Top 25 Reasons Why Ad Agencies Should Start a Blog

“No single thing in the last fifteen years, professionally, has been more important to my life than blogging. It has changed my life, it has changed my perspective, it has changed my intellectual outlook, it’s changed my emotional outlook (and it’s the best damn marketing tool by an order of magnitude that I’ve ever had.)” Business Guru, Tom Peters

Within weeks of celebrating my first year of having my own blog and 202 blog posts later, I totally agree with Tom.  Blogging has changed my life and has become the best marketing tool I have ever used. That being said, here are my top 25 reasons why ad agencies should consider blogging:

  1. 100% of your prospective clients are online and online is the first place they choose to check you out.
  2. I don’t know of any ad agency that doesn’t have a website but agency websites have become a static online brochure that is difficult to update. A blog is the best way to develop an audience that become regular visitors because of resourceful and helpful content that changes often.
  3. A blog is easy to create and update. You don’t have to wait for someone with the technical know how to assist in uploading video, audio, text, widgets, links.
  4. Blogs make a great platform to easily and effectively communicate with the audience you care about.
  5. It’s the easiest way notify your audience when your site has fresh content through the use of email subscriptions and RSS feeds.
  6. Blogs also optionally allow you to collect feedback from that audience through surveys, polls and post comments.
  7. Blogs are often used to increase the number of visitors to a website, and inspire those visitors to return more frequently.
  8. Having a blog can makes your site more attractive to search engines, which means it’s more likely your site will show up in the results when people search for your services.
  9. Having an agency blog inspires positive reactions from your audience.
  10. A blog makes your agency seem more approachable and human.
  11. Potential customers will like your agency better, because they’ll feel like they “know” someone who works there. We all want to work with people we know and trust.
  12. Your target audience will be able to discover new services that you create, and can provide feedback .
  13. Blogs are a great complement to the communications tools you already use, such as email newsletters, mailings, article marketing, downloadable white papers, ebooks and press releases.
  14. Messages you send using a blog can be automatically delivered to your audience wherever they are: On their browser’s start page, in their email inbox, to their mobile phone, or on any other mobile device.
  15. Blog content can be reused through other online media channels and has a long, long shelf life.
  16. A blog teaches you to always lead with “benefits” instead of capabilities. The moment you start using it as a platform to brag about your agency you’ll lose your audience. A blog forces you to think about “them” not “your agency.”
  17. A blog provides tremendous personal enrichment. As you research for information for writing your posts you stay up to date with the latest trends, tactics and tips.
  18. “You don’t know what you know until you write it down.” Agencies are often poor communicators. Blogging helps you better articulate and communicate what you know.
  19. A blog reflects the shift in the way new business is acquired. 80% of CMOs in a recent survey said they found their vendor, not the other way around. A blog helps provide a large online footprint for your agency to be found by your best prospects.
  20. An agency blog allows prospective clients to look under the hood, kick the tires and check out the upholstery of your agency. They see how you think and what you know and when they are ready they will engage you. Much more efficient than cold calling.
  21. Blog content is more naturally conversational; conversational content is viewed as educational and not sales oriented.
  22. A blog is affordable. It is one of the most cost effective tools that you can use. It is time intensive but with all of the benefits it brings to your prospective clients and to your agency is it worth the time spent.
  23. A blog is the best tool that I have found to help agencies with their own branding. It simplifies the entire brand process.
  24. An agency blog forces agencies to differentiate, to become specialist, not just generalist. This in turn positions them as having an expertise and a great appeal to their best target audience.
  25.  Your agency’s blog can be the central component to your new business program. The best way to learn how to use social media is to use it to promote and generate leads for your agency. Demonstrate to clients its effectiveness. Practice what you preach and use the tools you recommend to clients.

About Michael Gass

Consultant | Trainer | Author | Speaker

Since 2007, he has been pioneering the use of social media, inbound and content marketing strategies specifically for agency new business.

He is the founder of Fuel Lines Business Development, LLC, a firm which provides business development training and consulting services to advertising, digital, media and PR agencies.

Comments

  1. Nice list.

  2. Michael, It’s almost 2009. If you have to convince an ad agency to get into the social media space (especially via a platform as basic as a blog), maybe – just maybe – those agencies are on their way out anyway?

  3. I echo those statements by Olivier. If your ad agency doesn’t have a blog then I seriously doubt if they can handle any of your future online needs.

    Seriously, who would you go to if you had a question about a blog?

  4. Great post. We recently launched our agency blog and every one of these reasons was part of a discussion prior to the launch. We just never put them down in one place like you did.

  5. Sean, thanks for sharing. I was just on your agency’s blog site. http://www.communi-k.net/ It looks like you’ve started out great.

  6. Bravo on this article — case in point — I found this post through a person I follow on Twitter.

    #26 — Blogs are like good peanut butter — easily spreadable.

  7. Thanks Russ and I like your #26 reason … very true!

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