Take a look at the following – they range from the mundane through to the inspirational.

• Air New Zealand’s AirPointsFairy – where people’s “wishes” can come true – although only in terms of goods and services offered by the airline.
• Timbuk2 bag recycling – the bag manufacturer has linked up with RED to support their work in Zambia by offering customers discounts on bags returned for reccyling and those bags get sent to health workers in Africa.  A nice touch is the encouragement to add a ‘story’ about the bag so its future can be blogged about showing former and current owners.
• Sreepur Children’s Village christmas cards – CreativeAgencySecrets helped them find a PR agency and set up social media accounts in order to get publicity for the 2010 card buying season.
• Ray Avery‘s Medicine Mondiale whose philosophy is “ensuring that those in need in the developing world have access to first world healthcare solutions at an affordable price“.   Their factory developing intraocular lens for cataract operations produces them for US$6 instead of the $300 norm – and provides employment in Eritrea for 100 people AND delivers $2 million profit per year.

I saw Ray speak about his autobiography and was particuarly impressed by his approach to funding Medicine Mondiale’s research and development work – he asks corprations to give their time and expertise free of charge.

We can all help out with this type of corporate support.

Can your brand either initiate a social change programme or provide support and free expertise to help others in their quest?

What will it do to customer perceptions of your work?

Can you use it to widen your customer base?

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“With a serious skill shortage at the top of the business professional arena, forward-thinking New Zealand companies are looking outside the square to recruit innovative thinkerswith attitude and a passion to make a difference.

And then Brannigans recruitment consultants published this advert below

“You’ll be a bit unconformist… write your own job description”

Seemed a great opportunity for Jonathan Ewing – a recently returned senior marketer who’d been working in the middle east.

He asked my help to create a proposal to send out and a formal job application.

1. We delivered the proposal through the advertised channels
2. LinkedIn and a couple of freindly helping hands got us the CEO’s email address at NZ Merino – so he got it direct as well.

Anyone needing Jonathan’s expertise – he needs more work – just get in touch.

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This helps Google work out what is relevant for search strings that lead to your content, particularly if they produce several results from your site.  If they continue over time it strengthens your position in the search rank for that string.

We have been reviewing the site statistics and it is really encouraging when posts written in the past continue to bring in new  readers for a long time after the first publication.

Our Twitter competition ideas post written back in June is still bringing  in great visitors from organisations such as

• Interbrand
• Choice FM
• Warner Music Group

Very pleased with the outcomes from that one piece as those visitors were just from last week’s stats.

Want to learn how to do this for your website?

Read on…

Step 1

Find a subject area that already brings visitors to your site.  I go back through the analytics for CAS and find search strings that visitors have used.  For example this week I have got the following ideas from this source

• Agency integration
• VRM and behavioural targeting
• Dubai agencies
• Client surveys by marketing agency
• why can’t agency rosters do integration properly
• Firms using email surveys

Good list of diverse subjects there.  An editorial meeting would quickly sort out which are best for us to write.

Step 2

Write a post or a short series on the topic and use the titles and tags that are the words used in the search strings.  This will help to reinforce your blog as a relevant site in Google when those words are entered.

I find that it takes around 40 minutes to get new content indexed on this site now.

Step 3

Actively contact the companies who have found your site using those search terms with a tailored message based on a link to the newly created content and a specific offer for their needs.

Repeat and keep watching the statistics graph.

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But, unless you are very lucky, few will respond to your first approach or your first request for a meeting.

The reason is that in order to get that first meeting with a new prospect, you have to answer one question

Why should I invest my time to meet with you?

Put yourself into the shoes of your prospective marketing director – she is busy, crazy busy and as far as she can tell her current agency is doing a very good job of fulfilling her brand’s needs.

In the old-fashioned world of sales calls your typical conversation went something like this

“Hello I’m Rebecca Caroe from Creative Agency Secrets.  We specialise in busienss development for creative agencies.  The reason I’m calling is to tell you about a new email lead generation service that we are launching and I wondered if I could fix a time to meet you in order to show you the product.”

Sound familiar?

That was a classic sales call script using an Introduction : Positioning : Reason : Close.

I’ve done it myself dozens of times.  I have also hung up or quickly got off the line when it’s been done to me dozens of times.

Phone calls can be a really effective lead generation tool

But you have to know how to use the tool.

Nowadays you have to use the call itself to build credibility and answer that key question “why should I invest my time to meet with you?”.

Three tools to build your credibility

1. Trigger events – know what the events are that can force supplier change and when they occur.  Watch for them.
2. Be an expert – know all you can about the pain the event creates and how to smoothly overcome it
3. Limit the options – keep your communications through few channels, offer one solution and keep track of the conversation over time

Here is how the new selling by phone script should work:

Introduction: Be brief – your name and organisation.  No more is needed.

Credibility: Name your referral person or campaign that should get their interest, state your research findings or outcomes and use a trigger event as a means to gain acceptance and permisssion to continue the call.

Insight: Get them really interested in you by offering free ideas, insights and information that will help the prospect agree to meet.  They know you won’t tell them everything for free on the phone – the price of the knowledge is the meeting

Close: Agree to meet and share – maybe ask them to contribute too so that you are perceived more as equals than a vendor and a buyer.  Friendly and un-pushy.

Version two of the call could go like this

“Hello I’m Rebecca Caroe from Creative Agency Secrets.  We provide leads for creative agencies.  I saw that you’d lost the Colefax and Fowler pitch recently and I wondered if you knew that Farrow and Ball are looking for an agency to collaboarate with on the Tiffany business?  I know this because of a new lead generation service that we are launching and I wondered if I could fix a time to meet you in order to show you the product.”

Now that’s deeply simplified as a script and doesn’t represent the conversation but you get the gist. 

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We are often asked about how to pitch a brand in order to win their busienss.

Now a pitch is usually the end of a long process that starts with a chemistry meeting or a credentials presentation.

Here is an example from Razorfish who pitched for the jewellery retailer, Tiffany’s business.

This is an early stage document.  It has high level proposals, few detailed strategy recommendations and a free offer. Razorfish Tiffany New-business-pitch-creative

The good points are:

• clear alignment with the Tiffany brand promise
• aligning online and offline customer experience
• data sharing online and offline (really hard to do well IMO)
• a sharp offering to drive the future relationship
• it’s short
• the offer is risk-free

If they delivered the free workshop and used that to develop ideas for Tiffany – how strong would their offering be if Tiffany decided to make it into a public pitch?  They would have the inside track becasue all the ideas were developed jointly with Tiffany.

Can you do this?

How do you approach new prospects – what can you offer them that  makes it easy to buy and shows off your ideas without giving away your intellectural property?

Thanks to MZ Kagan and Scribd for the idea for this article.

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I had a read through the report – it has a reasonably short summary of findings and a detailed appendix detailing the project methodology (really interesting if you like stats, research and algorithms).

The main statements that affect business development and how you should change your biz dev tactics and strategies are

• The world expects brands to “do” not just push messages

I think this applies equally to B2C and B2B brands – showing a leadership in a niche can be demonstrated by activity. It needs to be activity that benefits the customer in some way.  I worked with Websters Accountants as they set up their site about auditing service charges for multi-occupied buildings.  We set a strategy for them to “give away” a service of offering an aggregated news feed about service charge accounting.  It’s a subject covered in a range of journals, blogs and websites – bringing together into one place is a service to their customers and prospects.  An example of a B2B brand doing something, not just pushing messages.

• If actions speak louder than advertising (and they will), what is your brand doing?

Showing off your CSR is no longer enough.  Acting on the brand message, being the public ambassador of what your brand stands for and delivering on your promises in consistent ways (not necessarily kookie show-off ways) is what gets you noticed in the long term.

• Social influence has an equal effect on active and less active users

This is definitely borne out by Seymour, my 90 year old relation who follows me on Plaxo and declares himself delighted to know what I’m up to.  He’s a reader and a watcher rather than a participant in the conversation.  But be clear, he is “in the conversation” but just not saying much right now.

• Increased reliance on personal influence networks for purchase decisions rather than branding messages

Obvious really.  When does your belief in the marketing message get most cynical – when you are close to purchase.

• As customers move through the sales funnel, reliance on word of mouth increases effectiveness the closer to decision you are

As above.

• Independent blogs carry more weight than corporate blogs – but these are helpful in the awareness phase (page 12)

And so there is a place for corporate messaging – but be clear about where it has influence and where it does not. 

• Brands must focus on value exchanges

Again, as Don Peppers said – I give you something, you give me something back.  Now that was in the era of early stage CRM but it was in the context of getting data to populate your database…. something only the customer knows about herself.  What can you give me of value and what can I give you of value first?

Take a look at this summary diagram.  Spells it out neatly.

Social influence hasn’t changed – but it has moved online in a way that marketers can track, measure and participate in.  Now that is something worth thinking about.

Actions for your brand / business / enterprise:

1. What are the characteristics of your marketing communications at each stage of the sales funnel now?
2. Where do you lack material?
3. Can you find places online where those conversations are being recorded?
4. Can you align the conversations and the ‘sentiment’ with your brand to stages in the sales funnel?
5. Are there ways to adapt your marketing and customer services operations to step into those conversations in an appropriate and brand-aligned way?

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The chief benefit to your agency from using social networking is “getting new business leads.” Creating a community of followers through Twitter and a regularly updated stream of content on a blog builds engagement, can boost your agency’s presence on Google and ultimately bring in more prospective clients.

Don’t just take my word for it.

Inbound online marketing platform HubSpot’s The State of Inbound Marketing report that inbound marketing can double average monthly leads for small and medium-sized businesses. It can also generate leads for less money  inbound marketing bring leads for less money.

“This report is designed to help businesses and marketers understand the current usage and results of inbound marketing. Inbound marketing is a set of marketing strategies and techniques focused on pulling relevant prospects and customers towards a business and its products.

Inbound marketing is becoming widely accepted because it complements the way buyers make purchasing decisions today — using the Internet and related media to learn about the products and services that best meet their needs.” – Hubspot

Three key takeaways from this report:

1. Businesses are generating real customers with social media and blogs. The use of social media and company blogs as marketing tools gets your company better brand exposure, but it also generates leads that result in real customer acquisition.  41% of companies who use Twitter for marketing have acquired a customer from a Twitter generated lead. 41% of companies using LinkedIn for marketing have acquired a customer from that lead generation source. 43% of companies using Facebook have acquired a customer and 46% of those using company blogs have acquired a customer from a blog generated lead.
2. Inbound Marketing channels continue to deliver dramatically lower cost per lead than Outbound Channels do. Respondents who spend more than 50% of their lead generation budget on inbound marketing channels report a significantly lower cost per sales lead than those who spend 50% or more their budgets on outbound marketing channels.
3. Inbound marketing budgets are increasing while outbound marketing budgets are decreasing. As a percentage of the overall lead generation budget, inbound marketing expanded slightly from 2009 to 2010 and outbound marketing contracted. The net effect is that the gap widened from inbound marketing having a 9% greater share of the overall marketing budget in 2009 to a 15% greater share in 2010.

An additional report highlight that I thought was interesting: Customer acquisition through blogs is directly related to frequency of posts.

The report concludes that, “Traditional outbound marketing techniques – including direct mail, print advertising and telemarketing – are becoming less effective. Buyers are not only finding ways to tune these messages out, but more importantly they now have the capability to evaluate the products and services they need on their own.

Click here for a downloadable copy of this report. There’s also a free Webinar On Demand: The 2010 State Of Inbound Marketing

Here are five things that you need to incorporate into your blog to have success:

1. A genuine passion for the topic
2. Expertise, credibility, authority
3. Honest recommendations that really work
4. Welcoming, helpful, rewarding information, given freely
5. Demonstrate value

These are the things we should incorporate into any agency new business program. A blog is a great tool that almost forces you to do these things.

A blog is a new tool for agency new business. It is possible to stop chasing business and have business chasing you.

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Our view is that this should be a chargeable service that you can provide.

First check a couple of things

1. Does the client have a PR agency?  (they may be better suited to doing the work)
2. Is there anyone on the client side team who is already an active social media user? (Could you train them up)

And so here are a few things to think about when considering your proposal and pricing

1. Social media coverage is often time intensive and so a per hour fee may make it look expensive, consider a retainer or success fee combined with per hour billing
2. Learn how to use as many ‘time saving’ applications as possible (Google alerts, Tweetdeck, TweetLater) so you can cover several client social media brand accounts simultaneously
3. Offer a strict time-limited service so staff don’t over-do the time spent on social media.  Set up alarms so they know when to stop work.
4. Transfer your skills into the client organisation as ‘training’ – you can charge more for this
5. Ensure you set the strategy for social media execution and specify this work separately and charge appropriately

Any other advice you can offer?

Other resources

Five things to ask a social media agency before working with them (FreshNetworks)

Social Media Group has a template RFP for brands looking for a social media service partner (Social Media Group)

Related articles

• Social Media RFP: Ask the Right Questions, Find the Right Partner (socialmediatoday.com)
• How PR Pros Are Using Social Media for Real Results [Mashable] (joshdilworth.com)
• Twitter for Business (slideshare.net)

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I just received an update from Mike Butcher that is a great example of the right time to use a mass mailing.

Mike is a journalist and the editor of TechCrunch Europe.  He’s a fantastically connected person and I suspect this mailing ran into the thousands.

The topics he covers are

• reason for contact
• list of current projects
• launch of two new projects
• full personal contact details
• a great meeting request service Tungle

Now, I know Elizabeth Varley who is managing director for the TechHub project  and this is a great fillip to her getting a launch boost from such a networked person as Mike.

Apart from work, the main reason I’ll consider a mass mailout is for a charity gig.  I’m working on one right now with a Leukaemia survivor who’s had a total bone marrow transplant.  This makes him a “chimera” – a person living with two people’s DNA inside him – his and the donor’s.  He is now well enough to do a charity cycle ride to fund raise for the research charity Leuka.  I’ll probably tell you more about this in another post.

When do you use all your database for a mass mailing?

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One, Forrester, has been dissected at length in public.  They decided not to let employees blog about their work except on the Forrester.com domain, partly it seems because they’ve been stung by former staffers becoming ‘famous’ online and having built a strong personal brand, then leaving to work somewhere more lucrative.

The other, is the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Here’s a personal experience of the Olympic movement and elite sport with regard to blogging.

I run Rowperfect UK, and we signed up some athletes to blog for us and got one of their blogs streamed onto the UK Guardian newspaper’s website.

The UK Rowing organisation (British Rowing) refused to allow one athlete’s work to be published alongside any advertising on the newspaper site. The Guardian were charming and re-wrote the code around his words to exclude any advertising so as not to compromise the British Rowing team’s sponsorship agreements.

Thanks to Dave Churbuck for alerting me to this story. and Newsy.com for a video pov.

What does this mean for my company?

Blogging is a way of creating opportunities for your business development.  Each company should think carefully about what blogging and other social media activity it is prepared to allow, and what is beyond the boundary.

What are your blogging guidelines?

I used to point clients to the Sun website where their guidelines were among the best…. but it’s now subsumed into Oracle.

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