Pitch Perfect: A Guide To Owning The Creative Pitch Every Single Time
Below is a guest post from Mallika Goel (@mallikagoel), marketing copywriter at WorkflowMax.
From the wayward creative to full-blown agencies, nothing brews more feelings of contempt than the thought of creative pitching. But just like meetings, pitching is a necessary evil. Agencies need to win new business to survive and hence need to communicate, in some form or another, how they will add value to a project.
How can you manage the irrational fear and loathing of pitching? We share some tips that you can use to own the creative pitch every time.
Read MoreThe Inbound Impact on Agency New Business
This post is part of the Insider Series, which is designed to feature professionals in our industry, offer business insight and discover new paths in the agency world.
Michael Gass (@michaelgass) is a business development consultant, speaker and author. His company, Fuel Lines, provides business development resources, training and consulting services to advertising, digital, media and PR agencies.
In this Insider Series, he discusses new business challenges, trends and strategies. Join him at the Fuel Lines New Business Conference on Oct. 9, 2015 in Nashville.
Read MoreHow Agencies Can Convert 80% of their Proposals
A previous agency owner, Jason Swenk started his agency in 1999, and quickly grew it into a multi-million dollar company with clients ranging from Aflac, Lotus Cars, Hitachi, AT&T, Coke and Legal Zoom.
In this guest post, he shares his tried-and-true format for proposal success, which resulted in an 80% close rate.
How to Use Your Agency Blog to Gain New Clients
An agency blog can be many things: an extension of your portfolio, a chance for you to discuss noteworthy news and views in the industry, or a place to post silly pictures of cute cats. But there's one other use of an agency blog that many agencies overlook: its role as a lead-generation tool.
How do you use your agency blog to find and convert leads? Steff Moore, content editor at WorkflowMax, gives her best tips.
Read MoreWin Without Pitching: Q&A with Blair Enns
Blair Enns (@blairenns) is the founder of Win Without Pitching and a business development consultant to creative firms worldwide.
In his book, the Win Without Pitching Manifesto, he teaches agencies how to gain more respect and power in their client relationships, which in turn transforms how they get and do business. Blair is also a regular speaker on business development topics.
In this Insider Series, he discusses how agencies can improve their business development processes to win more frequently, and develop stronger long-term client relationships.
Read MoreAgency Business Development Challenges & Solutions
This is a guest post by Kathryn Neal Odell (@sales_onsite), managing partner for Sales-Onsite.
How do you fix “the agency business development problem?” We went to the source and asked some marketing agency executives and business development managers about the challenges they face and how they overcome them. In this post, we curate their thoughts on the topic.
Read More12 Criteria for Qualifying Marketing Agency Clients
If a client relationship is like marriage, then the marketing process is like dating. Since one will flow from the other, it’s difficult to overestimate the importance of “intentional dating” as you seek new client relationships. In other words, now is the time to date only marriageable people (unlike college, right?).
Unless the standard is set high at this stage, you’ll be exerting far too much effort in trying to change your clients ongoing. That’s energy not very well spent. It’s better to screen potential clients and be choosier about prospective partners at the onset.
David C. Baker, principal of Recourses, Inc. offers some thoughts you might adapt to your own situation.
Read MoreImprove Client Loyalty and Agency Performance with Marketing Score — Available in Public Beta
According to the CMO Council, only 36 percent of marketers are firmly committed to their agencies. So, how does your agency attract, retain and grow the right accounts? It starts with a thorough marketing assessment of your leads and clients that enables your agency to forecast potential, align expectations and build performance-driven campaigns.
By gauging the strength of an organization’s existing brand, website, marketing mix, team, technology, processes and performance, agencies can better identify areas of impact and reduce the risk of eventual churn. Now available in public beta, Marketing Score (@MKTScore) is a free assessment tool and marketing intelligence engine powered by PR 20/20 that can help agencies with this assessment process.
Read MoreAgency New Business in Just an Hour a Day
This is a guest post from Mark Sneider, owner and president of RSW/US, an outsourced lead generation and business development firm for marketing agencies. In the post, Mark stresses the need for agencies to pursue new business on a consistent basis and offers six business development pointers to get started.
Cut the Geek Speak and Other Ways for Agencies to Triple Billings
Last week, I had the opportunity to attend Inbound12, an inbound marketing conference in Boston. At the conference, Connection Model, led by president David Carpenter (@davidcarpenter), was named the first HubSpot VAR to reach platinum partner status for its ability to acquire and retain accounts.
For me, the award begged the question: What’s their secret to new business? Well, we got the answer straight from the horse’s mouth.
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