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As we all approach the summer holidays and as the roads and trains become less crowded, it is a good time to take stock and create some time to prepare for the months ahead. Business development should be a continuous process and using all the marketing tools available to grow your business will help you succeed where others fail. Use the next few weeks wisely and plan for a healthy future, we hope that you enjoy reading these two articles, as always your feedback is welcome and in fact encouraged.
10 key new business tips, by Natasha Ellard-Shoefield
1. Building a pipeline (not of the oil variety)
Over reliance on referrals, which of course is a great route to new business acquisition, is a common mistake, for two reasons:
- agencies must build a pipeline of convertible leads that develop into new business wins and relying purely on contacts and essentially luck won’t do this alone, as goodwill is not a bankable commodity.
- fear is at the heart of relying purely on referral business. It’s a big issue with creative agencies; many believe that to openly promote their agency is to bare oneself naked to the world.
2. Hire an experienced consultant or employee with a proven track record
Engaging someone who is qualified to fulfil the role and who understands your industry is vital. Therefore avoid taking on a graduate or low wage solution. As you expect your clients to respect your qualifications and experience, do the same with your own new business programme and the person you hire to implement it. He/she after all has to represent the agency, so think of them as an Ambassador rather than a ‘charge d’affaires’.
3. Be prepared and do your research
Sadly, it is not uncommon to hear of agencies who meet prospective new clients and haven’t even taken the time to look at their website beforehand, or seek out recent company news articles. Whether a pitch or a meeting, prepare and your hard work will pay dividends. Very few people go to the movies without reading the reviews.
4. Be confident and clear about your creative process
Don’t over complicate your offer. Whilst it is true that process is important and an agency must define this tangibly, it is equally important that your potential client feels reassurance, trust in fact, and agencies gain trust through making things as smooth and non-pretentious as possible.
5. Proposition
Develop a tangible proposition. Not just one that proves what you do and shows who you’ve done it for, but through relating this to a real need for your prospective clients. Try to see the opportunity through the eyes of your prospective clients and as part of their overall marketing mix. Otherwise it’s a bit like going on a bad date; hearing someone talk about themselves all night without showing any genuine interest, it isn’t a turn on.
6. A grade A+ response
When you took your exams, think back to when you were told to answer the question. Don’t write your own question, answer the question and ask a third party to read the brief and assess whether the question has been answered in the response. A classic mistake many agencies make is to simply get carried away with their idea without cross-referencing back to the original brief.
7. Humility is a great asset
How many times have we heard that ‘the customer is always right’? It is a good idea to question a client’s decision for future reference. But it is also important to learn from criticism and welcome feedback.
8. Investment is key
To win business you have to be prepared to invest time and thought. This sounds obvious, but some agencies turn opportunities away having spent months attracting their business. You must assess each pitch opportunity, in terms of likelihood of outcome. However if you don’t train for and enter the race, you won’t win. The aim, while refining your targeting to rationalise the companies and brands on your priority list, is to be prepared to invest time and energy when opportunities arise. Even during the busiest time of year, dedicate the time to winning new clients.
9. Marketing plan
When a client is buying creative services, it is different from selling a ‘widget’ and therefore you need a thorough marketing plan. Often, creative services are part of an assisted purchase cycle (new marketing chief, roster review etc) and not a necessity item. This plan should include PR, profile aware raising, public speaking opportunities, creative endorsement via winning awards and a programme of new and existing business development. And finally it should have both short and long term goals and is revisited quarterly to ensure opportunities are not missed.
10. Stamina
Don’t become a one-off new business idea agency. Build your stamina. Think of a prospective client, what you have to say to them, convey it and think of a reason to go back to them time and time again, in order to build a relationship and eventually win their business. Not all wins are immediate, some take time to generate and usually these are the most worthwhile.
To tweet or not to tweet…
Many agencies that are finally jumping onto the social media bandwagon have no strategy. A good number are seemingly checking off a list of social media tools they have subscribed to show their participation. What’s is more telling is their lack of credibility and comprehension of how to use social media to generate new business for themselves.
Twitter is one of the social media tools that can be used as tool for your agency’s social media marketing strategy to generate online traffic and a pipeline for new business leads. It is the leading traffic generator to the Fuel Lines’ blog.
Here are ten mistakes agencies should avoid if they want to generate new business through Twitter:
- Signing up then not participating a telltale sign that Twitter is nothing more than a tick on your social media checklist. When you rarely post to Twitter it will show
- Self-Promotional Tweets. Agencies that sound more like cars salesmen, constantly using promotional Tweets to tout their agency’s new staff, new business wins, awards, etc
- Hiding behind the agency’s veil. Using your agency’s name as the Twitter account without revealing that is doing the Tweeting. Even Ford Motor Company gets this right, having allowing @ScottMonty to be their social media spokesperson under his own Twitter name rather than through the company’s name. It’s awkward to try and engage with a company. Social media is about people. A lot of the same principals of face-to-face networking applies to social media networks such as Twitter
- Auto Responses. These drive your prospects crazy. They are impersonal, and usually contain no value other than to clog up your Direct Message box forcing you to scan through dozens and dozens to reach those who have sent you a personal one
- Little if any value to your Tweets. 80 to 90% of @michaelgass’s tweets are resources for his audience to help them with their new business challenges. They are a combination of posts from his blog and other resources that he usually finds and passes on in his morning ritual of reading RSS feeds in Google Reader. He uses a tool called bit.ly to post an article, along with a shortened URL to Twitter
- Fail to generate Twitter traffic ‘to anything”. Agencies are recommended that they have a blog that becomes the “gateway” to the agency and generate traffic to the blog through tools such as Twitter. The blog serves as the central component to your social media strategy
- Failing to use 3rd party Twitter tools. These can tools help you identify your best target audience and build your Twitter account’s database of followers within the ratios mandated by Twitter. Your agency’s blog content can stay fresh with new postings however older posts have a very long shelf life from not only SEO but also through repurposing posts to Twitter using some third party Twitter Tools such as SocialOomph. You can create a Twitter schedule as you would any other type of media schedule. It’s naive to think if you have written a post that everyone has read it.
- Using the reply function when you should use a direct message. Not every reply needs to be shared with your entire Twitter audience. Almost all replies should probably be sent by Direct Message to the person
- Failing to engage in the conversation. Most agency owners have doubts about engaging with their prospective client audience. Social media and tools such as Twitter, provide the most efficient means of creating personal network with your agencies best prospects. Michael Gass has over 20,000 followers on Twitter alone and it’s easy for him to stay engaged and be part of the conversations without it requiring an undue amount of time. He says he probably spends no more than 15 minutes a day responding through Twitter
- Allowing the early adopters of Twitter to dictate how your agency should use it. Let’s face it, Twitter has superseded anything envisioned by its creators or early adopters “way back in 2006.” It’s amazing that it was the celebrities, not agencies, that first figured out the value and potential of Twitter.
With the kind courtesy of:
http://fuelingnewbusiness.com/ @michaelgass 21,800 followers, 16,578 tweets