep it working on your behalf.

We previously owned a houseboat that was docked at a marina in Nashville, TN.  I often would make the 250 mile drive to spend time on the boat.  I absolutely loved the atmosphere and the culture around the docks at Black Jack Cove Marina. My new business pipeline didn’t suffer when I spent weeks there. Often I would be sitting on the back of the boat watching the sun set while cranking out another blog post and engaging with new business prospects hundreds of miles away.

I can easily create, maintain and grow new prospective client relations through my social media network. It is similar to how I would network offline but much more efficient. It is like networking on steroids.

Additional articles that may be of interest:

4 Comments | Agency Blogs, Content Marketing, New Business Trends, Social Media | 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

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

2011 Trends: Content Marketing Is Critical to Ad Agency New Business

January 14, 2011

Content is the most important asset in using social media for ad agency new business.

In the 2011 RSW/US New Year Outlook Report, 77% of Agency Principals indicate that they plan on getting more aggressive on the agency new business front in 2011. ”Networking” and “Social Media” are the top two ways agency principals state they’re going to “get aggressive.”

It’s great to know that agencies are planning to be more aggressive with their social media efforts. But please note that even more than technology, original content is the key to success.

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.

“Next year [2011], marketers will need to rethink their approach to advertising and marketing and intensify their focus on creating magnetic content that will naturally attract consumers, rather than relying solely on the interruption model of advertising, which consumers are responding to less and less. Think pull vs. push.”  Geoff Ramsey, CEO, Co-Founder of eMarketer

Here are 10 Content Marketing resources that will provide you with some best content creation practices along with unique insights, practical advice and tips:

  1. Copyblogger: Content Marketing for Ad Agency New Business
  2. 10 Ways to Create An Ad Agency Blog That is Reader-Centric
  3. Using the Inverted Pyramid Style of Writing for Ad Agency New Business
  4. Use Brevity for Ad Agency New Business
  5. 6 Writing Tips to Make Your Ad Agency’s Blog Effective for New Business
  6. How to Write Your Ad Agency’s Blog
  7. 21 Blog Post Writing Tips for Ad Agency New Business
  8. 6 Simple Steps for Using Content Marketing to Attract Ad Agency New Business
  9. Let Hemingway improve your writing for ad agency new business
  10. The Four Great Laws of Copywriting for Ad Agency New Business

Some additional content resources that you might find helpful: Ad Agencies: 97 Articles on How To Write Effectively for the Social Web

Click on the following link for a downloadable copy of  the 2011 RSW/US New Year Outlook Report! or the study by King Fish Media, HubSpot and Junta42, 2010 Social Media Usage, Attitudes and Measurability: What Do Marketers Think?

12 Comments | Best Practices, Content Marketing, Fuel for Thought, New Business Trends | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Using the Inverted Pyramid Style of Writing for Ad Agency New Business

October 26, 2010

The inverted pyramid style of writing works well to produce the kind of content that generates significant targeted traffic to your agency’s blog for new business leads.

I recommend using the inverted pyramid style of writing used by journalists where you place the most important information first with a text. It is a common method for writing news stories but works extremely well when writing for online versus writing for print.

Journalism on the Web is definitely different from print journalism. How most people read online? They don’t, they scan.

Nielsen Norman Group’s research found that 79 percent of their test users always scanned any new page they came across; only 16 percent read word-by-word. A newer study found that users read email newsletters even more abruptly than they read websites.) People prefer sites that get to the point and let them get things done quickly.

Nielsen also predicted the use of the inverted pyramid style of writing for the Web back in 1996.

Most readers are impatient and want stories to get to the point immediately. The inverted pyramid style of writing helps compel the writer to get to the point quicker. For this style of writing, you put  the most newsworthy information at the top, and then the remaining information follows in order of importance, with the least important at the bottom.

The pyramid style of writing is valued to your readers because they can leave the story at any point and still understand it, even if they don’t have all of the smaller details.

I would suggest actually leading your article/post with what I call the “takeaway or benefit” statement. Simply answer the question, “What is my take away, what is my benefit if I commit to read this article?” You actually lead the story by starting with the conclusion.

“The inverted pyramid organizes stories not around ideas or chronologies but around facts. It weighs and shuffles the various pieces of information, focusing with remarkable single-mindedness on their relative news value.” - journalism historian Mitchell Stephens

6 Comments | Agency Blogs, Agency Leadership, Best Practices, Creating Content | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

How to launch a blog for ad agency for new business — fast!

October 15, 2010

Agencies can’t afford to wait 6 months for social media to help generate new business, they need the business now.

An agency blog serves as the central component for your agency’s social media strategy.  I’ve compiled my suggested best practices to help you to get your agency’s blog up, focused and running quickly as well as rapidly building your agency’s credibility within this space.

An agency blog is like fishing. You want to fish for a particular fish, with a particular bait and you want to get the bait away from the boat so you don’t scare off the fish.

To get an agency blog up and running quickly  you’ll need to do the following:

  1. Have a clear objective: Create content to generate inbound leads for my agency’s new business.
  2. Identify your target audience.
  3. Compose a descriptor statement, subtitle that states emphatically what your blog is about (i.e. A Guys Guide to Marketing to Women, Fueling Ad Agency New Business Through Social Media, Data-Driven Marketing That Pays for Itself)
  4. Create a unique title for the blog. It’s helpful if you can also tie in the title with a URL for the blog that you own.
  5. URL, just be sure that you own it instead of having a wordpress.com, typepad.com or blogspot.com. That way you can change blogging platforms without losing your online traffic.
  6. Know the  key words that you want to dominate in Google Search. Be consistent to include your key words into your post titles.
  7. Come up with 10 to 12 categories that you will write to. These will help guide your writing and will facilitate navigation of your blog’s content for your readers.
  8. Start with a simple blogging platform that you can easily switch from in the future. My suggestion would be WordPress.com.
  9. Keep your IT  and Creative department out of the picture in the beginning stages. Keep the process as simple as possible and focus on the blog’s content.
  10. Set a goal for writing 50 post within 30 days. This will help you to develop your research, resourcing, writing and publishing processes. You will quickly know what obstacles will inhibit you and allow you to figure out workarounds to keep the process moving.
  11. Navigation is critical. Make your blog easy to navigate with Top Posts, Categories, etc. Install a search widget that is included in your blog’s sidebar and located above the fold.
  12. Create a “welcome to your blog” and include your photo to make it more personable. The “welcome” copy should be an expansion of your blog’s descriptor statement.
  13. Add these pages: About, Services, Speaking, Contact.
  14. Add social media buttons for your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts.
  15. Be sure to add an RSS subscription button and create a Feedburner account through Google to get your link.
  16. Add a subscription button for an email newsletter that is directly linked to your email provider account such as Vertical Response, Emma, Constant Contact, etc.
  17. Jump start traffic by sending out an email newsletter at least monthly, preferably every other week. Content from the blog is used in the email newsletter. Don’t assume that just because you’ve written it, everyone has read it.
  18. Generate initial traffic as well through Twitter using tools like Social Oomph and TweetAdder.

Create a format that you can use for every post:

  • Incorporate your key words into every blog post title.
  • A benefit/takeaway statement that begins each post that answers the question, “what is my benefit if I commit to read this post?” This is the inverted pyramid style of writing, like a newspaper report would use, lead with the conclusion.
  • Easy to read copy, breaking up long paragraphs and editing to make the post concise, a Readers Digest version, on average 350 to 450 words.
  • For the best return on your time investment, write post that are “evergreen.” Try not to “date” your content.
  • Consistently create valued content that is “reader-centric.”
  • Hyperlink to resources and attribution to primary sources.
  • Select one or more categories that are reflective of the blog’s content.
  • Add tags for people, places, entities that are referenced in your post.
  • Include “additional articles that may be of interest” at the bottom of the post with titles and links to 4 to 5 other post that you’ve written.
  • Include a photo or graphic in every post to make it visually pleasing.

Here is a collection of additional blogging resources:

11 Comments | Agency Blogs, Agency Leadership, Best Practices, Creating Content, Social Media | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

CNN Study: Commerciality of social media fast becoming apparent

October 12, 2010

CNN’s inaugural global research study (POWNAR) reveals important benefits for advertisements attached to news stories that are shared in social media.

“The commerciality of the social media space is fast becoming apparent and this study means that for the first time, we are able to substantiate the value of shared news from an advertising perspective” -Didier Mormesse, SVP, Ad Sales Research, Development & Audience Insight at CNN International

Here are a few of the interesting highlights of the study that should be of interest to ad agencies:

  • What content is being shared?
    • ‘Business’, ‘World’ and ‘Technology’ sections lead the way for “most shared” news stories while visual spectacle, science & technology and human interest top the list of themes.
    • The majority of stories being shared carry an underlying message of the “sharer” imparting knowledge.
    • 27% of all sharers* account for 87% of all news stories shared.
    • The average global user shares 13 stories per week and receives 26stories through shared social media links or emails.
  • Who is doing the sharing?
    • The global online survey showed that people who received news content from a friend or associate via social media, were 19% more likely to recommend the brand that advertised around that story to others and 27% more likely to favour that brand themselves.
  • Which platforms dominate?
    • 43% of news sharing comes from social media networks and tools e.g. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace
    • Email (30%)
    • SMS (15%)
    • IM (12%).

An understanding of how content is shared, the type of content and through what platforms can be used by agencies as a guideline for more effective creative campaigns.

To review a copy of the CNN press release for the study – Click Here

Additional articles that may be of interest:

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

10 Ways to Create An Ad Agency Blog That is Reader-Centric

October 6, 2010

A key to your agency’s blog success for new business is to put the user’s experience ahead of your own.

People don’t have time to work hard for their information. You must be prepared to do some work on their behalf if you want to grow your blog’s traffic and generate inbound leads.

Success on the Internet depends on multiplying the number of people who will visit a home page times the proportion who actually enlist your services –the percentage who become clients.

Writing for Web: it is the survival of the easiest. Giving attention to usability can greatly increase the amount of your blog’s visitors who turn into new clients.

Here are 10 ways to create an agency blog that is reader-centric and puts the user’s experience first and foremost:

  1. Write to be easily found. Create an SEO strategy so that your blog’s content is found by your intended target audience. Consistency using certain key words in your post titles that aid in the search-ability of your posts. This same tactic also helps with Twitter and identifies content specific to  your audience’s needs.
  2. Make your blog site easy to navigate. Blogs are not often read chronologically. That makes navigation from a Category section located in your blog’s sidebar a very important feature. Creating blog categories will also provide a guide for your writing keeping you focused.
  3. Provide the reader’s digest version for the information that you share. I would suggest limiting your posts to 350 to 450 words on average. Usually half the word count than you would use for print. It actually takes a bit more work to make post copy concise but your readers will love you for it.
  4. Create numbered and bullet-pointed lists when possible. Readers love it when you created this type of executive summary of information.
  5. If you want more readers focus on short, scannable content. 79 percent of Web users scan rather than read word-for-word. Highlight key words, indent quotes, etc.
  6. Write for fast comprehension. Eliminate unnecessary copy. It takes more work to be brief. Try to stay within 350 to 450 words per post. Web content must be brief and get to the point quickly, because users are likely to be on a specific mission.
  7. Write content that is evergreen to provide information that has a long and valued shelf-life.
  8. Use your analytics to sharpen your blog’s appeal. Your readership will be your guide to relevant content.
  9. Don’t think that just because you’re written it that everyone has read it. Repurpose content. Someone that found a post through SEO, might find another through your email newsletter, or through Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.
  10. Take the time and select images for your post that convey useful, memorable information, not just decoration.

Why is it so important to create a blog that is “reader-centric”?  To provide a great user experience with your online content, you must overcome these obstacles:

  • You are competing with hundreds of millions of other online sources.  Advertisers are  trying to break through the clutter by yelling more loudly and being more aggressive by deceptive means that hurts everyone’s credibility and raises users suspicions. Readers come to your site with their defenses engaged.
  • Online readers have a very short attention span. The average page visit lasts about 30 seconds. 10 minutes would be a long visit to a website. People want sites to get to the point, they have very little patience.
  • Your competition is a click away. There is a low tolerance for poor site navigation, material that is hard to locate and sites that are slow to load.
  • Users want to construct their own experience by piecing together content from multiple sources. Many users want simply to reach a site quickly, complete a task and leave.
  • Web users are getting more selfish when they go online. People arrive at a website with a goal in mind, and they are ruthless in pursuing their own interest and in rejecting whatever the site is trying to push.
  • Online behavior is very search-dominated which makes your content search dependent.

What are some of  the benefits for creating a “reader-centric” blog?:

  • It will improve the success rate for communicating key messages.
  • Increase your credibility.
  • Convert readers into loyal followers and advocates.
  • Generate more traffic which leads to higher conversion rates of readers to new clients.

Some additional articles that may be of interest:

Learn more with a full day, Social Media | Ad Agency New Business Workshop

15 Comments | Agency Blogs, Agency Leadership, Creating Content, New Business Trends, Social Media | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

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

September 7, 2010

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.
  • Write consistently: is important to creating regular readership. Write at least 3 to 5 posts per week.
  • Post should average 350 to 450 words and be pleasantly scannable to the eye. Break up long paragraphs, use bullet/numbered list when possible. Highlight key words and thoughts.
  • Write in the inverted pyramid style, lead with your conclusion. People read differently online than they do for print. They tend to scan much more.
  • Identify and consistently use key words in your post title. You want to be able to dominate these words in Google search.
  • Let your reading fuel your writing.
  • Write 1 original post to every 4 to 5 resource posts. You’ll never be considered a thought leader without original content but you wont generate much traffic if all of your content is just your original thought. A balance of both needs to be provided through your blog.
  • Write with an “evergreen” style that will have a long shelf-life and provide a great return on your time investment.
  • Provide the “Readers Digest” version for your writers. Do the work on behalf of your readers and pull out the nuggets in simple language that is concise and easy to read.

2. Optimizing

  • Carefully think through your blog’s heading. A “heading” is a stand-alone phrase that describes your blogs content that appear below it. I usually advise clients to create a blog descriptor statement for the header that lets a reader and search engines know the purpose and intent of the content. Mine is “Fueling ad agency new business through social media.”
  • Be sure you own your domain. A person that still has “wordpress or blogspot” in their domain wont be able to change blogging platforms without losing traffic.
  • Be sure your site is indexed with Google. If your pages are not indexed, then Google is not crawling them.
  • Build quality inbound links.There are lots of online business directories where you can just submit your URL, agency’s name and a description of your services. There are also many social media sites where you can simply build links to your site. Writing guest articles and posts and optimized our press releases can build links. The best way however, is to produce valued content and create a blog that is a repository of helpful information for your target audience.

3.  Promoting

  • Make sure your content can be easily shared on Facebook, Twitter, Linked, as well as social bookmarking sites such as Digg, dell.icio.us and StumbleUpon with Share buttons.
  • Jumpstart traffic by repurposing your blog’s content through an email newsletter that is sent every-other-week. This is an easy way thing to do. Since you already have the content and can create an email template that is reused, it will take literally minutes to prepare the newsletter and send.
  • Build a sizable Twitter following that is targeted using TweetAdder and repurpose your blog content to your Twitter account using a program such as Social Oomph.
  • Write guest post, invite others to guest post for your blog.
  • Comment on other blog post and online articles, sites such as Ad Age, ADWEEK, etc. Select that sites that are frequented by your target audience.
  • Write content for search-ability.
  • Publish new blog content to your other social media accounts such as Facebook and LinkedIn.
  • Conduct your own primary research using your blog generate links and traffic through press releases using PRWeb or PRNewswire.
  • Be proactive in facilitating speaking opportunities by creating a Speakers Page for your blog, list the topics and titles that you can speak to. You can also provide links to your past speaking engagements through YouTube, post photos through your Flickr Photostream.
  • Pull blog content together, expand SEO opportunities, creating Slideshare Presentations, Whitepapers, etc.

4. Converting

All of this activity isn’t worth the time investment if it doesn’t turn visitors into leads.

  • Place your RSS Subscription Feed button above the fold, near the top of you blog’s homepage. Visitors who subscribe will automatically receive updates every time you publish a new post either through an RSS Reader or through their email Inbox. I would suggest setting up an RSS feed through Feedburner.
  • Also place a subscription for your email newsletter within your blog’s sidebar to create Opt-Ins from site visitors.

5. Measuring

If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it. Fortunately you can measure a lot online and continually hone your program.

  • Review your blog site’s analytics daily to see what posts are generating the most traffic, what search terms are being used, where traffic is coming from, who is linking to you, links readers clicked on, page views, etc.
  • Utilize your email newsletter analytics to improve open and click-through rates. Test the day of the week your email newsletter is sent, time-of-day and subject line copy.
  • Create a first-step call-to-action for your readers to know how to initially engage you. This could be something similar to my New Business | Social Media Workshop. Make it something simple and of value that doesn’t take a lot of consideration but does separate to qualified prospects from those that just want to glean what they can from you for free.
  • Use tools this suite of tools to analyze your marketing efforts:

Some additional agency blogging resources:

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5 Comments | Agency Blogs, Best Practices, Creating Content, New Business Trends, Social Media | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

7 Tips for Using Twitter for Ad Agency New Business

September 1, 2010

Used in the right way, Twitter can be one of the best social media tools to be used to generate traffic and leads for your agency’s new business.

For the past 3 years Twitter has been the leading traffic generator to my Fuel Lines blog. It definitely needs to be part of your agency’s overall social media marketing strategy.

The following are seven of my personal tips to help make Twitter more effective for your agency’s new business:

  1. Don’t be afraid to use Twitter differently from the way it was originally intended to be used. Twitter is more of a broadcast tool that most would admit and current research validates. Treat it as a broadcast tool through reach and frequency of your content marketing efforts and generating the best return on your time investment by repurposing your content through tools such as Social Oomph.
  2. Build a targeted Twitter following. Research Twitter lists such as Mashable’s Twitter List Directory, third-party programs such as TweetAdder.
  3. In addition your own blog’s content, be sure to supplement your Twitter posts with resources from others that are of help to your target audience.
  4. Pay-it-forward. As others are so kind to publicize your content, also help to promote theirs.
  5. In addition to Twitter being a broadcasting tool, it must be utilized as a networking tool for you to have success. Content helps build awareness but it is up to you to turn awareness into relationships. The efficiency of these kinds of online networks should be all that is need to motivate you to participate. People want to work with other people that they know, like and trust.
  6. Use third-party Twitter tools like  CoTweet and HootSuite to minimize your time and maximize the effectiveness of your Twittering.
  7. What you learn to do for your agency can be used for your clients. There are a multiplicity of benefits from your involvement.

To provide you with further help in using Twitter for new business here are 20 of the most popular post:

 

Follow this list of agencies and see first hand how they are using Twitter: Twitter List: 500+ Advertising Agencies on Twitter

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

6 Simple Steps for Using Content Marketing to Attract Ad Agency New Business

August 4, 2010

Relevant and valuable content will attract a clearly defined and understood target audience.

Content marketing is an overarching term that involves the creation and sharing of content for the purpose of engaging your prospective clients. Educating your potential clients results in building your agency’s brand awareness and recognition as a thought leader and industry expert. The primary objective is lead generation for new business opportunities.

Here are 6 steps for using content marketing to attract prospective clients:

  • First, define your target audience
  • Second, determine what are their marketing and advertising challenges, “what keeps them up at night”
  • Third, create a blog as your central communication platform that becomes a repository of information, “a one stop shop” that provides consistent solutions, rich helpful content
  • Fourth, continually measure how well you’re doing and adjust as you go
  • Fifth, “Jump start” your blog’s traffic, accelerate its growth by repurposing content through other social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn using third party tools to that help to make the process easy to manage and time efficient.
  • Sixth, now, what you’ve done for yourself, do for your clients

    Additional articles that may be of interest:

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    11 Comments | Agency Blogs, Agency Leadership, Best Practices, Content Marketing, Fuel for Thought, New Business Tips, New Business Trends, Social Media | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
    Posted by Michael Gass

    Reading Can Fuel Your Writing for Ad Agency New Business

    August 2, 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Additional articles that may be of interest:

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

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