Creative Agency Secrets

The offer. 

What a bundle of aspiration-clashed-with-reality is contained in that one phrase. But making a clear and attractive offer is even more important now that you have less time and more to achieve.

As before, I'm using my own recent work as an example for this post.  When I approach a new organisation, I have a pretty standard introductory email that includes information how I found out about the agency, stuff about me, what I do, my blog, and it didn't really say anything about anything other than to assume that the reader would have a look at hte blog and maybe sign up to read it or possibly forward the link to a colleague in biz dev. 

Far too vague and imprecise.

And so here are two new variants I've introduced.

1.  Change the subject line

This used to be "Rebecca Caroe" - and it worked OK because I have an unusual name and it wasn't clear from the subject what the email was about, I got quote a good open rate. 

But it now needs improvement. This is what I now write.

Subject: Interview Request [varied to Interview Request for Named Person when sent to info@ type email addresses].

That makes an improved impact (and about 250% hike in response rates).  Because most agencies want free PR and many seem not to mind it being in a blog ratther than a printed paper. 

Initial responses are good - replies say "I'll check your website and get back to you" and "Call me Friday".

2.  Call to action. 

This used to read "And if you want a chat about your agency – give me a call."

Vague and fluffy.  No clear reason to call.

Now revised to "And if you want a chat about your agency in an interview –
suggest a time for me to call."

There's a bit of psychology in this.  Because I am short of time and I want respondents who WANT to speak to me, I ask them to do some of the running.  They have to suggest a time to me that suits them.  This is important in the balance of interest between me and the prospect.  We begin to meet on a neutral territory.  i want something from them and they also want something from me.  

This balance of interest is subtle and often overlooked.  A push salesman will get meetings because the prospect just wants to get them off the phone.  But the value is lower than my phone or face to face interview.

STATUS UPDATE: In my pipeline now I have 

13 at Prospecting Stage (Including 3 new ones)

3 leads at Qualification Stage [two postponed to Jan 09]

2 lead at Needs Analysis Stage 

2 leads at Proposal Stage (both new)

1 signed contract (facilitating an awayday)

1 Lost to a competitor (poor research on my part, didn't realise I wasn't the only game in town).

1 new client started work this week with Naked Eye Research

Mark Ritson writing in Marketing Magazine (3 September 08) showcased the tie-up between Penguin Books and Match.com in a co-branding deal.

Coincidently this week I am working on a client who has a paid-for newsletter for a niche audience.  They approached me asking for ways to increase subscription and advertising revenues.

My answer, in part, includes co-branding.

And so the challenge for you is to find out whether this is an appropriate tool for business development for your company.

Situations where collaborative marketing and co-branding may be appropriate include:

• you have a good database of customers in a clear market niche or particular geography or demographic profile  
• there is little cross-over between the current customer base of either brand
• each brand can benefit from the positioning and reputation of the other
• profits from the resultant new business can be shared while both improve brand equity

Ritson suggests that if your brand fulfils these criteria, the subsequent co-branding is newsworthy and so may additionally gain you free PR and press coverage.

In the case of my client, a paid-for newsletter will hopefully benefit from an association with a free online discussion forum: those who are used to gossiping for free can read some well-reported news, which in turn will fuel the discussion forum and draw in more participants.

And so when considering your business write two short lists

• who are my customers?
• what is my brand positioning?

Then read your industry magazines and online news sources and list brands who you think might make good partners for co-branding associations with you.
Consider first who their customers are and what their brand positioning is and see if you can make a cogent argument for a tie-up between you.  Remember that if you initiate the discussions, it's up to you to set out the reasons in the most persuasive way possible.

Remember, the deal has to work well for both parties, a stronger / weaker party deal will probably fall down; similarly one where one brand is more likely to profit than the other probably won't work in the long term unless the terms of profit sharing reflect that imbalance.
 

Just had a good chat with Andrew about hiring new biz people. 

The gist was that most businesses get to a size when the MD can no longer do all the biz dev work alone.  What do you do next?

Options include:

1. train up a graduate
2. hire an experienced person with 3/4 years in the industry

My views were nicely aligned with his.  I said Oxbridge-type grads are good hires because they are bright, keen and want to rule the world quickly.  If you train them up for marketing jobs - but
for sales get a seasoned professional from another industry.  I don't think you have a cat's chance of training a grad to being a good salesperson quickly.

 There is another option that I neglected to add:

1. Train your whole client facing team in biz dev so they all go out looking for opportunities [plug - I can help with this] 

I recommended prosperconsulting.com Simon Ibson if you want to hire a sales person - key to his offer is that he doesn't charge % fees based on salary, its a flat fee PLUS he'll advise on how to use the person properly to support your business aims.

If you want to hire grads from top universities - go direct to their careers office. Usually they'll advertise your position free of charge.  That was how I found Frank Krikhaar for Pembridge.  Wonderful guy. 

 He grilled me quite solidly about my own biz dev methods… not sure whether I was teaching him to suck eggs or if there was a gem or two among the verbal downpour!

Which social media tools are appropriate (and easy) for newcomers?

I had a very interesting session working remotely (backstory on remote consulting) with Prosper Consulting and Simon Ibson, the MD.

He is quite new to social media as a business development tool and we discussed the places that I use to promote my blog as a means to help him navigate and research the possible places he could do the same with the new website which isn't quite ready… (Story of my life!)And so I started with the places that my professional profile is listed:
Facebook
Plaxo Pulse
Linked In
FriendFeed/RebeccaCaroe
Twitter

Facebook occupies a curious cross-border place in my toolkit because I principally use it for friends and family but there are some great groups I belong to hosted there which are clearly work not play.  I favour the groups "London Girl Geek Dinners ", "BIMA British Interactive Media Association " and "What I saw at the Direct Marketing Revolution " as really active with new items posted regularly which really interest me.
Plaxo is a surrogate Friendfeed but has more professional contacts in there.  I use Friendfeed to funnel stuff into my Alert Thingy stream which is a great way of posting to Twitter and it has a tinyurl plugin that really works!

And then there are aggregator sites where I can set up the RSS feed from this blog to send stuff over automatically.  This is a fabulous service, if (and only if) the site has got itself a good audience and is well-managed.
UTalkMarketing
Marcom Professional
Marketing Services Talk

Ragan

Of these, MArcom Professional set up by Philip Sheldrake is my favourite.  It has a better range of comment and is less 'managed'.  I used to check in to Ragan a lot but it's very US oriented and mainly aimed at PR folk, which I'm not.  Plus, I loathe the weekly email from Utalk but haven't managed to unsubscribe from it.  Maybe I dream that one day they'll pick up one of my posts to print…

And so how should you work out the places that your profile (corporate or personal) should be online?

My suggestion is to start with Linked In because you really can't go wrong there.  Take a look around the people you know on there and start an active campaign to connect to the ones you know.  If you have the energy, also ask for recommendations for those you've worked for.

In order to find sites that may be helpful for you try this checklist

1. Go to Technorati.com and use a key word search that describes what your company does
2. Read the blogs it lists and sign up to read a few that seem a) prolific b) have good, informed commentary c) post regularly d) score highly on the Technorati Authority score
3. Search Google or Yahoo for the same key word + 'blog' or 'news' (that'll filter out your competitors' websites)
4. Repeat step 2 and find those who write well.  Sign up to read…

As far as the others go, take a month to regularly read what's on them from people you know (ask someone to let you log in to their feed / pulse stream).  You can also ask your trusted colleagues and clients which they use and / or know about. And make your own mind up.

Simon was curious about what copyright I chose to exercise on this blog.  I told him that I publish it all under the Creative Commons license - detail on creative commons.

Simon recommended two books to me. Alan Weiss' "Million Dollar Consulting" and "Don't make me think" by Steve Krug  

Prosper Consulting is a talent acquisition specialist that works hard on building long term relationships with client companies, delivers recruitment solutions and doesn't work on success fees.  And so if you want to hire top talent and don't want to be spending percentages of their salary on the agency, check out Prosper Consulting .  

I did a coaching session for Geraldine Grey - who is changing career direction and retraining as a real estate agent.

She has kindly allowed me to write up the key biz dev tools that I recommended to her

1. Create a strong "Brand You".  For her, this is to be 'the English Realtor' [yes she'd in USA!]
2.  Have a short list of golden questions that can help you to firstly find out whether a prospect is serious and secondly to close down sales
3. Have a strong process for keeping track of prospects, leads and follow-ups
4. Get all your customers to write a reference after each job and build a Net Promoter Score scorecard

Good luck, Gerry - hope it all goes well for you.

Read this presentation on the Art of Self-Branding.

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There are some clear changes happening in B2B as convergence with CRM becomes ubiquitous.  These have  been neatly summarised by Brian Carroll in a recent post

I believe the complex sale presents a set of unique sales and marketing problems that benefits by a shift away from the traditional lead generation mind-set to a new way of thinking centered the following tenets:

* More ROI is reaped from the patient tending of potential customers (relationships) over time. Customers for life.
* Lead generation is a conversation, not a series of disjointed campaigns. [as I wrote here]
* Build relationships with the right people and companies regardless of their timing to buy.
* Engage people early (preferably before) in their buying process as possible so you can create and influence their vision.
* The first impression matters.  So does the second.  So does every single touch after that.  Consistency and relevancy is key.
* Sales and marketing must work together as one team.  Seeing each other as internal customers.
* A multi-modal and multi-touch lead generation portfolio will always outperform marketing tactics that stand alone.
* Sales and marketing should have a unified understanding and consensus in their language on things like ideal customers and universal lead definition.
* If used properly, the phone is the single best way to reach decision makers and to begin a dialog when you have a complex sale. [contact Sue Crampton for a fabulous service]
* Buy-in from sales and marketing as well as executive leadership is critical to the success of any lead generation program.
* Be willing and prepared to close the loop with every opportunity that is identified.
* The purpose of marketing is to help the sales team sell.
* Trusted advisers win more sales than slick brands.
* Companies don’t buy - people do. Don’t ever forget the human touch

And so for creative agencies: my interpretation of Brian’s work comes out like this:

1 - have a short-ish list of your ideal clients and have a long term plan for nurturing them so that you know what has been done and what needs doing next

2 -  Enable a centralised record of all emails / meeting notes / phone conversation records from everyone in the agency with these key prospects so that at any point in time anyone can see what has been said, when, by who, to whom.  Then they can ‘take up’ the conversation from where it last left off

3 -  if the ‘conversation’ is ongoing, you stand the best possible chance of being in on the early discussions about a repitch.  Hell, if you are trusted you might even get to write the scoping document!

4 - the whole agency must work as a single team.  This means that creative, suits and biz dev all need to be part of the process of wooing a new client.  The client sees the agency as a unit working together in the best possible way.  Many layers of conversation drive a web of relationships proving a stronger proposition that can eventually turn into a strong client:agency working relationship.

5 - an ongoing telephone contact campaign needs to be part of the overall strategy.  Human voice and learning are more urgent, persuasive and insightful than email or letter can ever be.

6 - closed loop marketing means that all the internal processes need to be well-known and integrated.  Whether automatic or manual, electronic or paper-based they are the foundation of your successful long term biz dev.