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.
Many agencies and marketing services firms over the years have made the decision to outsource their new business development efforts vs. handling new business outreach in-house. In fact, this has been a very common practice with U.K. agencies– and now more U.S. agencies are following suit. Why? They’re seeing multiple benefits including time-savings, incurred costs and overall performance.
If you’re currently deciding which route your agency should take, consider the following 5 reasons why “Buying” may be more beneficial than “Building:”
#1 Expertise – when outsourcing your new business to a firm that specializes in helping agencies with business development, you are getting a proven, successful, dedicated team working for your company on a consistent basis. Business development firms have “hunters” leading their prospecting efforts; senior professionals with a proven track record of results – and who know how to effectively work a sales pipeline.
#2 Time Saving – having a new business firm handle prospect outreach can be a big time-savings opportunity for agencies – as these firms are 100% focused on prospect outreach vs. relying on in-house teams that typically execute sales in their spare time or in spurts. Working with a team of veteran new business professionals also reduces your ramp up time. For example, our team at Catapult is trained to be in-market within the first 30 days, whereas we find that agencies who train this role in-house can take up to 60-90 days, depending on the new business tools and process they currently have in place.
These firms also typically offer list-building software and technologies like marketing automation and CRM that equip them to execute hyper-targeted outreach – all which offer additional, significant time savings.
#3 Consistent Pipeline of Qualified Leads – many agencies do not have a strong new business “pipeline,” and we often find it’s because they don’t have an effective, repeatable new business process in place. Often times when agencies work on a RFP and do not win the piece of business, they find themselves back at square one, frantically trying to drum up qualified opportunities. Executing new business in this manner can be stressful and unresponsive.
Outsourcing to new business firms provides ease-of-mind knowing you have a proven expert with the tools and network in place to deliver consistent meetings with brands you’re uniquely positioned to win business from.
#4 Cost Savings – when looking at the fully loaded cost of hiring someone in-house to manage your new business, agencies typically find it’s much more economical to buy vs. build. Most business development firms charge a monthly fee for their services that is often less than the salary, bonus and benefits incurred by hiring a new business director.
#5 Success – the name of the game. New business development firms enjoy a strong success rate of teeing up a consistent number of qualified meetings each month– while also working alongside the agency to help them turn those leads into paying, renewable accounts. When hiring a firm, ask about their success rates, and when possible inquire about other agencies that have found success in using them.
>> Need help deciding if buying vs. building is best for your agency? Learn more by contacting Catapult today.
Every agency sends emails in an effort to enhance client acquisition and grow their business. In reality, although the concept of sending emails to attract and retain clients seems promising, it is almost inevitable that your email may end up in the spam folder.
Why is this a growing problem?
Agencies may follow the rules on sending emails, but society has taken marketing efforts to an entirely different level. There are tons of emails sent every day, putting them all into the same category. In addition, ISP providers are continuously finding new ways to keep legitimate emails from reaching their destination because of simple mistakes agencies may make. There are ways to avoid going into the spam folder, but doing the due diligence is key.
To help combat this growing problem, we’ve organized 5 tips to help you avoid the spam folder, and increase overall deliverability:
Knowing what to say and when to say it plays an important role in how the email is viewed once it hits the sender’s box. If there are links in the email, make sure they are from reputable sites. Keep the image-to-text ratio reasonable, and make sure you use a reputable host for any images you may have in the email. Do not use risky words such as free, bonus, buy, purchase, order, prize, or use more than one exclamation point. This will keep the flags down, especially in subject lines.
Spam filters check for the URLs you are linking to so ensuring the domain name has a good reputation is important. Avoid names that have multiple folders and 1-2 characters in their file name. For example, a domain name with www.domain.com/a/everything.html will often be picked up as spam and seen as a negative URL. In addition, keeping the complete URL in the file name, and not shortened links, will improve email delivery.
If you are a legitimate agency, getting certified will help you gain credibility. Also, using platforms like Return Path will guarantee your inbox is known from the major ISPs, which will help you avoid being flagged as spam.
Avoid emails that come from different mailboxes. You want to be consistent to help build the credibility of your agency, and stay recognizable. When customers are familiar with your email addresses, they will take you out of the spam folder and automatically direct you to their inbox.
The best way to see engagement from your email marketing, and not get pinged as spam, is to provide timely and relevant content to the right audience. First thing – make sure you’re messaging is going to the appropriate decision-makers. Successful agencies are now leveraging list building tools to help supplement their organic opt-in list. Purchasing targeted prospect lists through reputable sources (like Winmo) can immediately increase not only traffic to your site, but also disseminate your expertise to a larger group of potential buyers. It also confirms the content you’re creating is being sent to the industries and titles that you’re best fit to win business from.
Not surprising – the next step is create custom content that uniquely speaks to each of these targeted audiences. Do your research to understand the personas of each vertical and then develop compelling content around each of their pain points.
Keeping your business top-of-mind to current and prospective clients is a very repetitive job, but with marketing automation, much of the repetitive nature of the business can be replaced by software.
While it is true that marketing automation is extremely helpful and makes the job easier, it isn’t going to replace the need for human outreach, nor will it miraculously take the place of marketing specialists. People will still need to generate leads and maintain prospecting lists. Purchasing lists of contacts might seem like a great idea at the time, but simply purchasing cold lists and sending them one-size-fits-all mailings or emails, is likely not going to produce much revenue, let alone long-term revenue. Automation will not and cannot take the place of cultivating relationships with potential clients.
Becoming too dependent on marketing automation can actually kill your business in the long run, so the key to being successful with marketing automation is to understand its purpose fully and utilize its tools in an intelligent, efficient way.
Marketing automation was designed to streamline lead generation, lead scoring and lead nurturing across a customer’s lifecycle. It is a huge part of being able to create a repeatable process that keeps business development efforts running regardless of what’s going on within the agency.
So, how does this automation ensure that activity is constant within your business development process? Here’s a look at what you can expect from a successful marketing automation program:
Marketing automation can be highly successful if you use it properly. Whether you are already generating quality leads and have a solid procedure in place to follow up with them, or your pipeline is currently dry, marketing automation could be helpful for you.
It is essential to remember that automation marketing, just like any other tool you’d use for your business, is not a cure-all solution. Additionally, you can’t implement it and forget it. In order for the automation to be effective it needs to be maintained, monitored, and evaluated periodically to determine it’s effectiveness and if your business is getting an acceptable return on the investment.
Ready to start driving more qualified leads for your business? Contact us for a free demonstration or call us at 404-564-2429.
With the rise of social media, it’s easy to assume that email marketing is going the way of the dodo. However, nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is that people still use and rely on email for many things, so it continues to be a valuable and effective way to reach out to them. Email campaigns are inexpensive, so the ROI is often considerable. The trick, however, is handling them properly and having specific objectives in mind. Pick up a few helpful tips to build email campaigns that help your business grow.
Before considering anything else, make sure you know how to create effective emails. First, the headline must be attention-grabbing, or it will get lost in the shuffle. Use A/B testing to see which subject headlines work well and which fall flat. Include plenty of graphics and links in your email to keep readers engaged, and send them at the right time of day. Finally, always include at least one strong call-to-action in your emails so readers know how to proceed.
In today’s fast-paced digital world, it’s easier than ever for brands to get lost in the shuffle. Email marketing is an effective way to keep a brand top of mind. As long as the messages are low-key, they can remind consumers about a brand and prompt them to turn to the brand when they need a product or service. Birthday messages, holiday greetings and company newsletters are great examples of gentle reminders that you can send.
Through effective email marketing, you can take a single purchase and turn it into a lasting relationship. Reaching out regularly through email shows consumers that they matter. After a customer establishes an account–even if they don’t buy anything–a welcome email is a great way to forge a bond. Later, reorder emails and “we miss you” emails can help sustain the relationship, increasing the odds of additional conversions.
Email marketing also allows brands to establish and demonstrate their authority. Occasionally sending useful, informative messages is an excellent way to reach out without being abrasive or intrusive. Things like product showcases that include special tips or instructions and industry news help to spark conversation. When they’re well-written, they may even be shared, expanding the reach of your marketing even further.
Finally, email marketing gives brands an opportunity to learn more about their prospects, existing customers and leads. Through special technology, it’s possible to see how people react to emails and to track how they proceed from there. This provides valuable insight into how a consumer’s mind works and can enhance the marketing process in a big way.
Ditching email marketing for a purely online or social media approach is a mistake. It may not be hip or trendy, but email marketing is still one of the best ways to grow a business–as long as it’s performed correctly.
Just because someone is a skilled marketing professional does not mean that he or she knows how to sell.
New business development professionals at ad agencies very often, it turns out, get little to no training on how to effectively complete large, complex sales. Yet using some proven techniques and a little pre-call planning, business development reps can greatly improve their success on calls with prospects.
This article explores how mastering a few basic sales call techniques will develop the right approach to effectively establish a relationship that moves a sale forward.
Neil Rackham developed a new approach to the selling process in 1988. Rackham’s company Huthwaite, Inc. assessed more than 35,000 sales calls for products and services. Rackham identified the techniques most frequently used by successful sales professionals.
These observations disproved a number of popular myths about the selling process, such as objection handling, which Rackham argued could actually hurt the chances of selling. In turn, Rackham established a new sales model – SPIN selling.
SPIN selling focuses on four core sets of questions:
Today, sales professionals around the world incorporate the SPIN selling model into their sales process and sales calls with great success. Using the SPIN framework, an agency business development professional can achieve significant results. Business will not be won on the first sales call, but through multiple sales calls that establish a relationship and lay a foundation. Each call will have its own objectives and outcomes aimed at moving the sales forward.
Stage 1: Opening
The purpose of an effective opening is to gain the prospect’s agreement for you to ask questions. You are seeking permission to begin a relationship and gain a deeper understanding of the prospect and his or her business needs.
In the Opening stage, there’s no need for benefits statements. In smaller sales and brief calls of 10 minutes or less, an opening benefits statement may help engage the prospect’s interest. But in longer B2B calls, there is no link between success and an opening benefits statement.
It’s tempting at this stage to share everything that’s great about your agency and jump right to a solution. But research shows that successful sellers don’t talk about themselves until late in the call. If you start talking about yourself or your services too soon, you allow the prospect to start asking the questions and take control of the call.
That said, it is important to communicate who you are, why you’re making the call and establishing a basis for asking questions, but it’s not about giving a large number of details about your agency or services.
This opening needs to be brief, 30 seconds at most.
Stage 2: Investigating
The Investigating stage is the most important stage in complex sales.
The core objective is to uncover a need the prospect has. Before that conversation occurs, however, you need to do pre-call planning homework.
Look at your prospect’s industry, company and at the prospect himself or herself. What are the potential weaknesses or opportunities that you can identify?
Make a list of each of your agency’s capabilities that can improve upon the prospect’s weaknesses or take better advantage of an opportunity you’ve identified.
Frame several questions for each of these weaknesses or opportunities.
Your focus in the investigating stage should be to ask these types of questions that lead the prospect into explicitly identifying a need that you are uniquely positioned to solve.
How will you know when that need is expressed? It’s a matter of keying in on any statement a prospect makes that expresses a concern or want that can be satisfied by your agency.
Once you’ve identified a problem or dissatisfaction, ask key questions about where the issue arises, when, how often, and to whom. Explore what happens if or when the problem arises.
By asking thought provoking and relevant questions, you add considerable value to the relationship. Prospects say that asking questions about specific problems increases their respect for sellers.
Stage 3: Demonstrating Capability
Once you have a firm grasp on the needs and the ramifications of those needs, it’s time to turn to your agency. There are three main ways to describe your agency’s capabilities and the solutions you can provide.
Of the three, focusing on benefits is the most persuasive way to secure business. Why? Because in doing so, you are connecting the dots for the prospect. You are drawing the line between your services and the need the prospect confided in you.
Waiting to introduce your solution is more effective. By waiting for the prospect to express a specific need you can meet, you can tailor the capability message to address that particular issue.
Stage 4: Obtaining Commitment
Ask most people what makes a good sales person and they will sale it’s about closing the deal. In large, complex sales this is not true. Asking questions is.
In small sales you often get a commitment to buy or not buy on the first call. In complex sales it’s different. Fewer than 10 percent of calls result in a sale or no-sale. If this is the case, how can you define success?
In most complex sales it’s about advancing. This means taking deliberate movements forward with commitments that get closer to the sale.
What constitutes an advance for an ad agency new business call? It depends certainly on the business and your agency, but typical examples of successful advances are:
If the outcome of the call does not reach an agreement on an action that moves the engagement forward, it’s a continuation. The call is unsuccessful, no matter how nice the other party was. Building rapport is not an advance.
You can prepare to avoid a call ending in just a continuation. It begins by understanding what kind of advances will be used to decide if the call was successful.
This planning requires you to set realistic call objectives that move the sale forward. You then need to select the advance that involves the highest realistic action you think you can achieve. Make this your primary call objective.
Top sellers will plan out these advances and ask questions during the Investigation stage that lead the prospect in the direction of the primary objective.
Conclusion
In agency new business, your first sales call with a prospect is not a pitch or a presentation. It is a way to establish two-way communication.
Each sales call requires pre-call planning that identifies objectives that moves the sale forward. To accomplish this, you have to strategically uncover the prospect’s needs by asking the right questions at the right times. You can’t expect the prospect to come right out and state their challenges.
With a little planning and practice, you will see better outcomes from your calls. Prospects will come to trust you more and to rely on you and your agency as a problem-solving expert.
Author Bio
Christian Banach is an advertising agency new business consultant and sales director at Catapult New Business. You can connect with him on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Are you ready to make a new sales script that will increase your successful lead generation, improve sales numbers, and increase your brand recognition? Here are several keys to a great sales script in any circumstance, from telemarketing to complex cold call selling.
If you aren’t being specific, you are wasting time. This can make some scripts more difficult to write, but the extra effort will be rewarded by hard-won attention. This rule applies to nearly every line. Don’t ask how their day is going, ask how this day of the week is going. Don’t ask them if they want to save money, ask if they want to save 30% of their monthly fees using your new system…and so on. This helps provide actionable data and keeps the lead’s focus on your words.
This ties closely to the first point: There’s no room on a sales script for unnecessary words. So don’t try to ingratiate people by spending time with pleasant nothings. You are wasting a decision maker’s time, and they will rightly hang up on you for that. Instead, be professional and get straight to the point. A brief introductory phase is important, but don’t wallow there.
Every good script needs a hook – a line that dives right into what you are trying to sell and why it’s important. Usually this focuses on the money people can save or new features they can use – however, it’s important that it actually hooks the listener. “Do you want to save more on your monthly mortgage payment?” is a nice line, but falters when the customer says “No.” Make your intro interesting and provocative – with a good reason to listen for more.
You have a limited number of questions before even the most patient lead will hang up on you. Use them well. Important goals for questions include:
A good script should include a reference to data and research backing up your points and the reasons to consider your product/service. However, a single research point or set of data is limiting – what if it doesn’t apply to a lead, or a lead doesn’t understand it? Include several data references as options in your script, so that it can be tailored to the questions and concerns of individual leads.
This is one of the most important and most difficult features of a good sales script; There needs to be room to go off script. This applies not only to conversations but also to the sales contract and purchase deals being made. Adapt the sales script for the consumer you are speaking to and explain the product benefits to which they can relate. Cold callers need to adapt on the fly to meet the needs of the lead, no matter what.
Once you realize your script is successful, you now have a prospective customer engaged in a conversation with you, and from there you can determine if they are a good lead for you and your company.
Despite the proliferation of channels available these days, email marketing campaigns remain a consistently reliable method to secure leads and gain new customer data (particular in the B2B world). The key is sculpting emails with clear goals in mind that get results from customers with very little attention to give: Try out these methods for sending out lead-friendly emails even in trying circumstances.
A plan text email, no matter how professional your fonts are, won’t attract much interest. You need an email template that makes the email look attractive – like a page straight from your site. Make sure that you use your logo and brand colors somewhere inside the email. They don’t have to overpower your message, but they should be visible. This reminds customers (even subconsciously) where the email is from, and when creating new leads it helps link the email to the rest of the sales funnel.
An email sent without a call to action is essentially a wasted effort. It may help with brand engagement, but how will you know? A CTA turns the email from a shot in the dark to content with a purpose – and with an excellent way to measures its efficacy. The CTA doesn’t need to be complicated and certainly doesn’t need to result in a sale: Many effective CTAs in emails simply ask viewers to download a report, fill out survey, or visit a product page. Remember, to create a lead you need to take the reader to the next step.
Targeting is more difficult when focusing purely on lead generation. After all, customer data on leads tends to be thin, which makes targeting with specific products or services challenging. However, more general targeting is possible and advisable: Good lead management provides a number of details about the type of person you are trying to reach. Use your customer personas and demographics information to personalize emails as much as possible by identifying unique needs and offering specific solutions.
Don’t try to say too much in lead generation emails. If necessary, use newsletters for that kind of thing. Keep the email focused on a single idea or value offering. If you look at the more impressive email marketing campaigns, you’ll notice that (in addition to following some of our previous advice) they all limit themselves to very simple ideas – a new tool to try, a new deal, a press release, etc. Emulate this method.
Try to give leads something they haven’t heard before. Remember, they will be getting marketing emails every day, filled with promises and deals and “Do you have a problem with this?” messages. Avoid getting lost in the clutter by crafting more innovative subject lines and introductions that show clearly what sets your company apart. If this is problematic, then you need to do some competitor analysis first.
Promise something to really win a lead’s interest. Use a special code or link to provide a discount that only the email recipient can access: This is a great way to get people involved in the email and lead them straight to your call to action.
The expanding reach of the Internet is increasing competition for clients, making it difficult to find the right marketing mix to generate new business. Fortunately, using online tools to aggregate your marketing efforts can streamline your business development initiatives and boost your gross sales. In particular, comprehensive online marketing platforms tend to be the best tools for winning new business.
If you’re having a hard time managing ad campaigns, lead generation campaigns and your marketing research objectives, then online marketing platforms can make a substantive difference in your life. You can perform all of these functions and more, simply by logging into a single platform that aggregates these services for you. There is no reason to log in and out of multiple applications to win new business, when a single platform makes the process easier.
In addition to making the process more efficient, these platforms also enhance the quality of your activities and the results you generate. You’re able to generate real-time analytics that can help you optimize the way you gather leads, and who you actually gather them from. Whether its higher sales conversions and sales, lower levels of bad debt and higher repeat business, online marketing plaforms can change the dynamics of your business.
In addition to online marketing platforms, online marketplaces can help you generate new business without a lot of additional marketing costs. Online marketplaces help you reduce everything from your operating expenses to your cost of sales, because the marketplace maintenance is typically handled by a third-party service provider. You can advertise your services to clients all over the world and conduct transactions is a single currency, depending on the construction of the marketplace.
There are also organizations that specialize in content marketing and online marketing strategies that can help your advertising agency generate new business. The content you put out to the world has a high impact on your ability to generate and retain business, making it one of the most important marketing factors to master.
5 of the best online tools and resources for new business development include:
Winning new business is a process that requires research and effective online marketing tools that help you leverage the power of the Internet to grow your company. Be sure to use online marketing platforms to optimize your marketing campaigns and advertising strategies.
One of the biggest mistakes that a marketing agency can make is trying to be all things to all people. At first glance, casting a wide net seems logical. After all, isn’t it the best way to ensure that your message is seen by as many people as possible? It is, and that’s the problem. Here’s why: Most of those people would never have been interested in your offerings anyway, so your message is lost on them–and so are your efforts, time and money.
Instead, define a very specific target audience on which to focus your efforts. In doing so, you’ll get way more bang for your marketing buck and will set the stage for long-term growth, profitability and success.
With a clearly defined target audience, it will be much easier to know where, when and how to market your products and services. Keep these tips in mind to more easily define a target vertical on which to focus your marketing and branding efforts:
Finding the right vertical for your agency to primarily serve is a small but crucial part of achieving long-term new business growth. With a specifically defined audience, your sales and marketing efforts will go a lot farther.