lead generation « FUEL LINES Fueling Ad Agency New Business Through Social Media

20 Top Inbound Marketing Resources for the Paradigm Shift in Ad Agency New Business

November 9, 2011

Intersection Consulting

Advertising agencies, PR firms and digital shops should reverse their new business efforts from “Outbound Marketing” techniques to “Inbound Marketing.”

There is a dramatic paradigm shift for acquiring new business opportunities for advertising agencies, digital shops and PR firms. Agencies need to rethink their approach to new business and intensify their focus on inbound tactics, such as creating magnetic content that will attract prospective clients, rather than relying on the traditional interruption model which consumers are responding to less and less.

MarketingSherpa reported in a CMO Study, 80 percent of decision makers said they FOUND their vendors (not the other way around). Inbound Marketing is marketing focused on getting found by customers.

Most agencies are spending the majority of their new business efforts on “Outbound Marketing” tactics such as direct mail, cold calling, email blasts and other efforts that push their message out to a wide, diverse prospective client audience. Their prospects are already inundated with over 2000 interruptions per day. They are becoming experts at blocking out those unsolicited outbound tactics.

It is much more effective and efficient to follow the paradigm shift to “Inbound Marketing” techniques where 100% of your potential clients will begin an agency search by using Google. The internet, coupled with social media marketing and inbound marketing techniques, takes the ability to network and gain referral business to a whole new level. It allows agencies to maintain a top of mind awareness without using interruption tactics and helps to build relationships quickly.

If an agency has been 90% focused on outbound marketing tactics and only 10% on inbound marketing, I recommend that they do just the opposite.

To make this shift effective, the most successful Inbound Marketing programs will have three key parts:

Content – Content is the fuel for this new business engine. It is what attracts potential clients to your site.
Search Engine Optimization – 90% of new business begins with online search.
Social Media – This will amplify the impact of your content.

Those agencies that adapt to this new business paradigm shift from “outbound marketing” methods to “inbound marketing” will have a distinct advantage over their competition. Some are already seeing results.

In a recent 2011 HubSpot ROI Study, 69% of businesses surveyed said that inbound marketing attributed to their lead generation success.

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 inbound marketing was a key lead generation source for 63% of the respondents:

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

The internet and the rise of social media has changed the nature of ad agency new business and subsequently changed the shape of the sales funnel. That initial client conversation today is much different from the one a decade ago because the prospect often knows as much about your agency as the new business director does and the prospect is already much more “qualified.”

Here are 20 of Fuel Lines’s most popular resources for helping agencies make the shift from outbound marketing to inbound marketing for new business:

Image Credit: Intersection Consulting

3 Comments | Agency Blogs, Content Marketing, Creating Content, New Business Tactics, New Business Trends, Social Media | Tagged: ad agency new business, business development, digital shops, inbound marketing, lead generation, Michael Gass, Public Relations, Social Media | 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: 2011 HubSpot ROI Study, ad agency new business, blogs, content marketing, Hubspot, lead generation, Michael Gass, SEO, Social Media | 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:

Identify your audience. This will help to make your writing easier and more focused.
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.
Make sure that your blog’s benefit to your visitors is crystal clear.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Have a distinct point-of-differentiation.
Remember that online readers prefer writing that is concise, easy to scan, and objective (rather than promotional) in style.
Focus on providing quality information over the quantity of posts being generated.
Build relationships with your readers by integrating your blog with Facebook, Google +, Twitter and LinkedIn.
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.
Use bulleted or numbered lists often. Readers love them.
Highlighted keywords (hypertext links serve as one form of highlighting; typeface variations and color are others).
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.
Build credibility and authority for your niche.
Highlight your successes through a featured page such as Press, Awards or your Profile page.
Write headlines that are benefit driven.
Evaluate and improve your writing so that it stands out among the crowd.
Make your posts easy to find and your blog simple to navigate.
Highlight popular posts.
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.
Half the word count (or less) than conventional writing. Usually 350 to 450 words.
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.
Provide one call-to-action with clear instructions above the fold.
Avoid jargon and agency speak.
Provide headlines and sub headlines that make it easy for readers to skim your piece before reading the entire article.
Don’t use white writing on black or colored background that makes it hard for people to read.
Create or choose a blog layout that isn’t cluttered or confusing.
Provide captions (where appropriate) on photos that are keyword rich and benefit-driven.
Don’t use too many fonts, colors, and sizes.
Check to see that your blog is quick to load.
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.
Break-up long text with sub-headings, bullet points, italics, indention, photos and graphics.
Your opt-in should be above the fold.
Provide an incentive for visitors to give you their name and email.
Only ask for opt-in information that you intend to utilize.
Don’t adhere to the belief that if you “build it and they will come”.
Test, monitor and fine tune your blog regularly.
Use offline-to-online marketing to further promote your blog.
Collect blog stats on results weekly, or per campaign.
In the early phase of promoting your blog, consider paid traffic, Facebook PPC and banner ads.
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.
Write guest articles for other blogs in your niche and even other niches.
Submit your blog post to online directories.
Facilitate referral opportunities through your blog.
Interact regularly through social media—Facebook, Google +, Twitter and LinkedIn.
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”.
Conduct online surveys and polls through your blog at least quarterly and share results in a post article, PRWeb or PR Newswire.
Create partnering and promotional opportunities with online thought leaders in your niche.
Find ways, through your blog, to help your readers engage with one another.
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.
Write for fast comprehension.
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.
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 +.
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.”
Write consistently: This is important to creating regular readership. Write at least 3 to 5 posts per week.
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.
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.
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 many online business directories where you can just submit your URL, agency’s name and a description of your services.
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.
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.
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.
Invite others to guest post for your blog but be selective.
Be proactive in facilitating speaking opportunities by creating a “Speakers Page” for your blog, list the topics and titles that you can speak to.
Place your RSS Subscription Feed button above the fold, near the top of you blog’s homepage.
Also place a subscription for your email newsletter within your blog’s sidebar to create Opt-Ins from site visitors.
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.
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: advertising agencies, blogs, business development, content curation, content marketing, lead generation, Michael Gass, networking, referrals, Social Media | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

12 Tips for Building a Rewards Program for Ad Agency New Business

June 6, 2011

Everyone in the agency should contribute to new business and one of the best ways to encourage lead generation is through a referral program.

A referral program is one of the most cost-effective and efficient methods for generating new business for small-to-midsize ad agencies. Here are my 12 tips on how to create or enhance your agency’s new business referral program:

Identify the kinds of clients you are looking for and set parameters for qualifying leads (size, niche or category, etc.) so all employees know the kinds of clients you want to pursue.
Make your process simple and easy to understand. Your staff will not be willing to jump through lots of hoops to participate.
Set goals such as getting a 75 percent participation rate or a certain number of referrals per employee by year’s end.
Regularly encourage employees to make referrals. Get in front of them often and present a clear message of how your new business referral program works, why they are an integral part of its success, and what’s in it for them.
As a way to increase the quality of referrals, pay out their incentives in two stages, offering an initial payout upon a referral as well as a second, supplementary bonus if the initial lead turns into a new account for the agency. The “right” reward will depend upon your agency’s size and the size of the new business account.
For initial leads offer gift cards, movie tickets, dinner or non-monetary prizes like reserved parking spaces or a cubicle by the window, or thanking them at a reception with their peers. I would suggest rewarding ALL qualified referrals in some way to ratchet-up participation.
If the referral leads to a new account for your agency, provide a much larger financial bonus or allow employees too earn extra vacation days – with pay.
Be sure to publicly say “thank you” to the person who supplied the lead that generates new business. Make it impressive enough that employees will proactively feed you names on a regular basis.
Teach your staff how to ask for referrals and train them to be better networkers, especially integrating social media into the mix of tools available. You will systematically turn your employees into indispensable brand advocates.
Do a good job of providing periodic status updates. Employees will be frustrated with the lack of follow-up on the status of their referrals.
Continuously find ways to improve the program.
Create consistency. The deeper you draw your employees into the hunt for new business “hunt,” the easier it will be for your agency will stay focused and consistent in generating new business.

Additional articles that may be of interest:

Leave a Comment » | New Business Tactics, New Business Tips | Tagged: lead generation, Michael Gass, new business, referrals, rewards program | 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:

5 Comments | Agency Blogs, Best Practices, Creating Content, New Business Trends, Social Media | Tagged: advertising agencies, blogging, content marketing, Kelliher Samets Vok, lead generation, new business development, Social Media, Tim Volk | 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:

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.
Build a targeted Twitter following. Research Twitter lists such as Mashable’s Twitter List Directory, third-party programs such as TweetAdder.
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.
Pay-it-forward. As others are so kind to publicize your content, also help to promote theirs.
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.
Use third-party Twitter tools like CoTweet and HootSuite to minimize your time and maximize the effectiveness of your Twittering.
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

5 Comments | Agency Blogs, Fuel for Thought, New Business Tips, New Business Tools, New Business Trends, Social Media, Twitter | Tagged: content marketing, lead generation, Mashable, Michael Gass, Social Media, Social Oomph, TweetAdder, Twitter | 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:

11 Comments | Agency Blogs, Agency Leadership, Best Practices, Content Marketing, Fuel for Thought, New Business Tips, New Business Trends, Social Media | Tagged: blogs, Blogs I Recommend, content marketing, lead generation, Michael Gass | 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:

2 Comments | Agency Blogs, Best Practices, Social Media, Time Management | Tagged: advertising agencies, blogs, content marketing, lead generation, reading online, Social Media, writing | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

6 Tips to Blog Successfully for Ad Agency New Business

April 29, 2010

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

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

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

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

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

Here is a collection of agency blogging resources:

Leave a Comment » | Agency Blogs, Agency Leadership, New Business Tips, Social Media | Tagged: ad agency, blogs, content marketing, lead generation, Michael Gass | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Contests; A Lead Generation Tactic For Ad Agency New Business

April 12, 2010

According to Jupiter Research: companies that run contests or sweepstakes have twice as many fans on their sponsored social network pages as those who don’t.

Social media provides agencies with many avenues for new business lead generation. One particular strategy, creating contests to engage an audience, quickly build online traffic and generate leads, is now even more feasible for agencies thanks to easy-to-use platforms that have recently emerged.

These new platforms allow you to simply create, automate, and execute powerful online contests at little-to-no cost. Here are a few online contest platforms that you may want to explore:

ContestMachine: Promotions Made Easy

ContestMachine is an inexpensive solution for contest campaigns for small to midsize ad agencies. They offer a packages that range from free to $99 per month with no long term contracts. ContestMachine takes care of the details, from collecting entries to notifying winners.

Strutta – The Contest Platform

Strutta it easy for publishers, marketers and agencies to create online contests and promotions at a fraction of the cost of custom development. The make it easy for users to engage with your promotion and share via popular social media and communications tools (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, etc.).

They offer a Trial (Free), Basic ($499) and Pro version ($2499), and to create custom contest campaigns in minutes. The Strutta platform enables a wide range of promotional activities, including online contests, product testing, awards programs, and more.

Wildfire

Wildfire, another contest tool that can easily build & launch social media marketing campaigns within minutes. You can easily integrate branded interactive campaigns like sweepstakes, contests and give-aways with the viral features of the social web to create engaging campaigns that spread like virally, thus the name Wildfire.

Every campaign you build & launch on our platform offers a lead generation component or can be linked to one through another format.

They have the Basic package $5 per campaign, their Standard package, $25 per campaign and their Premium package, $250 per campaign. The also offer subscription plans as well. I liked that they have no contracts, no on-going fees and no credit card is needed for sign up.

Some additional contest ideas and tips:

You can promote your contest to hundreds of Web sites that list free contests
Send out a press releases about your contest
Ask for as much information as you can from contest subscribers. It would be important to get their social media information as well (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc)
Ask participants to your contest if they would opt-in to receive your agency’s eNewsletter
Use your agency’s services as the give away as prizes
Offer prizes that are relevant to your target audience
You may want to offer more than one prize and include some runner-up prizes
Provide enough information about the prizes, to generate interest and participation
Keep your contest simple and make it easy for people to participate
Be sure and include a specific time period for the length of the contest
Tell visitors how winners will be determined
Search online for other contests to get more ideas
Get your clients and prospective clients onboard by creating a contest for your agency that you can demonstrate success and that your agency uses the tools it recommends its clients use

Additional articles regarding ad agency promotion:

3 Comments | Agency Blogs, Best Practices, New Business Tactics, Promotion | Tagged: Blogs I Recommend, business development, ContestMachine, contests, lead generation, Michael Gass, Strutta, sweepstakes, Wildfire | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Overcoming Social Media Writer’s Block

November 30, 2009

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quick tips for overcoming “writers block”:

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

Additional Writer’s Block Articles:

How to End Writer’s Block Forever: This is an excellent article by Copyblogger. If you put your focus on what your audience wants to read (rather than what you want to write), the whole game changes — and the shift is in your favor.
Murder your Writer’s Block in Five Easy Ways
6 Ways to Overcome Writer’s Block

15 Comments | Agency Blogs, Social Media, Time Management | Tagged: Blogs I Recommend, Edward Boches, Jason Falls, Jay Baer, lead generation, Michael Gass, Social Media, writers block | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

SlideShare: Fueling Ad Agency New Business Through Social Media

May 14, 2009

This is a recent presentation that I gave, how ad agencies can create a new business program through social media. A lead generation program that :

Teaches agencies how to do new business the way they should have been doing it all along
Is consistent and sustainable when the agency is at it’s busiest
Differentiates agencies from their competition
Creates a strong appeal among their best target audience
Is extremely efficient and continues to pay dividends from the initial time investment

Additional articles that may be of interest:

6 Comments | New Business Trends, Social Media | Tagged: agency promotion, Blogs I Recommend, lead generation, Michael Gass, midsize ad agencies, slideshare, small ad agencies | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Social Media: How to Generate Leads for Ad Agency New Business

February 6, 2009

I recently read and interesting blog post article written by Chad Levitt, titled, “Cut Your Marketing Budget to Zero and Still Generate Leads.” Chad interviews the VP of Marketing at Hubspot.com, Mike Volpe. Mike shares why traditional outbound marketing is dying and inbound marketing is growing.

Below are some nuggets from that interview that I hope will be of help as you evaluate your ad agency’s new business initiatives.

Outbound Marketing - “Cold calls, TV ads, email list rentals – is becoming less and less effective because people are becoming better at blocking out those channels with tools like caller ID, TiVo, and spam blockers.”

Inbound Marketing - ”Marketing analytics are critical because you need to know what is performing and what is not performing so you can optimize and improve your overall results.”

“Outbound marketing still works. But every day it gets more difficult and more expensive. It’s just a frustrating, dead-end experience.” Regarding inbound marketing he says, ”At HubSpot, if you fired the entire marketing team and cut the budget down to zero, we’d still generate a couple thousand leads per month because of the presence we have built over the past couple years.”

Blogging a Top Source for Inbound Leads – Mike says that their blog is one of the top 5 sources for leads because:

The articles written are an important part of their SEO efforts. They have over 400 articles that show up for all kinds of searches.
The articles are also an important part of their social media efforts because they give them a variety of interesting things to talk about.
Blog articles are a great way to nurture leads.

Hubspot has built an audience of about 9,000 people that regularly read their blog post articles.

Their blog analytics, poll, surveys, comments all provide invaluable insights to their target audience. They understand what works and what doesn’t. What messages resonate and are appealing to their target audience.

Inbound lead generation is much faster, more efficient and affordable than outbound lead generation. Plus much less frustrating and easier to sustain.

Make sure to visit the New Sales Economy.com blog to read the entire interview and follow it’s author Chad Levitt on Twitter.

Additional articles of interest:

11 Comments | New Business Tips, New Business Trends, SEO, Social Media | Tagged: Blogs I Recommend, Chad Levitt, Hobspot, lead generation, Mike Volpe | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Use Google Alerts for Ad Agency New Business

December 12, 2008

Google Alerts is a great agency new business tool for daily marketing leads.

If you aren’t familiar with Google Alerts they are emails automatically sent to you when there are new Google results for your search terms. You can also choose to have your alerts delivered via feed to the feedreader of your choice (e.g., Google Reader or add the feed to youriGoogle page). You can choose to have these alerts sent as-they-happen, once-day or once-aweek. Of the different type of alerts I choose the ‘comprehensive’ alerts from news, web and blogs.

Some ways you can use Google Alerts for your agency’s new business leads and info:

Monitor for RFP opportunities
Instant updates for ad agency reviews
Your niche industry’s upper management personnel changes
Mergers and acquisitions within your agency’s niche industry
Set up an alert for each of your agency’s competitors to see what they are up to online
Manage your agency’s reputation
Create an alert for your agency’s URL
Test the keywords your target audience might be using, increase SEO
Keep updated on your industry and stay ahead of the curve

Google Alerts allows you to take a keyword phrase (for example, your name or company name) and receive a notification each time Google finds a new page using that phrase. My Google Alerts has my name “Michael Gass” and my clients, amongst other words and phrases.

Whenever someone mentions my name or one of my clients online, I know about it IMMEDIATELY thanks to Google Alerts – it sends me an email letting me know where the mention is.

Getting started with Google Alerts takes just minutes:

Go to www.google.com/alerts.
In the “Create a Google Alert” box on the right, insert your keyword in quotes, i.e. “Michael Gass”. Using quotes will help ensure relevant results.
Select the Type of alert (news, web, blog, video, groups or comprehensive (all)).
Select your desired e-mail frequency.
Enter your e-mail address and you are done.
Enter your next keyword phrase, i.e. your company name, your name, a competitive company name, etc.

3 Comments | New Business Tips, New Business Tools, Social Media | Tagged: Google, Google Alert, Google Alerts, Google Reader, IGoogle, industry information, lead generation, Michael Gass, new media, RSS, Search, Search Engines, Searching, Tools, Twitter | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Will Small and Midsize Ad Agencies Be Social Enough?

August 31, 2008

[podtech content=http://media1.podtech.net/media/2008/07/PID_013679/Podtech_Marketing_Voices__Interview_wi.mp3&postURL=http://www.podtech.net/home/5308/forresters-jeremiah-owyang-the-best-and-worst-of-social-marketing&totalTime=516000&breadcrumb=272edb004741459382f2bfeb5454ba7c]

Not being social enough is a big problem for companies trying to use social media. That’s what Jeremiah Owyang and his team at Forrester Research discovered in a recent report.

Forrester selected 16 companies across four industries and found only one company worthy of accolades, BMW. What makes BMW a social marketing winner? In part, it’s that the automobile manufacturer managed to avoid the most common pitfalls, which is still where most firms fell short. Some examples of those easy-to-make mistakes: creating marketing programs that aren’t self-fueling, that don’t encourage members to participate in conversations amongst themselves and that don’t include some amount of participation from the company, itself.

Jennifer Jones, Marketing Voices podcast discusses Jeremiah’s findings.

The BMW 1 Series campaign is indicative of efforts by mainstream marketers to alter their media mixes as consumers change their media habits.

A recent survey by PQ Media projected that by 2012, advertisers will increase spending by 82 percent from 2008 in areas like search-engine marketing, online video and e-mail messages.

Collaborating agencies for these ads are Austin’s own GSD&M, which is part of the Omnicom Group, and Dotglu in New York, part of the Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners division of MDC Partners.

A number of the larger agencies understand and are effectively using social media. But will the smaller to midsize ad agencies be social enough?

Leave a Comment » | New Business Trends, Social Media | Tagged: ad agency blog, BMW, Jennifer Jones, jeremiah owyang, lead generation, Marketing Voices, Social Media | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Using Social Media for Advertising Agencies Lead Generation

August 9, 2008

Your ad agency’s new business program needs to pay attention to social media. Like it or not, Web 2.0 is now mainstream and needs to find its way into your agency’s self promotional mix. Agencies would be wise to pick technologies like blogs or communities first instead of focusing on what they want to accomplish. Smart marketers recognize that social media work best when used to listen to prospective clients talk about ideas, concerns, and desires — and not for selling.

You should also make sure to execute online tactics like search and email marketing to keep your agency’s lead generation pump primed while integrating social tactics into your new business program.

For the latest agency new business updates subscribe to Fueling Ad Agency New Business by Email

Michael Gass, agency new business consultant, primarily to small and mid-size advertising agencies, utilizing both traditional and new media tools.