The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches. is the most comprehensive guide for developing a winning pitch management system that I have ever read. Pitching for new business is costly. A lot of time, money and morale are lost because of poor decisions, bad planning and a lack of adequately managing the pitch process. "Approximately half (47% of respondents) of advertising professionals surveyed, by Provoke Insights, say they are dissatisfied with the current internal approach to … [Read more...]
Content Marketing: Ad agencies should resist the urge to be self-promotional
Content marketing is the fuel for an inbound marketing strategy for new business, if done the right way. It is now one of the most effective tactics to attract prospective clients, build their trust and gain a positioning of expertise. According to a research report by DemandGen, from a B2B buyer survey, 82% of surveyed senior executives said that content was a significant driver in their buying decisions. With the rise of content marketing, agencies have jumped on-board creating articles, … [Read more...]
The Best Time to Post, Pin and Tweet for Ad Agency New Business
Timing is critical when it comes to engaging with your social media audience. To increase the Click-Through-Rate of your article links and boot your website traffic, you need to be posting and tweeting at the best times. Figuring out the best times to post, you'll need to consider such as the time zones where your best prospects reside. For instance, I've developed an international following for my blog Fuel Lines. I was able to do it by researching the prime social media times within the … [Read more...]
How to Build a Powerful Presentation Deck for Ad Agency New Business
Give your presentations LIFE rather than SUCKING THE LIFE out of your audience. I've been speaking publically for more than three decades. Last year, I spoke at conferences, seminars and workshops in over 43 different cities. I'm still a student who continually wants to improve. Presentations are very time consuming and require a lot of hard work. I want mine to be memorable and make a difference. Following a presentation that I made to the Nashville American Marketing Association, I've … [Read more...]
A New Approach is NOW Needed for Ad Agency New Business
Business development has undergone a major change. New business has historically been a problem for agencies. Most small to midsize agencies have no positioning and no point of differentiation. They look and sound the same. They are often treated as vendors because they lack a positioning of expertise. Most don't have a target audience thus, no focus for business development efforts. They are their own worst clients, the cobbler's children with no shoes. No appeal beyond their local … [Read more...]
8 Tips That Will Make Ad Agency New Business Easier
Learn how to accelerate your agency's positioning, inbound lead generation, network and referral business. Since 2007, I've conducted over 200 new business workshops for agencies in North and South America and Europe. No matter what country, I find there are some common problems when it comes to business development that makes it harder than it needs to be. Here are some practical tips I hope you find helpful to make new business easier: 1. Personalize your agency. For small to midsize … [Read more...]
Profiling Prospects is Critical to New Business
Profiling ensures you're deploying your time, energy and resources on high probability targets. The advertising industry has dramatically changed over the past five years. This change has had a tremendous impact on lead generation and prospecting. The power has shifted to decision-makers due to the vast amount of information found online. Instead of chasing new business, it is now more important to be found by your best prospects. But, identifying those prospects has been a major challenge … [Read more...]
Ad Agencies: Audience Development Comes Before Business Development
Building an engaged online community should now be a core responsibility of business development. Inspiration for this article came from Duct Tape Marketing's founder, John Jantsch, from his recent podcast interview with Jeffrey K. Rohrs, Vice President of Marketing Insights for ExactTarget, Jeffrey is also the author of AUDIENCE: Marketing in the Age of Subscribers, Fans and Followers. Rohrs boldly states that, “proprietary audience development is now a core marketing responsibility." He … [Read more...]
Why are ad agencies so bad at new business?
Business development doesn't have to be so hard for small to midsize agencies. I've spent almost my entire advertising career in business development. I can tell you from my experience that agencies are historically bad when it comes to marketing themselves. It's as if they lose their marketing minds. They tend to forget the very basics of marketing and become their own worst client. For example, I often ask this question when speaking at industry events, "Does your agency have a marketing … [Read more...]
Email Marketing Compliance for Ad Agency New Business
Can I buy email addresses and email those people that haven’t opted-in? – The List of do’s and don’ts on CAN-SPAM Guest article by: Dave Currie, CMO, The List and CEO, Catapult New Business This is probably the most commonly pondered and asked question by new business teams contemplating the implementation of a proactive new business program for their agency. Over the years at The List and Catapult New Business, I’ve seen millions of messages sent through email marketing platforms to … [Read more...]