Catapult New Business is hosting a new business webinar, titled Agency Business Development 2010: Strategy and tools to deliver more new business leads, Wednesday, December 9 @ 2 PM EST.

We’re covering insights into successful new business campaigns and the tools that drive them, including:

• Integrated media use in planning new business campaign sequences
• On and off-page web optimization
• Inbound marketing tools
• Required outbound touch-point metrics and analytics

Sign up here and if you can’t make this one, don’t fret - there are plenty more to come. 

Cheers!

First came planning, now comes research.

Planning is all about preparing the outreach strategy and accompanying assets. Your messaging strategy must revolve around an actionable insight to stand out from the clutter (for more tips on messaging strategy, click here).

Once you have determined a niche and insight to bring to a particular category and audience (CPG, automotive, retail, QSR, etc.), you can begin to populate a contact database.

There are generally two approaches to contact list generation: paid and unpaid.  For those agencies that may not have much time or energy to hunt, scour and mine contact info, purchasing a database from a provider may be the best solution.

For those who already have a robust, working database and/or lack of funds may be better off developing contact lists. If you fall into the latter, a few contact research tips:

1) Carefully comb over your current database; check for redundancy and remove contacts with irrelevant titles.  Expect a quarter of your contacts to be outdated, no longer with the company or incorrect.

2) Create a free contact generation strategy and timeline.  A few ways to identify and create fresh contacts on the spot:

• Trade Publications
• Newspapers and Newswires
• Job Search Sites
• Company websites and blogs
• Professional associations
• Attendee lists

Once you have secured new contacts, you might need to verify contact information, which definitely takes time.  If you have even one email address for a contact at a company, you can easily manipulate the address format to apply to all the employees.

For example if you have Sarah Smith at ABC Company’s email address as sarah.smith@abccompany.com, you can pretty much guarantee that the CMO, Tim Thompson, is going to follow the same email format.  Google searches and calls to the operator often yield desirable results as well.  Keep in mind that if you are going to find contacts on your own, you’re going to have view it as an experiment and get a little creative.

And if all else fails and you don’t have enough contacts in categories to last for at least 3 months, purchase a list.  The cost will probably outweigh the frustration and time consumed.

Next up in Asset Land: Number Three – Outreach.

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.

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.

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:

1) Gather up some of your best work, favorite success stories and think about a common success theme.  Does the success stem from consumer insights? The proprietary research? The industry? As you dig deeper into the success and the ensuing metrics you have garnered over the past few years, you will begin to develop a realization, a point of differentiation, a niche and an expertise to showcase to prospects.

2) After you have identified a theme, develop 3-4 messaging hooks to address the prospect’s pain points and challenges; you will use these messaging hooks for content development in email campaigns.

3) In conjunction with the email messaging, consider driving prospects to a micro-site or blog tailored specifically to their challenges and needs. Include relevant work examples, research, case studies, contact information…and a voice.

4) Use the messaging points to further define a target audience and categories.  A good way to begin brainstorming an initial data set is to list out 10-15 dream clients and account for the similarities.  More than likely, a good portion of your dream client list will fall into the same category/industry which will coincidentally align with your messaging points and expertise.

This post, of course, is a 10,000 feet overview of new business campaign messaging, but if you can take anything away from it, take away this: your agency has tons of room for targeted messaging and a point of differentiation – it’s really right under your nose (and more than likely under your research director’s nose, your creative director’s nose, your account planner’s nose and so on).  Collaboratively, your team should be able to compare success to reap targeted messaging fortune.

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:

1) Make a list and check it twice: High quality contacts trump almost every other business development tool besides the phone. It’s a fact: quick, easy access to marketing decision makers’ direct lines and email addresses allows more time for you to contact multiple people at multiple companies…correctly, the first time.  There are several subscription-based contact lists out there, but a few of my favorites are The List and Access Confidential, for the simple reason that these companies are boutique corporate contact providers for marketing services organizations. 

Of course, if the funds are unavailable at the moment, there is always good old-fashioned research.  The company website is always a great place to start for executive names and contact information.  You can also grab the URL from the homepage and easily figure out the domain (ex. @catapultnewbusiness.com).  The next part is figuring out format (ex. firstname.lastname@domain.com).  Once you have a name, you can continue to research email addresses in Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, articles, press releases or dial the main line and respectfully attempt to get the email address out of the receptionist’s mouth.  If all else fails, you have a case for immediate cold calling.

2) Rock the research: In addition to researching contact information, you need to branch out and observe the company’s website a little further past the “team and management” page.  After a thorough website evaluation to get an idea of the company, go ahead and quickly research the prospect’s industry and current industry pain points.  Catch up on your reading and dig for recent company news, current client roster, current agencies and recent campaigns.  As NBC has been pushing for decades, “the more you know, the more you grow.”

3) Don’t set appointments, set opportunities: It takes enough to land a prospect’s undivided attention and get an email reply or a call back.  Don’t blow it by not qualifying; in other words, it’s okay to throw in the towel if a prospect just isn’t that into you, recently hired an agency or doesn’t have the funds or resources available for a relationship (just make sure to set up a follow-up email in the next quarter or two).  You might not be part of the pitch/credentials presentations between your agency and the corporate prospect, which means you are probably facilitating new business meetings for your boss. Make sure to develop a set of guidelines for qualifying a meeting before you pick up the phone; as weird as it sounds, sometimes the prospect will set a meeting only for it to end in one big dog and pony show. If you go into outreach with a clear expectation (a definitive budget, a list of “dream clients”, certain categories and target markets) you will know the types of questions to ask the prospect, and you will ultimately set opportunities for immediate consideration.

Next Up: New Business 102.  Cheers!

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.

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

Step 2: Optimize Content

First, you must determine your keywords.  The trick is to choose keywords that have high monthly searches but low competition.  For example, a keyword for this blog may be new business, but new business isn’t going to get me really far organically as new business is extremely over-used.  Ad agency new business will get me farther in rankings because it’s more unique to the blog.  Sure, maybe 9 people will search ad agency new business in Google and come across my blog, but those 9 visitors will be relevant and semi-qualified.  The key to keywords and SEO is uniqueness.

Second, each web page needs a few things:

1) Title – that blue bar at the very top of the page. Keep the title unique for each and every web page. Use one or two target keywords in each title and keep it as short as possible.

2) URL - make sure a keyword is in the URL, and keep the URL on each page as succinct and defined as possible.

3) Description - referred to as the meta description, this brief (less than 150 characters) description sums up the web page. The description is hidden in the source code, so only Google will read it.  It’s important to keep the description as unique and keyword-relevant (2-3 keywords per description) as possible so Google has the opportunity to “understand” what the web page is all about.  The better the understanding, the higher the page rank.

4) Meta Keywords - these are keywords hidden in the source code and written in a succession of 8-10 keywords separated by commas.  These keywords also aid in the description of the page, and 2-3 of them should be located in the body copy.  Meta keywords are identical to your initial, big list of keywords described above.

5) Headers – also found in the source code and as a guide to the page, headers are stand alone phrases that describe content; multiple headers can be found on a web page, but H1 bears the highest importance in Google’s eyes (and you can only have one H1 per page).  Your company name on the homepage may be listed as an H1 and “contact us” located on the homepage may be an H2.

Obviously this mini-guide serves only as a brief starting point and introduction to SEO beginners (like myself).  Additional tips include harassing the IT department for help and purchasing a third party metrics provider to track your efforts.  The good news is that you can start creating and optimizing today.  Just a few shifts to keyword-rich web page copy make a huge difference.  Go forth!  And discover new business (hey, it’s Columbus Day).

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.

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