Marketing Your Ad Agency Should Be A Priority for New Business

Douglas Burdett ad agency new business

Prospective clients shouldn’t hire a marketing agency that can’t market themselves.

I wanted to share some excerpts of an interview conducted by Jami Oetting, content strategist for Agency Post, an online publication for agency professionals. The subject of the interview is Douglas Burdett, former artillery officer, Madison Avenue ad man, stand-up comedian and the principal of Artillery, a small agency in Norfolk, Virginia. Douglas provides a good example of how agency promotion has evolved. The primary battle for new business has moved online. 

Like most small to midsize agency owners, Douglas felt the impact of the recession and the empowerment that social media provided to prospects. They controlled how they wanted to be engaged. Interruptive type tactics such as cold calls, email blasts and direct mail became ineffective and inefficient.

When Douglas started his agency back in 2001, his client relationships revolved around his agency reel, the :30 second TV spot. Today it’s blogging, podcasts, personal branding, public speaking and content marketing fueled by social media for inbound leads.

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Here are some highlights from Douglas’ interview:

  • “When Artillery started it was very much the traditional advertising agency model that was my bailiwick. The ideal prospect needed paid advertising like TV, radio, print, etc. If they needed websites, PR, direct mail, etc., we would bolt that on. The center of my universe was, as it always had been, the :30 TV commercial.”
  • “5 years ago when I noticed things starting to change. Media commissions were getting smaller or going away. Clients needed more help with websites and social media than with advertising. Clients started to eschew local agencies in favor of out-of-town agencies with deep category expertise.”
  • “One day I read the Entrepreneur article The Future of Advertising and realized that the advertising game that I had so enjoyed was changing permanently and I had to do something to evolve my business and stay relevant.”
  • “Having served in the U.S. Army, I was fascinated with the military and the defense industry. That is also a big part of Virginia’s economy. Plus, my friends in the defense industry were frequently asking me questions about marketing. Some quick research showed that no one else was talking to that niche and it was there for the taking.”
  • “Marketing has never been a priority for defense firms like it is for other categories … I started the blog, and before long, it was on the first page of Google results for most searches related to defense contractors and marketing. It still is.”
  • “I’m using a Twitter account in support of the blog (as well as other social media), and the Washington Business Journal featured me in its article 7 Twitter handles our reporters think you should follow.”
  • “UK-based DefenceIQ has listed me on 10 Defence industry people you should follow on Twitter and Top 100 Defence and Security Accounts to Follow on Twitter. They have referred to me as “the king of defense contractor marketing.” (And in Great Britain, they don’t call just anybody king.) Of course, that notoriety is only because of the blog.”
  • Creating a Niche Blog: “It required a lot of initial research … but it’s not that different from writing for any client niche. In fact, writing for a niche actually makes it easier because you’re able to get very specific and therefore, very helpful for your reader.”
  • “In Guy Kawasaki’s book The Art of Social Media, he recommend not hiring anyone if they are not demonstrating their own proficiency in what you’re hiring them for. For instance, don’t hire a morbidly obese personal trainer. Don’t hire a marketing agency that can’t market themselves. It’s easy to explain but hard for agencies to do.”
  • When your own agency is client #1, you can and should be testing out new ideas, tools, and tactics on your own company before offering it to clients. If something doesn’t work, it does no harm to clients.”
  • “… stop talking about yourselves. Most agencies speak way too much French — we, we, we. We’re really creative. We’re really strategic. We’ve won lots of awards, We’re really fun to work with.”

Douglas authors two marketing blogs, Forward Observer and Fire Support, and he hosts The Marketing Book Podcast.  Click on the following title for the complete interview, “Why Your Agency Should Be Your #1 Client.” Connect with him via Twitter: @DouglasBurdett

Additional articles that may be of interest:

photo credit: Going round in circles II via photopin (license)

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.

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