Staying current with procurement purchasing and how to assess a supplier of web design can be short-circuited by reading Lance Wiggs’ excellent quick assessment of the local market.

If you’re not from his locale, still read it.

• The points he makes about Pricing for services in the Buyers Guide section is instructive.  Many agencies are still charging by the hour and it’s clear that over-charging still exists.
• Intermediation or sub-contracting is part of the process and this affects both buyers and sellers.  Transparency and honesty are the best approach here.
• The attributes of a “good client” are excellent.  Being clear about your role as the buyer is important.
• The Agency Sellers Guide has some great points.  Too many agencies rely on word of mouth promotion.
• The attributes of a “good seller” are important.  Know thyself.

And finally, the comments.  I was the first (*) but there will be many more.

Here’s my penny’s worth of commentary

Lance, great, incisive analysis as ever. Thanks for taking the time to do this work on behalf of the whole industry. I’m a newcomer to Auckland and my agency doesn’t do web design but I will comment on the two parts of your piece that are not wrong, but may mis-represent the way part of the industry is changing.

I am writing a series of blog posts called “The Creative Agency of the Future” #FutureAgency in which I’m collating examples from the business operations practices of agencies who are challenging the status quo and looking for improved ways of delivering excellent marketing services to their clients.http://creativeagencysecrets.com/category/creative-business/future-agency/
Here are two ways that leading agencies are different from the ones you researched:

1 – charging. Some agencies are moving away from time/hour charging basis and onto a fee wholly based on results, or partly based on outcomes.
2 – business development. This is my specialism. It makes me cry that marketing agencies can’t market themselves successfully. Many whine about “procurement” or “RFPs” or “pitching and coming second” but the underlying fact is that a planned approach to HOW you win new business tends to deliver MORE new business. If you don’t do it yourself, outsource. It’s the lifeblood of your agency and as you say yourself, relying on word of mouth may not be sufficient for your business survival.

Celine Rich and Julian Darley of Post Carbon Institute (Photo credit: terriem)

Golden questions are a way to uncover more information from a discussion than your prospect is aware.  See our other blog posts on the topic in the categories list on right sidebar.

Fund raising to make a movie is difficult for people new to the industry.  Here’s a question Julian is using when he works coaching other script writers and directors

Have you ever tried to raise money from your friends and connections?

Were you successful?

The answers you get, tell you the degree of commitment the person has to the project…and whether they are ballsy enough to see it through to the bitter end.

Julian gave us another example of a script writer who came to him for advice and the conversation was looking like it was wasted time….He had approached Julian despite not wanting him to direct his film.  Julian turned the conversation  - and it was only when money came up that the real conversation emerged and the real needs of the scriptwriter came to the fore.  After this point they had a constructive discussion about doing business together.

Low budget movies

Take a look at the movie below – it was made by Julian and his team.

Please write a comment and tell us how much you think it cost to produce…. We’ll reveal the true answer next week.

The subject is topical and so if you know anyone in the restaurant business please share it with them.  This is a real issue in a recession and deserves to get more notice.

If you ‘like’ it, you’ll be helping Julian and his team as they prepare to go to the Cannes Film Festival in mid-May.

Thanks for your support for our clients.  We appreciate it and so do they.

Marmite shortage "Marmageddon" by Global Culture

And so I think we’ve changed some of the ways we shop and how we socially engage while shopping and afterwards how we talk about our experiences.

Have you done these things in a shop:

• Photographed an item you like but aren’t ready to buy yet
• Compared prices in store with online websites
• Recorded price or size information on your phone rather than writing it longhand

I nearly got kicked out of a furniture store yesterday.

Wanna guess why?

He was caught red handed photographing some of the merchandise.  Not with malicious intent but with a view to comparing it to the space available in his house to fit it into.

The storm of commentary proves that this is not an isolated case.  I’ve done exactly the same thing – photographed price tags or descriptions in order to get dimensions or colours or to show it to friends before deciding to buy.

Retailers – When you review your mobile marketing strategy (see our posts here and here) think hard about how you can encourage your customers to buy and share the experience all the steps along the way through photography.

P.S. have you noticed how Pinterest is full of boards about things people want to buy in the future?

Here’s some ideas of ways to get over this barrier by appealing to your existing customerbase.  They know you, they know your brand and they also know their local area:

1. The English Cut – bespoke Savile Row suits – adding a ready to wear range

English Cut Savile Row suits

I have been on Tom Mahon’s email list for years – not because I buy from him (he only clothes men) but because of his promotional methods using social media and email marketing.  In the message I got today he links to a video in which he asks his readers for two things: Recommendations of stores local to their home who might stock his ready to wear range and secondly, introductions to Tailors who might want to make the suits.

The one mistake he made was not specifying ONE SINGLE PLACE for the replies – it came from a noreply email address and the video is both on his site and youtube – so he’ll have to collate answers from a range of sources.  I would have chosen to set up an unique email address for replies and mentioned it in the video – printed it on screen.

2. Global Culture wants to expand its retail stockists

The other is an iconic kiwi t-shirt brand who is keen to get new outlets in three cities in New Zealand.  Using a trade magazine, we helped them write a short article about the company and its recent growth which included the appeal for new locations.

Global Culture has its target audience in towns where there is a mix of both tourist visitors and locals and so is well-represented in New Zealand towns like Queenstown and Christchurch.  It is trying to get introductions to retailers in Gisborne, Napier, Wellington, Tauranga and around the Hawkes Bay region who might be willing to stock their range.

Idealog is the business magazine and website that features innovative businesses and new products or services and so getting the article about Global Culture published there and also included in their daily email news roundup to a recipient list of 5,000 business people was a good start to opening dialogues.

Any of you know of businesses who’ve succeeded in getting expansion plans promoted by customers?

Brian Carroll wrote a super blog post about this subject and came out with solid suggestions about how to get executive support for your proposal or project.

Working with larger organisations means that budgetary control is not always within the grasp of the person wo you’re speaking with.

Brian made these suggestions:

1. Identify executive priorities [align your pitch to their priorities]
2. Analyse your sales organisation [how much time do they spend prospecting vs closing]
3. Show what others have done [sell using case studies]
4. Huddle with your sales team [check you're on the same page on what works/doesn't work]
5. Develop a pilot

All great advice – read the full article here for the detail and the links Brian suggests.

But how to up-sell your proposal to the Marketing Director?

Last month we had three situations where Creative Agency Secrets was approached by a member of staff who didn’t have sufficient authority to buy our services – but they wanted to work with us.

Take a read of these three mini-case studies on how to upsell your proposal to your contact’s boss.

1. We wrote to the CEO stating the issue and a solution – he forwarded it to the young man who’d originally approached us with a note to investigate our ‘offer’…. Nice way to let the CEO think he had the idea first.
2. We took a detailed brief from the junior and agreed not to write a proposal, but to email him a critique of the company website and sales process – he then took that to the CEO for discussion with a view to getting a con call for us with the CEO.
3. We analysed the issue; suggested a small pilot.   This fitted the budget for which the executive already had sign-off but was below our normal charge out rate.  We worked to adapt the campaign to work on a parallel platform and to an audience we controlled [our blog newsletter list] thus giving the exec a case study pilot with measurable results which he could use to prove the case to his bosses.  This also enabled us to demonstrate our skill and set up the campaign to deliver the ROI needed.

Related articles

• Find New Customers Helps Businesses Keep SCORE to Improve Demand Generation(fearlesscompetitor.com)

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• Aha! Marketing Leaders Reveal Their Most Powerful Marketing Insights from 2011 (customerthink.com)

These are helpful for clients because they teach a little lesson as well as being visually attractive.

Today we found the Viral Marketing Cheat Sheet

++ Click Image to Enlarge ++

Source: The Viral Marketing Cheat Sheet Infographic

If you have a newsletter or an online sign-up, you know the usefulness of an auto-responder.  Once it’s set up, it takes over and you get to sit back, relax, and have a drink while your auto-responder does all the talking.

But in order to get to that point, you have to write the copy and set it up.  Check out our how-to guide for Auto Responders.

The autoresponder marketing analysis breakdown

First off, know what you are marketing, who your auto-responder audience is, and how long it will go for.  Also, identify the main goal of the auto-responder: “to guide customers through our technology”, “to thank a customer for choosing our product”, “to sell a customer on our product during their free trial”.

Once you’ve established the background information and know the goal that you are hoping to achieve, it is time to write the copy for each message.

Remember that the purpose of an auto-responder is to lead a consumer through to a goal.  It is a guide. The content in each step should be supportive and relevant.

Although each post will differ, it is wise to have a consistent format for each.  This can be as simple as intro, info, and customer support details on each message.

Let’s take a look at a breakdown of an example series of messages.

1. Welcome

The first auto responder message should be dedicated to welcoming and thanking the customer for signing up for your service.

2. Road Map

One auto-responder format is to “tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them”.  In that case, the second message should let consumers know exactly what to expect from the series.  Some guiding questions to consider are how long duration the responder will be, what you will disclose in each message, how to contact customer support, etc.

Then…

3. Let the Show Begin

Whereas the other messages gave an overview and instructions, the third message in your auto-responder series should give out the information itself.

This is the meat of the auto-responder.  The length of this middle, informative section depends on the details and purpose of your series.  Just remember, that when it comes to an auto-responder, it’s best to keep each message as one-pointed as possible.

4. Goodbyes

With your information given, it’s now time to say your goodbyes.  It’s nothing fatal, but it is your last chance to summarize your teachings, promote your product, and say adieu to your customer audience.

Make it count.  The last message is usually the one that will stick the most, so show your appreciation for their choice and encourage them to continue on with your product.

One nice feature we found in Feedblitz who we use to deliver client auto-responders is the ability to use the end of an auto responder sequence to trigger the start of something else (a coupon discount; a subscription to a mailing list).  That saves you having to re-engage with the customer in future.  Hopefully they like what you’ve been saying and are happy to remain in touch.

Your turn

Sounds easy enough, right?  And just think, by taking the time to write what we’re sure will be a superb auto-responder, you have saved yourself from having to respond one-by-one to each of your eager customers.  And saved time, means saved money.

Read more about how to Create Opportunities in our biz dev methodology category 6 – Creating Opportunities

Getting to “the close” for new business and a signature on the contract requires a clear purchase decision from a brand decision maker.  If you are pitching to a brand – prepare for these questions that they should be asking you.

When you get invited to pitch there are 2 reasons you are in the room

1. Your track record indicates you should be good enough to do the job
2. Your future WILL deliver an excellent job

Chief Marketing Officer pitch questions to agency

So how can you tell what the future of this agency will be?  the same old, same old competent delivery of past campaigns or new and exciting incremental creativity that will accelerate your brand in front of consumers?

First question: Vision

What do you, the agency, think is the future of marketing/advertising?

You want to know whether they are aware of new technologies, brands moving to new social platforms and integrating mobile solutions into their campaigns.

Second question: New Hires

Tell us about the new team members who have joined this past year.

What are the characteristics of these people and why did they join the team?  Are they crazy future-ologists, or competent deliverers.  Will they bring new expertise to the team (see answer to question 1 above) and can you see your brand leveraging their knowledge to advantage?

Third question: Team Structure

What is your creative team structure and composition?

Listen hard to how many ‘traditional’ job titles are described.  Find out about the digital specialists – are they in a separate group who get brought in to assist or are they part of the core delivery group.  What about outsourcing production and expert tool creation – how honest is the agency about areas in which they are not expert and are buying in talent.

Fourth question: Modern Marketing Communications

Tell us about recent campaigns that were not advertising-led

How many message delivery tools have they used that were not print or TV advertising, direct mail/email or public relations.  Look for innovation and incorporation of ‘gamification’, apps, integration with social media (leading edge at the time of writing is Pinterest, G+), brand collaborations and joint ventures.

Fifth question: The Delivery Team

Who will be working on our account and why?

The individual attributes of the core account team matter.  This will help you get round the agency that pitches with one team and delivers with another.  Why does the agency pick each individual and what are their skills – you’ve got to work with these people.  Go and check them all out on Linked In and Facebook.

The Agency’s reply 6 questions

We found this post from W+K London in which they tried to give the reciprocal questions the agency should ask the client.

1. Who are the decision makers on the pitch and on the agency’s work?
2. What are your criteria for judging the success of your agency’s work?
3. Is your inclination to aim high and do something extraordinary, or to settle for the ordinary and avoid the risk of failure?
4. What made you consider us for this pitch?
5. How many agencies are pitching and who are they?
6. Will you pay a pitch fee?

Go forth and pitch.  But be careful!

Thanks to Edward Boches for the original inspiration for this article

Read more articles on 3 New Business Pipeline and 6 Creating Opportunities from our archive.

If you run something like this, it’s very sharable online.  Guy Kawasaki regularly picks up on infographics, there are pinterest boards just for infographics.

Creating Opportunities category has lots of suggestions about how to find new business prospects and opportunities to profile your brand, product or service to potential customers.

Favourite Creating Opportunities posts from the archive

1. Email marketing – turning emails into leads
2. List Building – the prizes and pitfalls of personalisation
3. Content marketing for sporting brands
4. Copy this new biz campaign for your marketing agency

Business development tricks of the trade:

Have you ever tried disguising new business prospecting as ‘market research’?

Finding new customers to discuss your business products and services with is difficult for many people.  Many people have a natural fear of the unknown and ‘cold calling’ strikes a death-knell in many people’s darkest fears.

Let Creative Agency Secrets show you some of the insiders tricks of the trade –

and learn to find an easy way to discuss new business without the fear and pain.

We all need Market Research

Market research is a valid business activity – without it you cannot know what the market and pricing is for your services and products.   What few people realise is that many prospective customers are happy to give their advice and opinion to you, free of charge in the name of market research.  They are frequently motivated by the hope that if your situations were reversed, you would assist them.

Asking questions about how other people view your products is very easy to do.

Email introduction for market research survey

Imagine this – an email asking for 15 minute meeting to get an opinion about a new service offering.

Dear Rebecca, we’re planning a new email list de-duplicaiton service for launch in the autumn,  As a previous customer of XYZ co, we’d value your opinion on the features and pricing of this service.  

Could you spare us 15 minutes on a conference call to give us your views?If you have time next week, I’ll send over a short briefing note explaining our plans. 

Best wishes

Could you send something like that out?  Individually and personally addressed?  You could send it using Linked In using their mass-mail feature?  Maybe add in a ‘poll’ if you want a voting response (though this is less personal).

Case study – market research for affiliate consulting services

One of our coaching clients has plans for a new environmental consultancy around carbon credits. The two partners in the business have found a service they want to sell and asked our advice about pricing.

We recommended contacting prospective customers and seeking meetings or phone conversations with them to do market research into their appetitie for this service.

Not only does this approach allow a direct conversation with a possible decision-maker; it allows you time to explain exactly what your product/service does and how the customer might benefit. They listen carefully because it’s a ‘market research’ dialogue not a sales pitch.

Nice, eh?

Additional thoughts

Our client is a busy lady who works in 2 businesses – building up the new one while running the existing one. We discussed how she prioritise her time. Our conclusion was that if she could specify the 3 questions needing answers from the market research, her business partner could do the calls and visits. In this way she can ‘direct’ the work but spend her time on the other, income-generating business while still progressing developments on the new venture.

See other articles about Pipeline development and Opportunity creation by searching the categories on the right.