Creativity in business is a good thing.

The idea is brought home to us every day: creativity will benefit our careers and personal goals. We all have to think outside that box. Those of us who are not ˜creative by trade, whether visually or in the written word, will all see and recognise this, wherever we personally think we may be on the creative spectrum.

So, why is it that within the creative agency world, there is little similar reflection about deploying business techniques and processes?

Of course, agencies grow from small seeds and acorns into flourishing shrubs or trees, not by sheer creativity alone. We all know that tending to our own internal business needs is important “ that stimulating and measuring effectiveness within any organisation, especially within the service industry, requires this.

But why is it that, in 2012, so many smaller concerns, which predominate in the creative industry landscape, which want and need to grow, are not employing the proper business sales techniques in order to do so?

Note, no use of the term ˜business development’ a sanitised phrase for the agency world.  In fact, this I believe is the root cause of the problem (as well as a serious lack of sales skills).

For if you truly believe that your agency will standout purely on the face of your work alone, you are mistaken. And ˜business development and ˜new business?  They wont get you there without you fundamentally embracing what ˜sales means first.

Lets face it, sales,is still a dirty word

To admit that, in life, we are all selling something to someone else is hard. But we do sell, each of us, in every communication we make. Whether the stakes be conveying a particular point in a meeting to gain a desired response or negotiating your next trip away with your loved ones, we are each selling.

Selling is about need and fulfilment.

Selling and buying are fundamental to gaining food, a roof over our heads and warmth in the home.

The stereotype of a sales person is a used car salesman, or a double glazing cold caller. The negative associations of these images still exist within the agency environment. Often large agencies will employ a ˜business development and marketing team but wont understand how to measure effectiveness or set realistic targets in the first place. All too often this is because the process is little understood and is simplified into sending out mass mailshots and slamming out phone calls, which is a fundamental mistake.

The whole dirty sales process is misunderstood, seen as necessity, somewhat sordid, beneath the agencys shiny creative output.

The effects of denying selling for an agency

Sadly, what this does is remove the knowledge-gathering, in the form of empowering the whole business with sales techniques, and just engenders an ˜us and them feeling within an agency: ˜me creative, me accounts person, you sales monkey.

Until the murky mystery of ˜how to sell is unravelled and embraced within a business, that business is not going to effectively sell itself. In fact, most creative concerns can benefit from as many client-facing roles being fully versed in sales techniques as possible.

Key truths about selling

Here are some skills to acquire and engender throughout the business:

1. Selling is about building trust. So it is not a one-off push for a meeting, it is about relationship building. To sell, you pull, you dont push. You build up a dialogue to get into the privileged position of listening, then diagnosing the problem and then suggesting a solution.
2. Research, planning and preparation are key to developing a true sales pipeline because whilst you are selling services not widgets, understanding your marketplace rather than selling your own talents will provide more new quick wins.
3. Selling is intrinsically connected to marketing and the two teams should be as versed in PR and creating marketing tools as they are using those tools across all new and traditional platforms.

So, what does this all mean for your agency?

Most important of all:

Showing off your work is not enough.

Whether a stunning show-reel, something funky on Facebook or worthy on LinkedIn or beautiful in print, or with gravitas in a brochure¦ it is not enough.

You need to join it up.

Its the SO WHAT? factor. It ultimately comes down to effectively understanding that your offer is brimming with ˜features but your clients will buy benefits.

To discover the benefits your clients truly want, you need to apply the above methodology “ research, listening and planning, in order to sell. With your head held high, you will have uncovered the benefits that your clients truly need, indeed desire.

To learn more about making the above a reality within your business, contact The Hand, we offer bespoke business development services and training workshops for sales and account management teams.

This is a Guest Post from The Hand – a tailor made business development and marketing service.

Related articles

• Improper sales techniques (practicebetterbusiness.wordpress.com)
• Top B2B Franchise Shares Best Techniques for Turning Cold Calling into Warm Calling (prweb.com)

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Image by antitezo via Flickr

Is it possible that a creative agency can build a pipeline of new business without having to respond to RFPs as a means of finding new leads?

Two articles in my RSS feed today struck me today as being relevant to this topic
The first is a slide deck from the excellent Courtney Pemberton and Tom Ross

Where the presenters contrast Schipul - a 37 person web development firm who do low-budget websites and lots of them; with Four Kitchens a 12 man operation whose average web development budget is $250,000.  Which firm would you rather do new business development for?  I know my response!

And the second is a USA Today expert opinion from Steve Strauss. He details the hideously comic-if-it-wasn’t-so-awful conference call with a web development team who fail to deliver even a basic understanding of their prospective client’s business.  I am sure it happened just as he recounts

•They internally scheduled the wrong time for the call (we are on the west coast, they were on the east coast).

•Once the call started, 15 minutes late, two of the folks on their end couldn’t find the website we had asked them to review with us on the call.

•The boss was not on the call at the start and they scrambled to find him.

Finally, 10 minutes into a call that was already starting 15 minutes late, the boss jumped on the line. He didn’t really know the purpose of the call, or who I was, or what we were doing, and so asked “So just what is it you do again?”

Are you disorganised in your new business process?

Making new business happen is one of the 7 steps in our new biz dev process.  Internal team management in advance of and during briefing calls is a ‘hygiene’ factor.  It is necessary as the underpinning to a solid new business pipeline.

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Reading John McTigue’s lovely rant about How to shop for inbound marketing services made us smile.  He is a client side marketer.  He says all the catch phrases we spout “partnership” and “lasting relationship”.  But read carefully and agencies cna learn how best to present themselves to a new client.
He writes

The companies and people who seek our services are woefully unprepared for the relationship building, which starts at the first conversation.

Think back to your most recent meeting with a new prospect.  What do you ‘normally’ do at that event to start building a relationship?

John’s advice is “Listen to your partner.”

Back in the day, every marketing manager loved using an RFP or a competitive pitch as a way of gathering free ideas that they could implement themselves – sometimes without hiring the agency.  But it’s different now.
If you’re serious about winning new business through RFPs you, as the agency, must also learn to listen for the real briefing.

Hearing what the client is saying

John continues in the blog, writing

“They should be telling you roughly what it will take in manpower, time and resources to achieve your objective. They should be able to tell you a range of monthly expenses you will need to get there and what the process will look like”

What this means is you, the agency, knowing exactly what it will take to get the client to the marketing successes he craves – be honest.  Tell them the real cost – and do it before you ask about budgets.

Do you?

My check list for first meetings

1. I need to know how experienced a buyer the new prospect is – I want to know whether s/he really knows what marketing communications can do and can deliver or if it’s just a ‘catch-phrase’ with little real understanding behind.
2. How well does the client know what s’/he wants?  Can they articulate real business goals and what do they know about the different inbound marketing techniques that will achieve the goals?
3. Do they have a realistic idea about the time, effort and costs it will take to achieve those goals?

So, next time you go off for a first meeting – take a little check-list with you and evaluate your own performance!

Good luck

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We know as well as the next guy that to say there is a lot on the web on maximizing keywords within web pages is an understatement.  We do a lot of reading and a lot of testing and have sorted the rubbish from the useful tips for our own resources.  And we’re going to share the secrets with you.  Here is our keywords list that we use for our own company, along with free tools, so you can check and perfect your work.

How to use Keywords in text

Follow this list but don’t overdo it!  The sophistication in google’s crawlers mark a fine line between good content and spam.  Overusing keywords will put you into the latter category.

1. Primary keywords should be in text 3-6 times (depending on page length)
2. Keywords should be in bold or italics where possible – (be sensitive to this one)
3. Keywords should be reiterated in SEO tags
4. Keywords should be used in the headline (find a balance between a snappy journalistic headline and something utterly searchable)
5. Keywords should be used in page title
6. Keywords should be used as sub headings in H2 format where possible

The key is in readability, you need to make sure that your page reads as a printed page would, meaning don’t get too carried away with any of the above steps when it comes to page content.  There needs to be an effortless flow between page content and keywords, and using bold/italics/H2 should be thought of as journalistic punctuation for key points over keyword highlighting.

Tools

SEO book has fantastic free tools for checking and perfecting your keyword work.  Visit the site and download the SEO toolbar.  They walk you through how to use it with a short video tutorial. We’ve found the X-ray function to be exceptionally useful- you can visit any web page and get a list of keywords that google is picking up.  From there you can alter your page text or SEO tags to pick up the correct keywords.  Just change the keywords in your page and keep clicking the X-ray feature until you find the correct combination.  Simple as that.

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We posted a small freelance job online recently and I spent a couple of hours reviewing the submissions.  The job was too small for lead scoring and sophisticated analysis.  I used three criteria

• price
• location (time zone to align with our client)
• did they answer the RFP questions

Easy.

How did I choose you?

So the sifting begins… and the first thing that went out the window was anyone who couldn’t or didn’t answer the RFP questions.

For a simple job, not offering all the information requested in the RFP meant immediate exclusion.  Reason: it’s not a multi-thousand dollar contract – why do you need to speak to me?

Price was the second criteria for exclusion – our client had  a budget and we needed to stick to it.  Reason: We decided to keep a margin above the quoted price so that if needed, there was slack in the quote to put right errors or get a second or third draft design within an acceptable price.

Location was the third reason – timezones and availability during our working day matter to us.  Reason: If we can never speak to you because of the timezone, it’s a no-go for working successfully together.

Lastly, the message in the covering letter counts.  In fact, it is probably more important than you think.  When two or more providers are very similar on all other assessments, this is the ONLY thing that serves to differentiate your offering.

Show me your personality

What can a covering letter show or demonstrate that engages…. take these extracts.  Which turns you on?

I’m sure it’s a bit surprising to get a simple letter, instead of a portfolio — but as I’m currently employed, I had set aside freelancing. Your project, however, has inspired me to reconsider.

and this one

After reading your posting for the need of someone with great English speaking and writing skills to 1) design a template from scratch using the client’s logo style and branding and 2) add new content to the existing HTML template on a monthly basis, I feel confident that I am the person for the job.

and another

Our Concern is currently located in Tamil Nadu in India; we are interested in applying for this project. We have deep Knowledge (More than 7 years of IT experience)in web design.

finally

I’ve created numerous email-templates in the past, my 2 favorite clients were 412media.com and bakertravel.com. I thoroughly understand the limitations email-delivery impose on design.

So check out your prose and take our advice:

• Make yours stand out
• Show off the “special ness” of your firm
• Add ‘personality’ by being personable, friendly and telling me something unique

Go knock their socks off.

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Nick Burcher is a super star… but I didn’t know that when I first met him.  We had coffee together and he gave me very early advice on setting up this blog and since then I’ve followed his work.

Nick’s latest views are about the integration of advertising, marketing and social media in the context of the internet being the central plank of a brand’s marketing, recommendations and opinion-formation with audiences.

This is a really important part of comprehending how the “Old” marketing techniques are migrating to the “New”.  For example, do you know how to change your communication methods so that your “old” customers are not alienated by the “New” tools and so that the “New” tools can sit comfortably alongside “Old” styles?

Nick Burcher's Paid:Owned:Earned

Take a look at the image here.  This is Nick’s thesis.

There are websites whose purpose is based on payment (brands pay to advertise on them); there are others where brands own the information up there (mainly content-led) and lastly there are others where brands have earned the right to be listed.

Note that some sites (Facebook, Twitter) are listed in all three categories…. this is a really important part of the paradigm.

Your Brand needs to have communication strategies that work in all three contexts, and uses the feedback arrows at the top and bottom as well as in the ones middle of the diagram.

Here is the strategy we use for a client, Rowperfect.  They sell rowing sports equipment.

Paid: Google adwords and other sports sites who carry banner adverts.

Owned: Blog content, You Tube videos, forum discussions, Twitter feed, Facebook page.

Earned: followers on FB, Twitter, YouTube and others linking back to the Owned

I was delighted to watch this video where Nick sets out the lessons behind the simple headline “Paid-Owned-Earned”.

Does this have resonance for your brand strategy?  Where do you think there may be issues or conflicts with traditional brand-led marketing?

New Trends in Digital Advertising [exclusive video] from Hayko on Vimeo.

Related articles

• Paid Owned Earned – how it works [image and video] (nickburcher.com)
• Paid Owned Earned: Paid Owned Earned on Star Wars Day – VW The Force and Blackberry (huguesrey.wordpress.com)
• Advertising’s Future Is 3 Simple Words: Paid. Owned. Earned. | Story Worldwide (huguesrey.wordpress.com)
• Separate content from platforms (beingpeterkim.com)

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So you’ve written an e-book and are wondering why people haven’t tracked you down, overloaded your inbox with emails and the news of your book hasn’t spread the online world like wildfire.  Well, the internet is a vast place, and you’ve got to make it easy to be found.  We recently did the marketing for our client, Norman Evans, who created a great e-book titled ‘Becoming an Entrepreneur’.   Below we share the secrets of marketing that we use for our own clients.

1. Become a force to be reckoned with.  AKA, get found.  Hopefully, you have a website and you can add a blog section to it.  If not, start a blog to develop a reader-base.  Start writing about your area of expertise, and get the word out that you know what you’re talking about.  The power of the internet lies in getting found.  If you create a reader-base first, your e-book is going to sell much better.  It’s all based on generating high quality content on your website, and helping people find you.  You can also start a newsletter to keep track of any followers.   Give them an incentive to join, by offering them special tips over time, or discounts on your products.
2. Get in on the conversation.  During your morning coffee, make it a habit to do a daily search on relevant content being published on other’s blogs.  Read what other people have to say and contribute to the conversation.  If you have something good to offer people will start searching for your name, and your own blog will come up.  This is not blatant marketing, mind you.  Don’t scrawl your blog site all over everyone else’s blogs in flashing letters—nobody likes that.  Simply contribute to other people’s conversations in the areas of your expertise, and traffic will come to you.
3. Tweet about it.  Number 2 flows right into number 3 here.  You already know who has good blogs out there and you’ve joined in on the conversations, now, share the gold!  Tweet about those great blogs you’ve found and show that you know what great content is, even if it isn’t your own.  The authors of these blogs will see that you’re linking to them, and then take a look at your blog.  If they see you know your stuff, they’ll link back to you too.  Do the same with Facebook, LinkedIn and any other relevant social media sites.
4. Listing the book. Selling your book through a variety of websites is key.  It’s this simple: the more hooks in the water, the easier it is to catch a fish.  Using sites such as Amazon, Fishpond and Barnes and Noble will open you up to a bigger audience.  It will also create links to a highly ranked website.  In addition you can sell directly from your own website (now that you have one!).
5. A discount for the loyal followers. By this time you have established a following that you are hopefully able to track, perhaps you have Facebook fans, Twitter followers, newsletter subscribers, etc.   Just before your book is released offer your loyal followers a limited time ‘buy early’ discount, to get the ball rolling on sales.  This also encourages more people to become your fan, or subscribe to your newsletter, etc.  They get special offers from it, and honestly, who doesn’t love a discount.

Remember, like most things, persistence pays off… it may take weeks or months to get the audience and the traction that your book deserves, but keep going and little-and-often will definitely get you noticed.

We have 5 free E-books by Norman Evans to give away. Please contact us if you would like to be one of the lucky recipients!  This is actually true, so hurry and send us your details and see if you get to read ‘Becoming an Entrepreneur’ for free!

Now, get out there and market your e-book and let us know how it goes!

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Image via Wikipedia

There was a once a time when global brands selected their marketing and advertising departments on their creative ability and trained them in the philosophy of business.  The most successful staff members were the ones with the most unique ideas which would push their brand to success.

This last sentence is still true these days, with one exception, the internet has allowed for the most successful and unique ideas to come from anybody around the world.  No longer must you work as a ‘staff member’ for a company or brand to have your creative ideas fulfilled, nowadays it’s as easy as entering an online competition or registering on a website.

Sharing brand ideas

Take video sharing specialist, Tongal, for example.  This website gained global attention last year when it entered in a US based initiative programme where “emerging” companies were asked to submit entries detailing their unique tools and services. This programme secured over 400 entries, and one of the winners was Tongal, who are now participating in a project for Brisk Tea.

The irony of this is that Tongal, itself, is a competition based website which allows anyone around the globe to enter their skills in creative thinking, filming, pitching and testing products.

Do brands need creatives?

It would seem that to work in the marketing department for a global brand in this day and age, you don’t need a creative bone in your body; you just need to know how to run a competition and recognise a great idea when you see one.

PepsiCo, the food and beverage giant, recently launched a competition very similar to the one in the US which found Tongal. The project, called PepsiCo10, asks “emerging” companies to submit entries detailing their unique tools and services by mid-July 2011. The primary fields of interest include social networks, mobile marketing, location-based properties, digital video, gaming and “learning” platforms.

“PepsiCo10 will bring value to our business by ensuring that we are at the cutting edge of whatever digital and social media technology is out there,” Peter Charles, a PepsiCo marketing manager, said.

This movement to ‘hunt’ the globe for great creative ideas is gaining more and more popularity, and so it should. Essentially, everyone wins, the brand gets the creative ideas they want for a reasonable price (PepsiCo is offering £10,000 to the winner), the winners or top entries get recognition, make contacts and gain experience in how to pitch winning ideas and the public get to see the most cutting edge, unique and creative advertising and marketing campaigns from sources which otherwise, would probably have never surfaced.

Other brand contest sites

A leading agency in this ‘buy an idea’ movement is idea bounty, a website that that allows clients to ask the world for creative ideas in exchange for a reward, or Bounty. The clients review the submissions and select the best Idea as the Bounty winner. Clients can only use Ideas that they’ve paid a Bounty.

And what about Swagapalooza - turning it round this is new products pitching bloggers with large followings.  A product in search of an audience…. creative?  Innovative?  Worthwhile?

What does the marketer of the future DO?

Are we heading towards a future where a marketing departments primary job will be to select winners of competitions for creative ideas?  As bad as that sounds for all you marketers out there, I think the answer is probably even worse.  Why even have a marketing department for that task when people can submit their entries online and have the public vote for the creative idea they want to see actioned the most.

Be warned – The End is Nigh!

11 Crowdsourcing websites:

1. 99 Designs – graphic design
2. IdeaStorm - ideas
3. CrowdSpring – Graphic design
   
4. CrowdWorks – more for corporates
5. Brandstack – logos
6. InnoCentive – problem solving for businesses
7. Spudaroo – specialist for copy writing
8. AdHack – advertising experts who’ll write your next ad for you
9. Brainrack – a brainstorming site
10. NamingForce – to name your product
11. Clipik – video editing

Related articles

• Is spec work evil? (creativeagencysecrets.com)
  
• PepsiCo and Highland team up in hunt for ten new social media hits (telegraph.co.uk)
• 10 ways of crowdsourcing your needs or talent (the10most.com)
• Evil Genuis Finds Case Study in her Pepsi (inc.com)
• Mashable Teams With PepsiCo To Find Europe’s Most Promising Startups (mashable.com)

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Pretty websites count for squat online – you need inbound leads and new business prospects for your sales team.   Read this letter we recently sent declining a new business opportunity.

Thanks for giving us the opportunity to bid for your website redesign.

I am sure the guys in the Philippines are really cost-effective and their design samples look clean and although a bit tame, they are easy-to read.

We could take up your offer to re-code your site into a new design – but we couldn’t compete on their prices.

Fundamentally there isn’t much wrong with your existing website design – it has clear content, nicely written copy and sets out your value proposition.

BUT – having said all that.  We know we can add real value to your business website.  Here’s how.

Adding value to your website

We’d like to turn your business website into a new business engine.  A business tool that generates leads and grows awareness of your brand in both your local market and global online marketplaces.

You don’t need to change the design (you can if you want to…. do you need new pictures?… or do you need new business prospects?)

Our free advice to you

What we would advise you to do is this:

• Leave your current site design layout
  
• Make your site ‘findable’ on the web – strong copy, strong key words for search-ability and a compelling call to action for first time visitors
• Improve your SEO
• Add a blog / news page for frequent articles demonstrating your expertise
• Grow an email news list of prospective clients, partners and collaborators
• Install reverse-IP mapping software for in-bound visitor discovery
• Applied together, consistently over a 6 month period, these tools will grow in-bound visitors who become leads for your business

Proof – what we say works:

Our business website isn’t “beautiful” but it is functional.  It is designed to attract readers who want new business development services, advice and are prepared to pay Creative Agency Secrets for it.  That’s what we do.

What “really counts” online these days is a mix of content, key words, dialogue and expert advice.  There’s a clever company called Hubspot who offer a free website grader tool that appraises any site for these criteria.  I took the liberty of running your website through their assessment.  You score 22/100.

Compare it to the report on the Creative Agency Secrets website grader – we score 97/100.  

What matters today is FIND-ABILITY online.  A nice design is nice to have…. but it isn’t an essential when you are looking to grow your business.

And so, I will decline your offer to re-code the website design for you.  But if you are serious about new business development, we’d love to work with you on the basis of the services outlined above.

Thanks again for the opportunity.

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