For ad agency new business, why no try doing the opposite of what you’ve been doing in the past.

“The Opposite Episode” of Seinfeld, George comes to the realization that he should try to do the opposite of everything, so he does, his luck changes and everything begins to go his way including getting a girlfriend, a job with the Yankees and moving out of his parents’ house.

Almost my entire career in advertising has been spent in business development. Working with a lot of advertising agencies through the years, I’ve found they all have common problems when it comes to new business:

1. The overwhelming majority have no target audience
2. No point of differentiation
3. Don’t use the marketing tools they recommend their clients use
4. Have no new business strategy beyond personal networks and referrals
5. Inconsistent new business practices
6. Are their own worst client
7. Use the same descriptive language that other agencies use to describe themselves: Great creative, strategic, outside-the-box thinkers, fun to work with, proprietary process
8. Poor at promoting themselves
9. Are always in a mode of redesigning their Websites
10. Stay in a perpetual state of rebranding themselves

When business is good, new business practices are usually shelved and only pushed when more business is needed which causes a roller coaster effect. Turning the lead generation pipeline on and off like a faucet. This creates a a major problem because it generally takes months of consistent effort to generate leads from the agency’s new business pipeline.

How do you correct these problems? Do the opposite:

1. Choose the best target audience for your agency. You can’t be everything to everybody.
2. Create an appealing point of differentiation.
3. Use the social media marketing tools you recommend to clients.Be an active participant.
4. Have a written social media strategy for new business success.
5. Be consistent in implementing your new business strategy. Keep processes simple and gauge them by what it would take to maintain when your agency is at its busiest.
6. Allow your agency to become your best client.
7. Social media can help your agency redefine itself with a language that resonates with your prospective audience.
8. Practicing what you preach, using the tools recommending to clients and learn to promote your agency the right way. Don’t throw away your marketing mind when it comes to your own agency.
9. Allow your agency’s Website to become the agency brochure. This will be the place to show your work, present your credentials and capabilities. In social though, always lead with benefits.
10. Social media is the best tool I have ever used for agency branding. By incorporating all of the above.

I started my agency new business consultancy just prior to social media becoming mainstream. I soon discovered that social media can actually teach agencies how to do new business, the way they should have been doing new business all along.

Check out this article: “Social Media Teaches” Ad Agencies to Promote Themselves the Right Way”

Additional articles that may be of interest:

• Ad Agencies in “The Great Race” for New Business
• 50 Ad Agency New Business Tips
• The Changing Role of Ad Agency Rainmakers
• Ad agency having explosive new business growth by leading with social media

Todd Knutson, CEO of The List, recently highlighted an agency that actually practiced what it preached, An Ad Agency that was advertising its services, even offering a discount during the recession. It worked!

Advertising Agency Advertises

When asked by a reporter from the National Post, Ron Telpner, chairman and CEO Brainstorm, a Toronto-based agency, (read interview here), Why did you choose to advertise your services? It’s not a move that many agencies would take — at least not so publicly.

The primary motivation was to “walk the talk”: to remove the inherent hypocrisy of an agency that would recommend advertising to its clients as a strategy while not having enough belief in the power of advertising to use it for themselves.

The recession provided a unique opportunity to make this point more poignantly. And as an agency that’s offered fully integrated services from inception, we also wanted to ensure that the market was aware of our full range of services, including digital.

It started with the development of our new website (www.brainstormgroup.com),which offers a more “shopper friendly” interface for potential clients, with less about the agency’s philosophy and more about the goods. One of the campaign objectives was to increase visits to the new site, and it attracted 1,600 new visitors the day the ad ran. (Click Here to read the entire interview, “We’re Walking the Talk”)

I would also encourage you to read Todd’s entire post to learn the results and to get his perspective regarding the ROI this agency generated: “$40,000 Off Our Fees, Your Next New Business Pitch?”

Additional ad agency promotional articles that may be of interest:

• Ad Agency’s New Business Initiative: $1 Million Brand Ad Campaign
• Social Media Tools: Promote Your Ad Agency With SlideShare
• “Mindsalt – Magic ‘09 Ball” Used to Promote Ad Agency
• Ad Agency Creates Online Film Festival on YouTube
• Social Media Marketing Map Used For Ad Agency’s New Business
• Using Video to Promote Your Ad Agency
• ADBOWL: Ad Agencies Should be “Creative” Promoting Themselves

I enjoy hearing and reading new ideas for agency new business. I came across this event strategy that was featured in a recent Pittsburgh Business Times article,“Elisco Advertising brings the party to work, not work to the party.”

John Elisco, president of Elisco Advertising, wasn’t enthusiastic about attending industry type events. It was a major chore for he and agency leadership just to show up. Knowing his agency’s culture, he led them to create events of their own. They were so passionate about the idea they even relocated the agency to better implement their strategy. They found a facility that met three criteria. It had to have a storefront, a kitchen and outdoor seating. 

The name “Creative Cafe” went up on the front window and they started thinking up creative ways to bring clients to their new home office. They serve meals on-site for clients free of charge, often weekly and usually on Fridays. From cooking classes to wine tastings and other special events like their tattoo art show brought in variety of clients and prospects.

To publicize these events Elisco Advertising uses its Web site, direct mail and social media. Revenue has steadily increased since they implemented this strategy seven years ago and John states that 2009  is “on track to be one of our best years ever.”

If you have fresh examples of agency new business ideas, please share them in the comment section below.

Additional articles that may be of interest:

1. “Mindsalt – Magic ‘09 Ball” Used to Promote Ad Agency
2. Ad Agency Creates Online Film Festival on YouTube
3. Social Media Marketing Map Used For Ad Agency’s New Business
4. Promote Your Ad Agency with Social Media Tools – SlideShare
5. Using Video to Promote Your Ad Agency
6. ADBOWL: Ad Agencies Should be “Creative” Promoting Themselves

Open the door for ad agency new business by leading discussions in social media.

Park Howell, president of Park&Co, a full service agency that specializes in environmental marketing, came up with a great way to illustrate the need for their prospective clients to participate in social media using this SlideShare presentation he and members of his agency created.

“If the wharf is your business, and the pier is your website, then the fishing trawler is your blog. Think about it. You don’t want to catch every fish in the ocean. You want to hook the ones that make the best customers, and are after your bait. Your blog trolls the ocean gunnel-to-gunnel with millions of other virtual trawlers. But that’s okay, because your boat has a niched perspective, distinctive voice, and lures unique to your business. Plus, you know which fishing grounds produce your best catches, so that’s where you troll,” Park Howell.

Read Park’s entire post, “Sustainable Social Media for the Green Marketer” on  Park’s blog, Park Howell.com: A Brighter Side of Green Marketing.

Additional posts that may be of interest:

• Ad Agency Creates Online Film Festival on YouTube
• Using Social Media to Promote the Arts
• Digital Agency Uses Social Media for New Business
• Promote Your Ad Agency with Social Media Tools
• Ad Agency Creates YouTube Video to Generate Appeal for their Niche
• Social Media Marketing Map Used For Ad Agency’s New Business

Writing a book a book can put your agency on the map. It benefits new business. 

When I started my blog I tried to be strategic and think further down the road. Surely there were ways to reuse the content. One of the ways that I identified was a book. I actually outlined a book prior to starting my blog and 290+ blog posts later I’m almost there.

I’ve identified  8 benefits to writing a book feel free to ad some of your own:

1. It positions you as an expert
2. It allows you to reach more people
3. It provides you with the “ultimate” business card
4. It makes you more money
5. It benefits business
6. It ranks you as a credible source
7. It gives you a personal sense of accomplishment
8. It enables you to leave a legacy

Here are a few of examples of agency principals that have written a book.

Linda Kaplan Thayer, the ceo of Kaplan Thayler Group, wrote a book, The Power of Nice, that put her agency, on the map. Linda has been featured on The Martha Stewart Show, Nightline, The Today Show, Inside Edition and Fox News to name just a few. There is also the Power of Nice website and Nice Blog.

Steve McKee, president of McKee Wallwork Cleveland agency recently had his first book published, When Growth Stalls. Steve also has a column for BusinessWeek.com and other articles published in the New York Times, USA Today, Advertising Age, Business Daily, just to name a few. 

Bob Hoffman, ceo of Hoffman/Lewis ad agency, is the author of the book, The Ad Contrarian and the blog of the same name. Bob offers his book as a free download on his blog. Click here to download your free copy.

I’m exploring options for publishing my book and as I find good resources I’ll be sure and pass those on to you.  

One such resource that I found couple of weeks ago is “6 Ways to Publish Your Own Book,” written by Shevonne Polastre.  She writes,

“Online self-publishing services have given users the tools they need to create, publish and promote their work. These sites allow authors to bypass the process of finding an agent and pitching to publishing houses, a venture that can take months, if not years.”

Shevonne identifies six great online sites that will help you publish your work, guaranteeing you a published book that can be sold via different outlets, such as Amazon.

Read her post: 6 Ways to Publish Your Own Book

Additional articles that may be of interest:

• How to Write a Book and Generate New Business for Your Agency
• 10 Tips to Help Ad Agency CEOs Develop a Blog
• Ad Agency CEO’s Blog – The Ad Contrarian
• When Growth Stalls For Ad Agencies

For the latest agency new business updates subscribe to FUEL LINES by Email

I can tell by my blogs analytics that any time I’m providing examples for how agencies are obtaining new business it generates lots of interest.

Rupal Parekh, in an Ad Age article, provides some great examples of these six ways ad agencies are generating new business.

1. Network Innovatively: Via Group, Portland, Maine, “Once a month, founder-CEO John Coleman organizes a get-together of eight to 10 marketing executives to discuss topics such as “technology’s role on the evolution of society and culture.”
2. Social Your Social Media Savvy, Steve Rubel, senior VP-director of insights for Edelman Digital. His blog has been cited as a must-read by the likes of The Wall Street Journal and Forbes, and he is followed by more than 17,000 people on Twitter … the agency wins with talent that is active in consumer conversations.
3. Adopt A Recognizable Platform (positioning): Publicis Groupe’s “Contagious Ideas,” which rolled out across the globe a year ago and quickly gained momentum. Existing clients have embraced it and entrusted the company with additional business, and it has attracted new clients across the network.
4. Be Willing To Contort (flexibility): Riot, an Omnicom agency unity, a new agency model is what helped it beat out a host of contenders to win the Adidas assignment.
5. Write A Book: Mitchell Levy, CEO and author at Happy About, says books are the new calling card.
6. Offer A Direct Line To The CEO: Jordan Zimmerman, agency CEO, he is not only accessible to clients 24 hours a day, he’s checking in with them on a daily basis. It’s no coincidence that the shop in the past two years has grown its operation by leaps and bounds, winning an astounding 85% of pitches.

Read the entire article: Six Ways Ad Agencies Are Reeling in New Business Now

If you have more examples to add, please share them in the comments below.

Additional articles of interest:

• Ad agency having explosive new business growth by leading with social media
• Ad Agency Survey Finds Traditional New Business Methods Aren’t Working
• Ad Agency Generates Inbound New Business Leads Through Social Media
• Digital Agency Uses Social Media for New Business
• Social Media Marketing Map Used for Ad Agency’s New Business
• Ad Agency Throws Parties for New Business
• Ad Agencies Social Media Success Stories
• Agencies Gaining New Business Opportunities Using Social Media

Viral marketing campaigns are a great way to generate awareness for your agency and provide opportunities for agency new business.

Instead of happenstance, viral marketing is becoming a science. An emerging industry dedicated to understanding what makes marketing viral. GoViral, is just one example of a company that specializes in launching viral campaigns by ”seeding” clips on the web in places where they will be picked up and spread online.

Patrick Aloft has assembled an excellent list of successful viral marketing campaigns. Patrick is Director of Search at Branded3, and author of  BlogStorm, a blog discussing internet marketing and search engine optimization news and strategies.

Here’s Patrick’s list of “Top 10 Viral Campaigns of All Time:”

1. Ronaldinho: Touch of Gold (Nike) 23.5 million people have watched this ad on YouTube.
2. My Heart Will Go On (Free Macbook Air) 21.9 million users who viewed this clip
3. Guitar (GuitarMasterPro.net) 45 million viewers 
4. Dynamite Surfing (Quicksilver) 10 million page views
5. Do The Test (Transport for London) 3.7 million people have viewed the video in 3 months
6. Stolen Nascar (TaxBrain.com) $1 million dollars worth of TV exposure within days
7. Threshers 40% Off Voucher
8. Subservient Chicken (Burger King) 46 million views in the first week
9. Gorilla Advert (Cadbury’s) millions of views of a gorilla playing the drums
10. Hotmail from 500,000 to 12 million users in less than a year

Review each campaign from Patrick’s List through this link: Top 10 Viral Campaigns of All Time:

If you know of a campaign that deserves to be on Patrick’s write about it in the comments.

For the latest agency new business updates subscribe to FUEL LINES by Email

You’ve probably heard of ADBOWL, but you may not know that the idea originated  at a midsize ad agency’s Super Bowl party in Albuquerque, NM. Ten years later, growing in size every year, the idea has paid great dividends to the agency generating national television, press coverage and positioning it as an industry leader.

On Super Bowl Sunday (February 1, 2009), viewers can visit www.ADBOWL.com and rate commercials on a scale between one and five.  Participants have the option of rating the ads online as they air or printing a ballot and rating all of the ads at the end of the game. A complete listing of the results, including a breakdown of winners as selected by gender and age group, will be posted on the site between midnight and 1 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on February 2nd. 

Adbowl is an advertising ranking Web site for consumers developed by Albuquerque advertising agency McKee Wallwork Cleveland in partnership with Fort Worth, Texas-based Web design firm Rassai Interactive  has attracted vote-volume in the hundreds of thousands.

Steve McKee, President of McKee Wallwork Cleveland, recently shared with me how the idea for ADBOWL came about and what it has done for his agency:

“ADBOWL started as a lark. Ten years ago, we thought it would be fun to have a Super Bowl commercials party at the agency, so we did. We handed out little paper ballots on which attendees rated the spots. Pretty humble beginnings.

The next year we put it online and thought we would promote it within the industry. We approached ADWEEK and they thought it was a fun idea, so they gave us some free ad space to spread the word.

One thing then led to another, and in subsequent years things have taken off. ADBOWL has done wonders for the agency on many levels:

First, it gets us lots of free press, which is great for the “I’ve heard of you” factor. It’s gotten us in every major newspaper and trade magazine, on network affiliates all over the country, and even on national TV (a few times). It’s a great door-opener.

Second, it reinforces our desired positioning as an advertising industry leader. We are the expert “color commentators” on the year’s biggest day of advertising.

And third, it has offered us amazing opportunities to learn (by doing) new media. For example, we worked with Sprint to pioneer text-based voting that is now used far and wide, including on American Idol. 

In the first years it was a pretty complex thing to execute–we really didn’t know what we were getting into. But as technology has evolved we’ve gotten it down to a science. We try to make incremental improvements each year but keep the user experience very simple and fun.”

In past years, Adbowl has attracted vote-volume in the hundreds of thousands. The following is a list of voters’ favorite ads from the past five years:

2008 – Budweiser’s “Clydesdale Team”
2007 – Bud Light’s “Rock, Paper, Scissors”
2006 – Bud Light’s “Hidden Fridge”
2005 – Anheuser-Busch’s “Applause”
2004 – Budweiser’s “Donkey Dream”

Follow ADBOWL on Twitter

Steve McKee recently wrote a book, When Growth Stalls that will be available in March of 2009. Steve has been generating pre-sales using Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. I’m sure the book will provide additional promotion for the agency and further position it as a leader.

Encourage your staff to be creative in ways to promote your agency. If you have examples of creative promotions to share, please include in the comment section of this post.

Additional articles regarding ad agency promotion:

• “Mindsalt – Magic ‘09 Ball” Used to Promote Ad Agency
• The First of Five Ways to Promote Your Agency Using Social Media
• The Second of Five Ways to Promote Your Agency Using Social Media
• The Third of Five Ways to Promote Your Agency Using Social Media
• The Fourth of Five Ways to Promote Your Ad Agency Using Social Media
• The Fifth of Five Ways to Promote Your Agency Using Social Media
• Ad Agency Creates Online Film Festival on YouTube
• Social Media Marketing Map Used For Ad Agency’s New Business
• Promoting Your Ad Agency Using Twitter?
• Using Video to Promote Your Ad Agency

For the latest agency new business updates subscribe to FUEL LINES by Email

The second most read FUEL LINES article in 2008 and the one that generated the most debate:  Is it the end for cold calling as an agency new business tactic?  

I thought I would follow keep the conversation flowing by taking my own poll with a new Twitter tool, twtpoll. So far there have been 119 responses to the question, “How receptive are YOU to cold calls?”  An overwhelming majority of respondents, 69%, provided a negative response when it came to cold calls. 29% said they were sometime receptive and only 3% said they were often receptive to a cold call.

Tim Williams, founder of Ignition Consulting Group , and author of the book, Take a Stand for Your Brand, states in ar recent article, The End of Cold Calling,

“Ask any agency principal what he or she dislikes and avoids the most and the answer will almost always be the same: cold calling new business prospects. Not only is this the most dreaded activity among C-level agency executives, it’s also among the least effective.” 

Is Cold Calling Ever Necessary?

Cold calling, as a new business tool, is only necessary if your agency principal(s) do not have a clearly defined focus and differentiating business strategy that will give them a competitive advantage for new business, a higher-profile reputation, and an improved ability to attract and win the clients they really want.

Without a point of differentiation your agency will have no appeal. Trying to appeal to everyone appeals to no one.

Today’s CMO lives in a world where traditional marketing practices are no longer acceptable. 

“80% of decision makers say they found the vendor, not the other way around.”

Prospective clients:

• Don’t want to be interrupted
• Have found ways to screen out, throw out and tune out unwanted marketing messages
• Use online tools and techniques to seize control of their buying and vendor selection process
• Seek out the information they want how they want it and when they want it

How does this impact ad agency new business?

The growth of Social Media will dramatically impact how agencies promote themselves in the future. Agencies that must rely on cold calling as a new business tactic will find it even less effective in 2009. 

Research: Ad Agency Survey Finds Traditional New Business Methods Aren’t Working

Quick Poll Is Cold Calling an Effective Ad Agency New Business Tactic?

Twitter is the leading traffic generator for FUEL LINES. One of the best helps I found when I first started using this tool came from Angela Maiers, educator, author, blogger who now leads Maier Educational Services.

Angela developed a simple Twitter Engagement Formula that provides purpose and direction for her participation. She calls it the 70-20-10 Formula:.

Share Resources (70) - Successful learning in the 21st Century is not what you know, but what you can share, so 70 % of my Twittertime is spent sharing others voices, opinions, and tools.

Collaborations (20) - 20% of my Tweets are directly responding, connecting, collaboration, and co-creating with like-minded Twitter colleagues. From these important tweets, lifelong professional and personal relationships have been forged.

Chit-Chat (10) 10% of my Twittertalk is “chit-chat-how’s-your-hat” stuff. It is in these “trivial” details shared about working out, favorite movies, politics, and life in general that I connect with others as a human being. These simple chit chats are what have allowed me to know that I am never alone, and there is support whenever, wherever, and however I need it!

Angela reminds her readers that their engagement formula will be different but hers provides a good example and a place to get started.  Angela says to, “Engage with purpose and intention, and Twitter success will follow!”

Read the entire  “My Twitter Engagement Formula” article.

Additional articles that may be of interest:

• Today’s Top 10 Twitter Post for Ad Agency New Business
• 5 Ways I Use Twitter to Help Ad Agency New Business
• Ad Agency CEOs Should Use Twitter
• Social Media “Teaches” Ad Agencies to Promote Themselves the Right Way

I’m often asked what is the very first step in developing a new business program for a small-to midsize ad agency?  To have an efficient and effective new business program you must first …

…  identify your agency’s point of difference and select a target audience.

Once this decision is made all other decisions are easy. But for the agencies that refuse to declare what they stand for and who they are trying to reach, they will constantly struggle because they try to be everything to everybody.

Trying to appeal to everyone appeals to no one.

Agencies without a declared expertise and target are generalists not specialist which means:

• No premium pricing for agency services
• Lack of client respect
• Limited to acquiring new business because of location, personal networks and referrals
• Difficultly in attracting the right kind of creative and strategic talent
• Little if any regional awareness
• Chasing new business instead of having new business pursuing the agency
• Not able to attract the right type of client that best fits the agency’s core competencies
• Acquiring new business is more speculative and expensive

If you’ve been a reader of FUEL LINES for awhile you know that I advocate that …

… agencies need to practice what they preach. They need to use the tools that they recommend their clients by using them to promote their agency.

I recommend using social media for your new business program. The primary reason why I love social media is that it “forces” small-to midsize agencies to do the things they should have been doing all along to acquire new business.

How to use social media for agency new business?

Once this initial decision is made I recommend that agencies develop a blog as the central online platform for their new business program.

For your agency’s blog to be effective you must:

• Identify your niche and your best target audience.
• Be transparent. The success of your audience must be more important than your own. But it goes without saying if you can help your audience with their success you will be successful.
• Always lead with benefits rather than agency’s capabilities. It’s all about your audience. The moment you try to “sell” your agency’s services will be the moment you lose your audience.
• Become positioned as marketing leader rather than a marketing partner. Clients want leadership not partnership.
• Articulate and better communicate what you know. Agencies are often poor communicators. Don’t believe me? Ask any of them what they do. They can’ succinctly say without a prolonged discussion.

10 tips for the development of an agency blog for new business:

1. Do not incorporate your blog into your agency’s website. Allow it room to breathe, grow and germinate as you interact with your online audience. You will be amazed at the rich input your audience will provide as to their challenges, needs and the messages that appeal and motivate.
2. Blog posts should written by the agency’s principals. Prospective clients always want to know about the agency principals. How much will they be involved with their client’s accounts. Plus the agency principals are the least like staff changes within an agency. Social media is personal and you are the face of your agency. Therefore agency principals should lead the way.
3. Keep the design simple. Utilize WordPress, TypePad, Blogger blog platforms. Remember that it’s content that is king. If you want to slooowww down the process involve your creative and digital staff!
4. Own your domain name. If you ever want  to change platforms you can easily do so without losing traffic if you own your domain name.
5. Before you start to write learn to listen. Identify and read other online resources that would important to your target audience. Read blogs of competitors. Subscribe to blog RSS feeds with Google Reader or the feed reader of your choice to strategize and organize your online reading.
6. Write out a creative brief for your blog. This will provide direction for the tonality of your blog and keep you reminded to write to the benefit of a particular target audience.
7. Outline your blog. I outlined a book and have used that outline for my blog. I will be able to reuse most of my blog content for the book, ebook, whitepapers, etc. Having an outline has been a tremendous time saver.
8. Keep a list of blog post ideas. I’ve been writing blog posts for a year now and have well over 200+ posts published and 45 blog post drafts. I keep a Word document on my laptop’s desktop with a running list of ideas. I have over 100 potential blog post ideas.
9. Set a goal for the number of posts to write per week. I saw a dramatic change in my blog traffic and audience interaction after I reached the first 50 posts. I encourage agency’s to get to fifty within the first sixty days. It establishes a habit for writing and helps them to find their voice.  Beyond this initial phase I encourage agency’s to keep fresh content on their blog by making it a goal to posts at least five times per week.
10. Reuse your blog content. With over 200 posts I have lots of material to utilize through other new media tools. I’ve already mentioned that your content can be reused for books, ebooks and white papers but you can also use them for your agency’s newsletter, article marketing, microblogs like Twitter, etc.

I know that you are thinking, that is just great, something else for me to do. Please understand, using social media tools is like networking on steroids. You will be able to network with more people in one hour online than you could do within a week offline and the results will be far superior to the time you’ve invested. Prospective clients will actually call on you and when they do, the conversation is much further down the road. They’ll be ready for business.

What would it be worth to your agency to have literally hundreds of  people who were willing to communicate your message to others you may not be able to reach?  What is the value to have them promote and recommend your agency’s services?

You need to create evangelists to promote your agency’s brand.

An evangelist is an individual who serves as the outside voice of your agency. They can be as passionate about your agency’s brand as you are. They are invaluable. One of the best new business resource your agency can have.

Agency brand evangelists … networking on steroids!

Mack Collier’s article, Eight Steps to Creating Brand Evangelists provides the influence for the following  steps to creating your ad agency’s evangelists.

How to Create Your Agency’s Brand Evangelist:

Encourage Your  Staff to Become Agency Evangelists. Enthusiasm breeds enthusiasm. View your staff as your agency’s best customers. They are the agency’s ambassadors. If they are happy and excited about your agency’s brand, and want to evangelize it to others, your clients will follow suit. Encourage your staff to participate in social media. Have them link to each other, to your agency, your agency’s clients and beyond. Ten or fifteen minutes of networking online can be more valuable than attending an Ad Fed luncheon or Chamber meeting across town. Tap into your staff’s network.

Learn From Your Current Agency Evangelists. Discover what it is about your agency’s brand that motivates them to evangelize it to others. Learn where your clients are online and connect with them. Through interaction, learn why they chose to work with your agency.

Authors of the book, “Creating Customer Evangelist,” Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba explain that evangelists are the ultimate salespeople because they know your target audience better than you do because they are the target audience.”

Your evangelists are your direct link to your target audience, and they can teach you how best to reach them. Through them you will better understand what benefits and messaging is most important.

Be Personal. One of the great strengths of your agency’s blog is that it helps to personalize your agency. One of the biggest reasons brand evangelism works is that people want to work with people that they know and trust. Through an agency blog, your audience has the chance to kick the tires, look under the hood, check out the upholstery. They get a sense of who you are, how you think, what your agency is really like. 

Create a Community. Your agency’s blog also provides a meeting place. Creating this online meeting place for your brand evangelist makes it easier for them to share information and recruit new evangelists for your brand.

Be Accessible. Making sure that your agency’s clients and prospective clients have lots of ways to give you feedback is a big plus. The fact that you take time to listen shows great respect and that you value their input. I always encourage agency principals to have a big part in their agency’s blog. Prospective clients always want to know how involved you are in with your agency’s clients, what better way to demonstrate to largest audience which can be found online.

Be sure to include ways to contact on your agency’s website, blog, email signatures, etc. Welcome and even encourage feedback. Your agency will be the better for it.

Monitor Your Agency’s Brand. Agency’s that are unwilling to participate in social media need to understand that conversations are taking place about your agency’s brand with or without you. I can assure you it is much better if you are a participant.  

Brand evangelists may be passionate about your agency’s brand but that doesn’t mean they wont be critical as well. Evangelists feel a sense of ownership in your brand, and if they feel that your agency is doing something to dilute the brand they wont hesitate to express it. Mack Collier states, “the criticism is rooted in passion, and where there is passion there’s a potential evangelists.” 

There are dozens of free online programs that help you monitor your agency’s brand, when and where those conversations are taking place such as Google Alerts. 

The agencies that do the best job of creating brand evangelists start from the top down. 

Your agency evangelists can sell your brand more than you can, they also are glad to do it for free.

For the latest agency new business updates subscribe to FUEL LINES by Email

This past month marked a few milestones for me. First, November was my first year anniversary for Michael Gass Consulting. It has been a year beyond my wildest dreams. Secondly, I’ve written and published my 200th post for FUEL LINES.

I have to agree with business guru, Tom Peters, nothing in the last decade of my professional life has positively impacted me more than blogging. Reflecting upon this past year, here are a some of the things blogging has done for me:

• Better articulate my thoughts. You don’t know what you know till you write it down.
• Understand the most important new business challenges of my target audience which is small-to midsize ad agencies.
• Since being in business for myself not having to make a single cold call to try and sell my services. All of my clients initiated the contact. 
• A rifled focus to finding solutions that help small-to midsize agencies develop an affordable, consistent and differentiated new business program that works.
• Be part of a network of agencies that provide friendship and support to me and to one another.
• To always keep in mind to always lead with benefits rather than my capabilities. It’s all about my audience, not about me.
• Have an opportunity to meet and become friends with interesting people from all over the country and even beyond. 
• The opportunity to work with clients that are the best fit with my core strengths and who are enjoyable to work with. Everyone likes to work with people that they know and trust.
• The best practical education and understanding on evolving communications technologies that I can pass on. It allows me to provide leadership and expertise.
• To put into practice what I preach, use the tools that I recommend to my clients and be able to demonstrate how they have worked for me.
• To be able to generate in my first year of business income comparable to what I made working for someone else.
• A tool that has allowed me to promote my services for grand total cost of $904 over my first ten months of business.

I could go on and on but hopefully you get the gist that I’m a huge fan of blogging and social media. It causes us to do new business the way we should have been doing it all along. The best personal enrichment and marketing tool I have ever used.

Thanks to all of my readers. Hopefully I’ve been a help to you as much as you have been to me.

Additional articles of interest: FUEL LINES Top 10 Agency New Business Articles

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It amazes me that many agencies don’t take better advantage when prospective clients visit their office. Most have no strategy for a tour of the agency. I think they miss a great opportunity to tell their agency story in the most impressive way.

Below are some “simplistic” ideas to make the most of your next agency tour. Create your own “check-list” of things to do before your next agency tour. 

1. Develop a written plan. Keep it brief and to the point. What are the “take-aways” you want your guests to leave with? What creative will be displayed. Write out your agency story and prep those who will be leading the tours.
2. Oversize agency’s creative work mounted on gator-board is relatively inexpensive and allows for easy interchangeable displays. This will allow you to showcase your agency’s best work throughout your agency and provide an opportunity to share these case studies as you lead your prospective clients through the tour.
3. Use your facility to introduce the uniqueness of your agency’s culture.
4. Demonstrate your agency’s creative processes. Prospective clients enjoy seeing the development of an initial idea into a successful campaign. Be sure and keep all the rough drafts along with the finished campaign.
5. Use television monitors throughout your building’s hallways that display your agency’s broadcast work.
6. Prominently display your agency’s mantra.
7. Introduce the key players.
8. Showcase your agency’s awards.
9. Display client logos.
10. Create a personalized welcome sign for your agency guests. Hey, if it’s not part of the plan more than likely it wont get done. Pay attention to the small details.

Remember that it is difficult to overcome a negative first impression. 

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4. Blogs are one of the most notable social media tools.

Marketing methods have changed significantly. Many of the tools and tactics accompanying the rise of social media are inexpensive and highly effective, regardless of an ad agency’s size.

It was once said that,

“Every business needs a Web site.” Today it’s, “every business needs a blog.”

No matter what your industry, your prospects have come to expect a blog from your business. This is particularly true of ad agencies, but most are slow to get on board.

I’m telling you that a blog is becoming the “gateway” for ad agencies.

Blogs are also necessary tool for agency new business. With other agencies lagging behind, it is an excellent opportunity for your agency to gain a significant advantage over your competition by getting on board now.

And if you study some of the more popular blogs, it’s easy to see why:

• Blog content is more naturally conversational; conversational content is viewed as educational and not sales oriented.
• Blog content changes often, giving your customers fresh reasons to return.
• Blog readers can contribute directly to content by adding comments and participating in dialogue.
• Blogs must be written to the benefit of the target audience. It isn’t a platform to brag and boast about your agency.

There are other practical reasons for having an agency blog:

Posting content frequently makes you a better communicator and allows you to gain expert status. You don’t know what you know until you write it down.

Branding your agency is a difficult exercise. Most agencies struggle to differentiate themselves. I’ve found that blogging helps agencies better articulate what they do, how they do it and why they are different from their competitors.

One of the most practical reasons to start and promote a blog is that it increases search engines optimization and is much better than for your agency’s website. SEO marketing is a necessity for any company and important to your agency.

“Instead of finding your prospects, the “new” new business paradigm for social media is to help your prospective clients find your agency.”

Just having a blog and posting content allows your agency to gain much better exposure from search engines.

Creating an effective blog can feel like a lot of work, but the benefits will add up over time and give your agency a significant competitive advantage. You’ll be able to demonstrate to prospective clients how you have used social media to grow your agency.

“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

A strong point of differentiation from your agency’s competitors, when you are sitting across from a prospect and can demonstrate that you“practice what you preach” and that your agency uses the very tools you recommend to your clients.

Related Resources:

• The First of Five Ways to Promote Your Agency Using Social Media
• The Second of Five Ways to Promote Your Agency Using Social Media
• The Third of Five Ways to Promote Your Agency Using Social Media
• Ten Reasons Why an Ad Agency Should Start a Blog
• Can Your Agency Define Social Media?
• Social Media Impacts Ad Agency New Business

3. Create a social media marketing plan.

In ‘Alice in Wonderland’, Lewis Carroll wrote,

“If you don’t know where you want to be, it hardly matters which direction you take.”

Usually, you start with a plan but I think it’s important that you have first hand “experience” with the social media tools that are available. Get a feel for where your target audience “hangs out” online, what’s their interests, their challenges, what information are they searching for and what are the best channels of communication to reach them, etc.

Once you’ve had a taste of the tools and a feel for how they can be used to promote your agency, the next step is to develop a “simple” plan of action.

At the core of every good team there’s a good plan. Along with the plan, having a person who pulls everything together. Building a Social Media Marketing plan and determine what the objective of the campaign is and therefore what tools should be utilized and how.

It is useful to step back and think strategically about where and how you’re going to commit your marketing resources online. Tap into the creativity of your staff  to create a simple social media marketing plan.

POST is one of the most effective acronyms since the four P’s of marketing. It’s a four-step approach that helps marketers define a social media marketing plan for their business and/or clients.

The POST method is the heart and soul of the book, Groundswell, written by Forrestter Research analysts, Charlene Li and Josh Bernoffand. It is  highlighted in Josh Bernoff’s Groundswell blog post, The POST Method: A systematic approach to social strategy. The POST Method serves as a guide to help you determine the right strategy for the right audience.

Your purpose should dictate strategy and the tactics used for reaching desired goals. A few common outcomes for your social media marketing efforts should include:

• Gain insight into your target audience - You can use all the qualitative data you want, but some of the most interesting and helpful market research can be found within the social communities where your prospective clients interact, share information and make recommendations.
• Link building for traffic and SEO - According to Marketing Sherpa, 80-90% of business to business transactions begin with a search on the web. Creating linkbait and promoting it to social media news and bookmarking sites can attract a slew of links from bloggers that read them. Creating value for the community is not the only rule, creating value and behaving according to formal and unwritten rules is what sustains social media sourced link building.
• Build brand visibility and authority - You’ve heard it before, “Conversations are happening online about your agency’s brand, with or without you.” You might as well participate and do so in a way that pays close attention to the interests and needs of your prospective clients – providing them with information and interactions that further support your agency’s brand.

Related Resources:

• The First of Five Ways to Promote Your Agency Using Social Media
• The Second of Five Ways to Promote Your Agency Using Social Media
• Can Your Agency Define Social Media?
• Social Media Impacts Ad Agency New Business

2.  Participate! Join the conversation.

I’ve heard agency principals say that they have better things to do than write blog posts and update their status on Facebook.  In the little picture of daily demands, this may be true, but in the bigger picture of using these tools to truly understand an emerging medium they don’t.

You can attend conferences and training sessions regarding social media all day long, but the only way to truly learn it is to experience it for yourself, and learn along with everyone else trying to stay ahead of the communication’s technology curve.

Again, I believe the best way  to learn social media is to use it to promote your own agency. It is a different means of communication and it must be done correctly for it to be effective.

Blogs and forums allow agencies to take off their professional mask and get comfortable with their potential clients. It provides a comfortable, informal voice for your agency.

Social media allows prospective clients to check under your hood, kick the tires, examine the interior and when they are ready, they will engage you.

Discover where your target audiences are online and join them there. Instead of waiting for our audiences to come to your Web site or blog,  join the conversation wherever it is—on users’ blogs, Web forums, FaceBook, MySpace or wikis. You’ll build relationships and trust.

Prospective clients want to work with people they know and people they trust.

Additional article of interest:

• The First of Five Ways to Promote Your Agency Using Social Media

1. Learn to Use Social Media 

Eric Kintz, a Hewlett-Packard marketing exec and blogger said: “I think they [agencies] are somewhat helping. But they need to show how social media has helped them further their own agenda. So if an ad agency comes to me, I’d ask if they have their own page on a social network site? Are they posting videos on YouTube? Do they have their own blog? And how has it helped them in their own business?”

Ad agencies have alot of non-traditional marketing tools now available to promote their agency. It is important that they understand how to use these tools because today’s clients are more resistive to traditional marketing practices. 

Prospective Clients:

• Don’t want to be interrupted
• Have found ways to screen out, throw out and tune out unwanted marketing messages
• Use online tools and techniques to seize control of their agency selection process
• Seek out the information they want when they want it
• Are finding their agency, rather than the agency finding them. 

First and foremost, it is critical that you and your staff understand and participate in social media by learning about it firsthand. One of the best ways you can learn is to develop a blog site for your agency.  Just remember that motive matters. It is not about your agency, it is about benefiting your audience. If done correctly, you will be amazed at the response.

Holland + Holland Advertising, a small ad agency in Birmingham, AL recently started a blog, She-conomy. The president and creative director, Stephanie Holland, is one of the few female creative directors in the country. Only 3% of creative directors are women but 85% of brand purchases are made by women. The agency’s blog site provides a clear point of differentiation from its competitors and a great opportunity to build a prospective client audience targeting men advertisers by helping them learn how to market to women. 

Having your agency’s own agency blog will also help by:

• Defining your target audience
• Learning to write specifically to their needs
• Learning the basics of Search Engine Optimization so your target audience can easily find your agency
• Establishing a clear point of differentiation
• Testing your message
• Identifying the most important marketing challenges and obstacles your target audience is facing and providing solutions

You will also better understand YouTube, del.icio.us, Flickr, digg, MySpace, and Technorati.

Learn and use these great tools to reach your target audience. In turn, you will also understand how Social Media works and can better help your clients! A win-win.

Additional articles of interest:

• Draw Prospective Ad Agency Clients with Rich Content
• Ad Agencies Should Blog or Not Blog?
• Four Ways Social Media is Changing Advertising Agencies New Business
• Top Ten Reasons Your Ad Agency Should Blog
• Should Ad Agencies be Expected to Have a Presence in Social Media?

Blogs are becoming the “gateway” to learning about your agency. Your agency’s Web site is becoming an online brochure. 

As important as it was to have an agency Website it is now as important to have an agency blog.

Blogs are a fantastic agency new business tool, but only if done right.

People will flock to your blog site primarily because of good content. Your key target audience has questions you provide answers. It is that simple.

You will soon find that content is even more important than search engine placement. With good content you’ll have recurring visitors eager for your latest update. Relying on unique visitors will not give you the traffic that is sustainable. You must find a way that would encourage previous visitors to return to your site as well. This is what good content does.

Below are some simple steps that will help you build a content driven site:

• Develop the layout that is simple and pleasant to the eyes. Focus your visitors to the content you want to share. Let your content carry your web pages.
• Do your research. Make your content as comprehensive as possible, and your visitors won’t have to look elsewhere to find the answers they are seeking.
• When writing your content, make sure that the first part of your piece is capable of grabbing your visitors’ interest. The challenge lies in capturing their interests and giving them what they want. This would compel them to read on and stay.
• Always update your site with new content. Not only will the search engines love this, resulting in a higher page rank for your site, but your visitors will likewise be encouraged to return to your site for the new information.

Blogs are much easier to set up and keep updated than your agency Web site. Once you have typed your entries, all you have to do is to click on a button to publish them. Draw prospective clients with the kind of content that keeps them coming back for more.

Park & CO president, Park Howell, came up with a great idea to help his ad agency staff better understand new media. He led his agency to create their own employee Film Festival competition.

The agency’s staff were divided into 8 teams. Each team had to create a self-produced video that would be uploaded to YouTube and then they were to generate traffic to their video. The winning team would receive $1,000. The winning criteria was to get the highest number of clicks.

The winning team was led by Kim Hodge and team members included Courtney Steuck, Heidi Moore and Sabrina  Sherrell, also known as the “Bad Ass Babes.” They attributed their success to a well planned marketing strategy. They knew that cute animal video’s often became a popular subject that easily became viral.  They created a 30-second parody of a Gap commercial, with dogs lip syncing to Depeche Mode’s “I Just Can’t Get Enough.”

The group started planning the shoot and called on a host of friends, the area’s best directors of photography, editors, and grips. They were able to persuade the crew to donate their time promising to use the $1000 prize money and donate it to a local animal shelter.

Following a day of shooting and edits, the team got together, and played the video. They knew immediately that they had a winner!

At the official opening to the Film Festival, all the videos were played and awards were given for Best Cinematography, Best Actor/Actress and Best Direction. Then the 8 teams were set free to their offices to upload the videos onto YouTube and to start spreading the word.

The Bad Ass Babes constructed a great email to accompany the link and out it went, with “Dogs Helping Dogs” in the subject line and our pledge of $1000 to charity if their video got the most clicks in their agency’s competition. They posted it to every person in agency and personal address books and to their Facebook pages. They also identified blogs and websites dedicated to animals, and within 2 weeks their video was being viewed in countries as far and wide as South Africa, The Netherlands, and Australia.

They also had numerous dog-related Yahoo! groups working with us, sending out daily reminders to their members to click the video. Rhodesian Ridgebacks are featured heavily in the piece and breed groups around the world started to take ownership of the piece and joined forces with us to ensure the dog’s video would win.

Their video was even posted on the largest dog blog in world www.dogster.com

Kim’s team grew from 4 people, to an online network of over 40 people, all dog lovers, because of the charity aspect made contact with animal blogs around the world to promote the video.

After a 4-week posting, the team ended up with 8350 clicks, with their nearest competition over 7000 clicks behind!

The teams winnings were donated to The Arizona Animal Welfare League/SPCA, the state’s oldest and largest no-kill shelter, which provides temporary homes for nearly 2,000 dogs and cats every year and offers medical and behavioral treatment for those in need.

The winning video:

Park&Co have been already been able to utilize the results of their contest in client and prospective client meetings. It has been a great tool to promote their agency.

I just received a forwarded email from one of my clients that I wanted to share. It was from a prospective client and the person had this to say: 

“Also, I just wanted to tell you that I like what you guys are doing over at Locomotion. You guys are starting to build some buzz. I rarely heard anything about Locomotion until the past year so I thought you guys might want to know that your efforts are making an impact.”

Locomotion has created a blog, built an email data base, uses email campaigns, AdWords, PRWeb, online surveys, Twitter, LinkedIn and many other new media tools to increase their online “foot print” over a short period of time. The buzz has been generated through the execution of a new media plan for the agencies new business.

Another agency, Off Madison Ave is generating 5 inbound new business leads per day using new media.

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Out of 156 of the FUEL LINES agency new business articles thus far this year, below are our readers Top 10:

1. Is it the end for cold calling as an agency new business tactic?
2. Major Shift in Advertising Means a Shift for Agency New Business Practices 
3. 10 Questions to Ask Before Hiring Your Agency’s New Business Director
4. Ad Agencies on Target by Blogging for New Business
5. Agencies Gaining New Business Opportunities Using Social Media
6. Four Ways Social Media is Changing Advertising Agencies New Business
7. Is Your Ad Agency “Connected” For New Business?
8. Top Ten Reasons Your Ad Agency Should Blog
9. Companies Using Social Media Marketing
10. A Revolutionary Time for Ad Agency New Business

I recently conducted a new business seminar for an ad agency. One of my recommendations was to use Web 2.0 to promote their agency with an agency blog as the center piece of new business marketing tools.  They’ve committed the next 90 days making this a priority.   

Why would I recommend a blog as one of the most important tools for ad agency new business?

Having an agency blog is well worth the time and effort. It provides many great benefits. Below are some of the important lessons I’ve learned through blogging and the ten reasons why your agency should have a blog:

1. Communication that Connects. The most important lesson I’ve learned, “you don’t know what you know until you write it down.” I’ve been associated with great writers and I know that I’m not one of them! Blogging has helped me to be a better communicator. 
2. New Business Paradigm Shift. New business for ad agencies is undergoing a paradigm shift; instead of hunting for clients, it’s now more important for your prospective clients to find your agency. Blogs make it easier for your prospective clients to find your agency. They’ll even initiate contact when they are ready to engage. 
3. True Expertise. Clients want leadership not partnership from their agency. In the early days of television, programs were produced by ad agencies, leading the way utilizing a new technology. Today, when ad agencies should be leading, they are woefully behind in Web 2.0 marketing expertise. 
4. Prominence of a Blog. At one time it was said, “every business needs a Web site.” Today it’s, “every business needs a blog.” A blog will become the gateway to your agency, make your agency easier to find and provide a reason to visit online often. Your agency’s  Web site becomes more your agency’s online brochure. That’s good news for the majority of agencies that know how difficult it is to redesign and update their Web site!
5. Learning is Doing.  It is difficult to learn to use the Web 2.0 tools, such as blogging, through a conference or seminar. You must experience it and discover the potential benefits it has for your agency and your clients. 
6. If its Good Enough for Your Client, It Better Be Good Enough for You. Blogging is an excellent tool for new business. Demonstrate how these tools have helped your agency by practicing what you preach. It makes for a powerful demonstration when you’ve actually used the tools you recommend to your clients. Also be sure to point out, in your next prospective client meeting, that your competitors aren’t using it.
7. Personal Enrichment Tool. Blogging will enrich your professional life, keep you up to date with the freshest thinking and help you too be aquainted with the newest and best new trends. That will also be good for your clients, and position you in their minds as a trusted expert.
8. Positioning Tool. Most ad agencies struggle with narrowing their target audience and thus have great difficulty in positioning and differentiating themselves. Blogging is an excellent tool to help ad agencies discover their positioning. A good example is the She-conomy blog, positioning a small ad agency as an expert marketing to women, who by the way, make 85% of all brand purchases.  
9. Focus on Client Benefits. Blogging keeps your agency focused on what is important to your prospective clients. It forces you talk to their benefit instead of talking about your agency. 
10. A Passion to Assist. Blogging isn’t for every agency. If your agency doesn’t have a passion to help your audience succeed you wont succeed with blogging. As soon as you start to “sell” your agency or brag about your credentials and awards, you will lose your credibility and your audience. Instead, provide rich content that helps your prospects with their marketing challenges and build trust. Then new business will come.

Ultimately, a blog can be your most highly effective, powerful and low-cost new business marketing tool.  

Brand agency, Neutron, has developed a creative way to build their online community of prospective clients by offering “Steal This Idea.”

“We regularly develop brand concepts and thinking tools that will help you zag, design, and innovate your way to the next business frontier. Sign up for Steal This Idea, and get a new tool every month.”

• The 6 Naming Styles
• Brand Positioning
• Brand Messaging
• Invisible Branding
• Great Zags of History
• Brand Extension
• Scissors, Paper, Rock
• 7 Books To Zag By
• Brand Illustrated
• What’s Your Brand Worth?
• Your Brand Ecosystem
• Good and Different Chart
• The Superpower of Trends
• Design Matters Interview
• Brand Names That Zag
• Idea Archive

Neutron’s viral program draws  executives and managers directly into their brand-building process. It gives these prospective clients an opportunity to learn how the agency thinks. Neutron also demonstrates a powerful unique market position for themselves as well as how they go about assisting their clients, building brands from the inside out. 

Do the same for your agency by challenging your creative staff to develop unique ways to promote your agency online. 

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I’ve stated before that social media provides some excellent tools for ad agency new business. An agency blog is the central platform to developing a new business program using social media to generate leads. Someone passed on the following resource and I thought it would be a great resource for your agency blog.

The blog post, “The Pocket-sized Guide to Blogging,” is a help for small-to midsize ad agencies that know just enough about blogging to be dangerous! For those new to blogging, they have such information overload that they tend to forget the important steps to a successful blog.  This post is an excellent condensed version on how to run a successful blog. The purpose of the post is to provide key principles for a successful blog in one place:

• How to write popular posts
• How to get more comments
• How to think of great posts ideas
• How to stay interesting over the long-term
• How to get more subscribers

The author of this blog is a staff writer at Technorati Top 100 blog ProBlogger.net, editor in chief at 20,000+ subscriber Freelance Switch, and has worked as a staff writer at Daily Blog Tips, Daily Bits, North x East and Freelance Folder.

If you want to read more, check out the full post.