Shout! The Marketing Agency Blueprint: Paul Roetzer interview

Paul Roetzer is a striking, energetic man.  We met after I’d read his first book, the Marketing Agency Blueprint which explains how he has founded a PR agency in a 21st century mould. You worked in a traditional agency – how did they view biz dev? They didn’t really have it – they were reliant […]

How to Launch a skincare brand on a small budget

The local business incubator here in Auckland is called The Icehouse.  It’s an impressive place buzzing with activity. Creative Agency Secrets was asked to prove its salt by giving some free consulting to a new organisation, DirtyMan.co.nz Perversely, it is all about keeping men clean! Avoiding costly product launches The team is a start-up and […]

5 Questions to ask a creative agency at your pitch

Interviewing the brand and being interviewed as the agency are core skills for pitching. 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. […]

Selling disguised as market research

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 […]

Name checking tool for social media sites

Awesome, lovely superb…. just finding which social media sites exist today is hard but having to chase round and research available ‘names’ on each one for a new client – time consuming. Thank heavens for the wonderful people at NameChk.com They do the grunt for you. Now all I need is to go register the […]

Website design brief template

So,you want to brief an agency to redesign your website.  What is the best way to write a brief so that all the areas you need designed are covered? Helpfully, OneSourceGraphics have written out their detailed survey which sets of the principal questions to which an agency will need answers before pricing up a brief. […]

How to write an awesome creative brief

Getting fabulous creative work from your marketing agency depends on the brand team giving the best possible brief to set up the work.  Writing down what you want from your campaign and collaborating with the agency to agree the full terms of reference for the work you are commissioning is of the utmost importance. You […]

5 Tips On How To Beat A Video Conference Interview

Interviews are always a nervous ordeal but more often than not a well-prepared candidate will always rise above the rest of the pack and successfully take the job. That said, many candidates make the mistake of preparing for a video conference interview in the same way as a face to face interview which can leave […]

Website holding page – how to use for marketing gain

Taking your website offline is rarely welcomed by the marcomms team.  sometimes you have go do it. Brand Glue did a great job of making a strong message come through their holding page. In fact, since I took this screen shot, the timer doesn’t seem to have ‘counted down’ any more…. wonder if it’s really […]

Good practice: A website holding page

Following on from yesterday’s post about delays publishing a new company website – take a look at this one: What I like about it is it sets a deadline (the counter is clocking down all the time) it still says what the company does – USP – so the holding page continues to sell the […]