New Business Link Love: Second Wind

For all you small to midsize agencies out there: the Second Wind network is a vast collection of industry tools, tips, and resources for all your business development needs.  The site does have certain areas that are catered to paid members, but there are plenty of whitepapers and ideas to bounce for free.

It’s worth a look.

Cheers.

5 Assets Every New Business Program Needs

The traditional new business cycle is similar to dating:

1) Make a call

2) Build a relationship

3) Uncover an opportunity

4) Lose opportunity

5) Begin again

6) Onward and upward

7) Uncover opportunity

Traditional new business is cyclical, nerve-wracking, a numbers game and ultimately, a game of luck and chance, of being in the right place at the right time. Now, we have two choices in new business: we can either sit back and wait it out (via referrals, word of mouth, networking, search consultants) or we can proactively seek new business (via a plan, research and dedicated outreach).

Here’s the thing about proactive new business: your competitors are already doing it, and if you aren’t actively controlling business development initiatives, the cyclical nature of biz dev will ultimately control you.  Without targeted outreach and strict measurement, you won’t have the ability to predict growth or when extra outreach is necessary to make up for the financial lull of the times.

In a nutshell, here is the first of five agency must-haves for new business:

1) Planning: Planning is all about getting to an actionable insight that your agency can tote in outreach.  Like the previous post regarding messaging  strategy, in order to maximize your efforts, your agency should evaluate your capabilities and strengths and stake a claim as a thought leader in a market (example: we specialize in marketing to males ages 16-24, who are thought leaders and influencers among their peers).  Make sure to have the category research, insight and experience to back up your niche messaging.  Fresh perspectives and insights lead to corporate marketing opportunities.

Your insight must be unique.

Your insight must speak to a problem that the marketer has not been able to solve.

Your insight must be specific.

Getting to the insight requires taking a good look at the internal assets your agency already has: research, studies, experience.  I promise, among everything you do and have ever done, you have an actionable insight or two to take to a target segment.  The specific, actionable insight and ensuing expertise is often what leads to an unexpected project.

Next up in Asset Land: Number Two – Research.  In the meantime, best of luck in obtaining that insight.

New Business Messaging

The onset of a new business campaign is promising and uncharted.  The slate is wiped clean, and your team can focus on a new target market, a new category, a new message and a new set of assets.  As with anything that turns into a pot of gold, messaging takes time and preparation.  Without a strategic thought process behind the messaging, the effort behind the email and cold calling campaigns will not pay for itself.

Think of business development as a set of customized B2B marketing campaigns between your agency and the corporate prospect. Regardless of success or failure in the past, you must keep the B2B prospecting fresh, clever and enticing, and one size certainly does not fit all.  The most successful wins come from tenacity and the ability to switch up target markets and messages often (at least every 30-60 days).

A brief messaging strategy:

New Business 101

For the rookies (like moi). 

I got into ad agency business development two years ago, and I’m still learning the ropes to this day.  Unfortunately, there is no handbook when you first enter this biz; oftentimes, it feels as if you are thrown in headfirst with the sharks.  Of course, there is a level of mentorship, learning and understanding to live through, but at the end of the day, you’re gonna fumble. You’re going to be asked a question you were never prepared to answer.  You are going to be hung up on, told off and patronized.  But if you think about it, every job has a level of being hung up on, told off and patronized…even those jobs that never require picking up the phone.  But if there were ever a few new business tips I could have been privy too before that first call, I think the following list is decent for starters:

Ad of the Week

Barbara Lippert’s AdWeek review of the new Friendly’s spot by Zimmerman is comedic genius.  Everything about this commercial is just plain wrong, from the overly exuberant tiny tycoon to the tied up dog to the mom’s lispy pronunciation of the word Friend-leeths.

This spot is so bad, it’s good.  Too bad it won’t be airing in Atlanta.  We do have 1-800 Safe Auto commercials to look forward to, however.

SEO Crash Course for New Business

I’m just getting into this SEO thing, and let me tell you, it works.  It really, really works. Bring on the water works.

We’ve established that content is king.  Good content conquers all, but there is only so much conquering going on if no one can find you.  Let’s begin with your website.  Your website is a static company brochure. Why not spend a few hours/days/weeks optimizing your brochure so lots of people can read it?  Then there’s your blog (this is where the fun part comes into play): your blog is your evolving voice and personality.  Both the website and the blog/Twitter/Facebook showcase your business and in turn, drive awareness, visitors and leads.

Step 1: Create Content

• blog articles
• web pages
• video
• photo
• webinars
• whitepapers
• e-books
• Tweets
• a presence

Social Media, ROI and New Business

Critics will disagree, but in my humble opinion, there is definite value in an internal social media marketing campaign.  It all depends on what your company wants to measure – traffic, conversation, inbound links, leads?  When it comes to social media, definitive numbers can get a little fuzzy; instead of focusing on a hard number of leads, establish a goal and set a few objectives around that goal (duh, right?).

Your goal should be a combination of qualitative and quantitative objectives.

Qualitative:

-are we part of the conversation?

-how are we viewed/talked about compared to our competitors?

-how can we build a relationship with our key target audiences?

-where can we begin to take part in the conversation?

-are people even talking about us?

Quantitative:

-how many unique visitors stop by our website daily?

-what keywords are people searching to find us?

-which referral sites is traffic coming from?

-what blog posts receive the most visits?

-how many Twitter followers do we have?

Building relationships and scoring leads is a mix of hard work, quality and quantity.  Social media isn’t as easy to measure as traditional channels, but with the right combination of measurable and achievable objectives, dedication and time, social media marketing will evolve into a natural extension of your brand.

Olivier Blanchard created a great slide show highlighting the basics of ROI through social.  Blanchard emphasizes ROO or Return on Objectives and stresses the importance of frequency to yield results. Check it out here; it’s pretty fun.

Social media is all about consistency and great content.  Unfortunately, you can’t generate great content and stay consistent without a goal, a strategy and an activity timeline.  Put a plan into place, and then go with it.  Awareness is difficult to measure, but actionable leads are not.

Retro Ad Redux

In the spirit of yesterday’s post, check out these delusional retro ads!

The Reintroduction of the Retro Brand

Old school brands are viewed as either a challenge or an opportunity in the eyes of marketers.  On one hand, retro brands are legacy brands, with mass recognition and a history of success; on the other hand, many have lost establishment and are battling dwindling loyalty or little perceived relevance to modern society.  The good news in all of this is that with the right marketing mix, forgotten retro brands can appeal to a new generation of consumers and become cream of the crop again.

Such is the case with good, old PBR.  Never a fan of the sour, watered down taste , I do have to stick it to the man and say well done sir, well done. For one, PBR rejuvenated an entire generational subculture by appearing not to overanalyze advertising, marketing and packaging. Secondly, PBR branded it’s little blue ribbon among the messenger bag and cash strapped youngin’s by sponsoring underground cycling and skateboarding events, placing signage in the dive-iest of bars in major cities and overall gaining mass underground appeal by deeply understand the consumer. It worked, as evidenced in this recent AdAge article.

Still aboard the PBR train, DDB has published an excellent whitepaper regarding the revitalization of retro brands. The agency lists four ways retro brands can connect with a new generation of consumers and, quite honestly, the  themes apply to much more than rebranding; you can essentially take these succinct points and apply to business development best practices:

Art and Copy

From the director who brought us the intriguing and inexplicable documentary “*Surfwise“, comes “Art and Copy“, an inside look into the ad world’s most influential creatives and campaigns.

Check out the film’s website for a sneak peek.  “Art and Copy” is currently screening nationally, and hits Atlanta theaters Sept. 18-24.

*totally recommended