In today’s marketplace, social media should be an integral part of growing your agency. Of course that’s not news to you, but in order to be successful with it you need to practice patience and stay consistent.

We’ve spoken to many agencies about how they’ve used social to push their new business efforts forward and have learned a few things along the way. When it comes to social, some platforms work much better than others, LinkedIn and Twitter being the main two that businesses use. Here are a few strategies about platforms we believe give you the most bang for your buck in your push to grow new business.

LinkedIn Referrals

AgencySquared recommends that agencies craft a LinkedIn referral engine. This process entails consistent outreach and the suspension of reluctance when it comes to leveraging LinkedIn connections. Even if you may not know them personally. We like to call them “unknowns.” Who do we mean by unknowns? If you have 1,000 connections, the number of real connections—connections that you personally know—are probably less than 20 percent of that number.But all those other connections hold tremendous value. Yes, those 80% of unknown connections can drive serious new business your way.

Don’t be shy in asking for referrals from those connections, just do all of the work for them. Here’s what I mean:

• Ask specifically for the person you would like to be introduced to
• Craft the intro/referral message for your contact to send
• Ask for a specific date of referral
• Have something timely to offer so that the date of referral is more important.

Most of those “unknown” connections that you have will have no problem forwarding your message along, because (for the most part) we’re all trying to grow our networks and increase our sphere of influence. I always try to be of help to others when/if I can, and I find most people fit into this category as well.

This referral process will help you not only learn more about your network, it will also increase your potential prospect list. More prospects, more leads, more sales.

Twitter Business Opportunities  

Twitter is another great way to grow business opportunities. While LinkedIn is about connections, Twitter is all about conversations. It’s a perfect vehicle for quick conversations you can engage in and strike up during any event. Be sure to follow people in your space (who doesn’t love being followed?) as these will be quality users whose interests align with yours.

You can search for people who tweeted about a topic of interest and follow them. I highly suggest that you do this; any conference that is of interest to you–whether you’re at the conference or not– find out the conference hashtag, and begin following every user that uses it. Most times you’ll get a follow back, and I can’t tell you how many meetings I’ve had at conferences from following someone and then them finding me in the crowd later. “Hey aren’t you the guy that just followed me?!” Boom – conversation started.

Your goal should always be looking to develop a targeted audience. A larger number of random followers may give you social media cred, but it does nothing for your new business goal. A Twitter following with a small core of highly targeted follows is twice as valuable as a large audience of random followers.

Participating in Twitter chats related to your industry is another way to prospect. Joining an ongoing conversation is a great way to develop a rapport with like-minded individuals and it is much easier to join a twitter conversation that is currently happening than jumping in mid conversation in person.

Timelines in both LinkedIn and Twitter are changing every minute, so be sure to set time aside to review new developments. I personally block off specific time on my calendar every day for Social Media prospecting. This forces me to send out at least one referral request each day and find a new twitter conversation to take part in.

Leveraging the power of social media for your business marketing can take time and energy, but in the end your efforts will be rewarded if you stay consistent. Not every platform makes sense for everyone, so do your homework, experiment, and don’t be afraid to leverage those “unknowns!”

In this webinar, learn how proactive agency new business development teams are leveraging content to drive more conversations with top prospects, including how to :

• Understand the value of content to strengthen their agency new business strategies
• Educate and engage their top prospects more effectively
• Find new ways to present solutions that aren’t overplayed

If any of these challenges sound familiar, we encourage watching:

• My agency struggles to stand out in a crowded marketplace
• My team is struggling to find fresh, new ways to present our solutions to brands
• I question the value in producing content for my agency because I don’t see how it generates qualified new business conversations
• Even if we do produce content, our agency lacks quality website content that engages our top prospects
• My team doesn’t have time to add something else to their “to-do” list- how do we produce quality thought leadership content that has real value?

 

Content That Actually Drives Agency Growth from AgencySquared on Vimeo.

You need email lists and you are not alone. Every day marketers struggle to figure out how to reach larger audiences for their content marketing campaigns. Without a robust database, your content marketing plans can take much longer to gather lead generating momentum. Since we all want more sales, that means generating more leads, let’s look at how successful agencies create larger databases.

There are a few ways marketers build databases:

• Buying lists: You can buy names and email addresses based on certain demographic information.
• Renting lists: You can identify a segment of prospects to email, but you don’t own the list. Without ownership, you’re unable to email them beyond the agreed upon rental period.
• Opt-in List: You’re given an email address by the prospect themselves, giving you permission to continue to send emails. These people may pick and choose certain content they want to see.

There can be drawbacks to purchasing prospect lists if you do not research carefully. Find out who the company is that you are buying from and how they go about sourcing their information. Understand that since nobody can sell you an “opt-in list,” the prospects you are buying are cold. Those cold contacts can be gold for your sales team. Just make sure there are quality, up to date decision makers within those brands you are hunting.

Opting in is important, and we want people to do it as much as possible. As long as you abide by all Can-Spam laws, there’s no reason that you should not be able to reach out to contacts on a purchased list who have not opted in yet. The issue we see a typical agency run into when trying to build a list from only opt-ins is that time is their enemy. It takes a long time to build these from scratch. How much time? Let’s do the math.

Most small to medium agencies we speak with average 50 or less unique visitors a day. Most of them are probably only converting 1-2% of those contacts into opt-ins regularly. If we were able to increase that to 4% conversion, we would still only have 500 Opt-ins at the end of year 1.

For an effective content marketing campaign, we’re looking for a contact goal of 3,000-5,000. If you are generating 500 opt-ins a year, you would be looking at taking 6 years to generate just the minimum amount of contacts! Not a lot of New Business Directors have 6 years to wait for quality prospect lists to develop. Our goal is to always kick-start that process of building opt-ins, by buying targeted lists.

Quality content is huge in driving up your traffic and conversion rates. But while your team is building up that content, you need to be supplementing contacts from somewhere. At AgencySquared, we use a sophisticated platform called Winmo. Winmo helps salespeople generate targeted prospect lists instantly. It uses search filters for a wide range of areas like media spend and geography. This enables sales organizations to prospect on a much larger scale. They can build to that target number of 3-5,000 targeted prospects much faster.

Buying lists can be an indispensable part of your marketing strategy. Especially if you’re building to that large-scale prospecting list. Agencies should of course do their own math to figure out what will work best for them, but we recommend looking at the numbers above. We think that the winning equation is: Buying + Building lists = more leads, faster.

The agency review process is like getting a text from your significant other that says, “We have to talk.” It doesn’t necessarily mean something bad is on the horizon, but it’s sure to cause some anxiety for a while.

Agency reviews happen for a lot of different reasons, but hardly any of them have anything to do with the agency screwing up. It’s true that a particularly misguided or unsuccessful campaign may trigger a review sooner rather than later, most of the time there are ordinary boring reasons for agency reviews.

A New Chief Marketing Officer

DailyVista’s Vulnerable Account Index, which ranks the likelihood that a brand is going to put an account under review, uses an algorithm that includes dozens of factors. The strongest indicator that an account may be heading into review is the appointment of a new CMO.

A new CMO may have relationships with other agencies they’ve worked with in the past, and they want to continue that relationship in their new position. Or they may just want to review and reset expectations with the existing agency.

Last year got off to such a brutal start for media agencies going into review that AdWeek called it Mediapalooza, with billions of dollars in ad spending going under review and becoming available for agencies to win. AdWeek includes a quote from a source at BMW, who said, “It is a standard BMW process to put all contracts up for review every few years,” which reinforces the ordinary, cyclical nature of the agency review process.

Average tenure of CMOs decreased for the first time in a decade in 2015, which is an indicator that more CMOs are on the move, and therefore have fewer years of tenure in their current position. If that trend continues it’s likely that more agencies are going to head for review in the near future.

“Procurement often reviews relationships every 3-5 years, and CMO median tenure is about 26 months. So, if an agency incumbent isn’t battling against a new CMO, procurement wll look at the relationship shortly anyway,” said Josh Stone, managing editor and lead new business analyst for DailyVista. “Procurement-led reviews usually go with the incumbent anyway, but it can often be a huge a waste of money and time for both sides.”

Brands Change Direction All The Time

As brands figure out what channels represent better ROI for them, they move budget around. For example, a brand that had an unimpressive return on programmatic last year might look to change its marketing recipe, beginning with a review of the agency providing the programmatic service. This review could be to determine whether the problem was the strategy employed by the agency, whether the brand’s goals were unrealistic, or if the creative (provided by a separate creative agency) didn’t stand out from the crowd.

And it’s not just massaging budget numbers. Sometimes a brand might decide it needs to investigate its options before putting money behind a strategy or technology for the first time. Adtech and marketing technology are hot industry buzzwords in 2016. And you probably haven’t seen anything yet. The advent of augmented and virtual reality entertainment (like this incredible VR movie) could cause a major media placement shift over the next few years. And it’s not just movies—augmented reality is on the way, and when Magic Leap’s Mixed Reality engine and MicroSoft’s HoloLens find their way the mainstream, all bets are off. These new technologies have the potential to open an infinite and hyper-targeted market for media sales.

What Will Happen At The Review?

You’re probably accustomed to periodic meetings with your clients, from project kick-offs to QBRs and new direction meetings. A formal agency review isn’t significantly different in terms of preparation. You’re going to have to be prepared to discuss at least a few of these topics:
• the original brief
• how your formulated the strategy
• how it related to the goals that were set
• what unexpected challenges you encountered
• how you overcame them
• your results
• what strategies you would employ in the future
• what other services you can offer to the brand

After the review the brand will take some time to consider its options. They may even talk to other agencies to compare processes, strategies and even individual relationships. Yes, even the individuals on the account and how they engage with the client.

Ultimately the incumbent agency will either continue as the agency of record with some or no changes requested, or the brand will move to an alternate vendor.

How to Respond

Whatever the client chooses to do, it’s nothing personal—it’s just business. If your client decides to go with a different agency, how you respond to disappointment will likely affect whether you’re the client returns to you in the future.

Consider the Rinck agency. For nine years, the Rinck multiple channels for Gorton’s Seafood. In September 2016, Gorton’s consolidated agencies and Rinck lost a long-standing client. How did the agency respond? With this amazing video that reiterated how much Rinck had enjoyed its relationship with Gortons.

If that video gives you the warm-and-fuzzies, imagine the positive impression it left with Gortons.

It’s important to remember that a review is just a review. It’s not a foregone conclusion your agency is on the chopping block, but you can rest assured if your agency is under review, you’re not alone. At the very least, try to see a review as an opportunity to find out what direction your client is moving in. Try to determine for yourself if that shift is representative of the client’s market, and if you might be able to win business from other brands that are shopping around for a new agency.

Your website is an organic creature. That means it’s a living, breathing entity that demands fuel to stay in tip-top form. Alex Chris from Digital Marketing Pro says that “Updating is the core action of content marketing.”  Without content you can’t do much online. With good content, an agency can find a way to FINALLY stand out in our overcrowded marketplace.

Content is any information that conveys a certain point to the reader. It is quite possibly the most important element of your website. Content takes various forms—not always consisting of long form blog posts. It can also be whitepapers, case studies, videos or status updates. Regardless of what kinds of content you have on your site, you always need to be continually adding more content to your site.

The tricky part is determining how much content is enough. Is there a prerequisite amount you should be creating and putting up on a daily basis? Is there an amount that is considered too much?

As a general rule, we look for our agencies to be adding around 3,500 words per month. If you run just one blog post each week of the month, that means you need to write five short blogs at 700 words a piece.

So why 3,500? A few different reasons:

1. It’s an attainable number. Most of our agencies are busy producing for their clients. Internal marketing and blogging tends to get pushed to the side. Creating one post a week, at 700 words each, is something that can be spread across a team of people, and does not overextend one person. Having multiple writers keeps ideas fresh. It lessens the burden on individuals, and gives professional development opportunities to younger employees. Not every post has to be from the President!
2. SEO Ranking. Google loves fresh content. Google indexes frequently, so a site that updates 2-3 times a week is part of the Google annexing. This is helpful if your aim is to improve your SEO rank. The addition of continuous content also means more keywords. This increases the chances for you to grow your web traffic, and most importantly leads!
3. Consistent thought leadership content in the form of whitepapers or blogs gives your New Business Director built-in marketing materials to share with prospective clients before, during, or after phone calls. These pieces, while great for SEO, are fantastic calls to action for other marketing initiatives. That will drive new conversations for your New Business team.

With 3,500 being such an attainable number (5 blog posts a month), why do most fail to hit this? Why are there empty blogs across agencies all over the U.S.? Simple:  Most agencies lack a structured process around getting this content created. Our suggestion, create a small team to lead the initiative. This team can set non-negotiable due dates for when each blog is due. If everyone is clear on their responsibilities and the team’s goals, it becomes much more difficult to miss a due date. Nobody wants to be responsible for the team missing a goal.

Last note: All these words do not have to be in the form of short blog posts. Many agencies love creating whitepapers, which can be a fantastic lead generator on any website. My only word of caution – be careful of biting off more than you can chew. Remember the old adage: how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Sometimes a whitepaper can be a big bite. It might choke your other content efforts if you do not have a consistent process in place before you start that project. The extra research, time and effort that goes into one can be worth it from a lead standpoint. It just needs to be carefully planned around other short form content as well.

The last thing any of our agencies want is to have an empty website. By adding 3,500 words each month, you are taking the time each month to sit down and educate your prospects on what your team believes. This will fundamentally change your conversations with prospects. You’ll go from you telling a prospect about your services, to having a conversation about their needs. But that is another blog post in and of itself (and I’m already over my 700 words)

Agencies might go about generating new business differently than large ad sales teams, but it doesn’t mean they can’t take advantage of great sales techniques through marketing automation.

You’re likely spending a ton of time creating what you believe to be relevant, compelling content you hope your prospects find engaging. But, after all the time you spend researching, prospecting and crafting the perfect email copy, are you truly getting the results you expect? Is your new business development audience even big enough or segmented effectively to truly receive the results you’re looking for?

In this Webinar Matt Chollet, President of AgencySquared, discusses what a successful new business audience should look like and the tools available to help you build robust, hyper-targeted prospecting lists that drive more revenue.

If these challenges sound familiar, we encourage you to watch the recording:

• My email click through rate is embarrassingly low.
• My outreach efforts aren’t generating many leads.
• I’d like to learn how hyper-targeted prospecting lists can benefit my outreach efforts.
• I’m in need of a better way to refresh and grow my prospecting lists easier & faster.

 

How to Build Prospecting Lists That Convert from AgencySquared on Vimeo.

On average, agency-client relationships last about 36 months, which means that at any given moment one of your competitors is about to lose one of its clients. Or you are.

It’s no surprise that experienced new business professionals capture a bigger slice of that business. If you’re looking to grow your agency through building your client portfolio, you should consider hiring a full time new business director.

Any successful new business strategy starts with knowing who your target audience is. As an agency you’ve likely already homed in on your unique value proposition and are ready to start engaging with prospective clients.
A critical piece many agency new business professionals miss out on is making sure they have a broad enough target audience to sell and market to. We find that [twittee tweet=”Fuel your #marketing and #sales efforts with a targeted AND substantial audience.  via @AgencySquared” content=”the key to fueling your marketing and sales efforts is an effective, targeted AND substantial audience.” ]  

When working with our clients, we’re often asked, “How many prospect records do I need?” To get the most from your outreach, we recommend a minimum of 3,000 with the goal of having 5,000 that you can continuously engage with.
Those numbers might seem like a lot but keep in mind there are tools to help you build out your prospecting database. In fact, many of your agency peers are likely using one. According to the 2016 Mirren/RSW Mirren New Business Tools Report, 9% more agency executives are investing in list building tools (compared to 2014) to help grow their new business. Our clients typically use Winmo, however there are other resources like Hoovers, Data.com and LinkedIn to help you create hyper-targeted data sets.

The importance of audience segmentation.

As you continue to grow your prospecting audience, segmenting the data into relevant batches is very important. We often segment prospects into these three groups to help us prioritize outreach and customize content:

1) Right to Win
Right to Win clients are those that are a perfect fit for our solutions. We set parameters for what a perfect client is for our agency: what issues they have, where they are and what they specialize in. If they fit those criteria, then they HAVE to be working with us.

2) Great Fit
This will be your biggest group of prospects. They have a problem we can solve, but may fall outside our parameters on a few criteria here or there. Maybe they are a bit outside of our typical region, or they’re an industry we do not normally operate within. They still have a problem we can solve however, and that means we want to talk to them.

3) Stretch
This is may be the smallest group, as they are more of ‘passion projects’ from the team – or the ‘great white whales’ that would be incredible to land. They are probably not worth committing the majority of your new business time to chasing, but landing one could make a huge difference in morale or revenue
Keep in mind this is just one way to segment your data. Every agency has a different strategy, and how you go about slicing your sales intelligence might be very different. Some find that the easiest way to group prospects is simply by industry vertical, while others choose to base their groupings off of job titles. Taking the time to think through who you want to be working with, and more importantly, what your prospects care about, will help you determine just how your agency should be dividing your prospect target list.

Yes – broadening your audience might seem like a lot of extra work, but the payoff is well worth it. By getting your message in front of more prospects that have a need for your services, you’re more likely entice qualified conversations with the brands you want to do business with.
Go ahead, the odds are in your favor.

In today’s competitive business environment, turning prospects into leads requires a strategic and proactive approach. Educating potential customers on how your products or services can solve their problems is essential, but starting a sales content process can be a challenge for many teams. We recommend focusing on three key areas to get a sales enablement content strategy started: Audience, Content, and Execution.

Start with your audience in mind. 

The first step is to identify your target audience. To do so, you need to ask the right questions that enable you to define your “right to win” clients. These are the prospects that your team is best positioned to provide the best possible service. Once you have identified your right to win clients, you can expand your list to include additional targets that are slightly outside of your perfect right to win group. To create a realistic and appropriately sized group of contacts to approach, you should consider factors such as:

• In which areas does your agency generate the most profit?
• With whom are you currently communicating?
• What kind of business do you choose to walk away from?
• Which brands align with your agency and should be your clients?
• What areas are the most interesting to your team and align with their passions?

By asking these questions, you can determine who your audience is in a specific, lead-driven way.

Create sales content with intent. 

Content is a critical element of new business success. To advance your sales content strategy, you must provide content that your audience wants to consume and share online. When creating your sales enablement content strategy, it is crucial to start slow and avoid overextending yourself. To determine what content should live on your editorial calendar, consider questions such as:

• What is the purpose of your agency’s existence? (less about what and how)
• What is the one thing your agency does better than any other?
• What are the benefits of working with your agency?
• What type of work is beyond your agency’s scope? (this will help you drive more qualified conversations)
• What are the business problems that you solve for the identified prospect categories?

By creating sales content that is relevant to your audience’s needs, you can aid your prospects in determining why they should work with you over another partner. 

Make a sales content plan that is achievable. 

To achieve your new business goals, you must have a well-defined plan that is consistently repeatable and includes well-defined goals, measurements, and activities. Your plan should involve everyone in the new business process, from sales and marketing to management. During the execution phase, consider these questions:

• Which members of the in-house team will be fulfilling each role in the sales/marketing process?
• What technologies are currently in place?
• In what way do we want to approach new prospects?
• How have we approached prospects in the past, and what methods have worked best?
• Who has typically been the most receptive to our messaging?

A critical part of execution is leveraging the content you have created and the process your sales and marketing team uses to drive 1-1 sales conversations. By using your content to engage with prospects more often, you can increase your chances of winning clients.

To turn prospects into leads you must identify your target audience, create relevant sales enablement content, and have a well-defined plan in place. By focusing on these three key areas, you can support a proactive approach to new business and increase your chances of winning more business with your most sought-after clients.