January 2012
1 post
3 tags
What’s Working in New Business Prospecting
One of the primary success factors relating to new business in 2012 will be selling with “insight.” You see, most quality prospects out there just don’t care about you or your agency. They may be already engaged with another agency, or they may not be confident that your agency is qualified to help them. Whatever their reasons may be, the hard fact is they don’t want to engage.
To combat this,...
December 2011
1 post
gravesadvertising asked: What is the best practices for reducing errors when you have multiple versions of revisions... Still in search of the perfect PROOFING checklist/form that helps with dealing with multiple versions of changes.
November 2011
1 post
3 tags
What's Working in Agency Creative
An agency in the West is working to become a fully creative entity instead of simply having a creative department. One of the ways they facilitate this is to post all of their ongoing work in several key, high traffic areas of the agency. The work posted consists mostly of color comps, but could also be storyboards or even scripts. Then, over the course of the next day or two, the entire agency...
October 2011
1 post
3 tags
What Worked: Thank you, Steve Jobs
by Tony Mikes I’ve taken some time to write about Steve Jobs. He was very important in my life. He helped me to be much more productive; he gave my creatives the tools to move to the next level of art production; and he forever endeared himself to me by allowing an old rock & roll fool to have his whole collection of hard-worn albums and CD’s all in one convenient place. Those...
September 2011
2 posts
mikaelpohjonen asked: Hi! With regards to the financial reporting post - in the cost of sales: is the labor costs included (the hours worked)?
3 tags
What’s Working in Agency Fee Compensation
Clients are beginning to push back on agency commissions and mark-ups. This leaves agencies with only one form of compensation: fees. There’s nothing wrong with fees for projects or retainers, but they limit an agency’s capacity for leverage, growth and extra profits. In the old days agencies made money in three ways: fees, commissions and mark-ups. These enabled agencies to have...
July 2011
1 post
4 tags
What’s Working in Agency Financial Reporting
Many agencies lump their billing together for the purpose of their financial statements by simply listing “billings.” Our advice is to separate categories.
For example, if you have media billings, list them separately. Creative billings, the same, digital billings, likewise. Take a look at the example below.
Make sure if you categorize your billings, you do the same with outside...
June 2011
2 posts
3 tags
What's Working With Interns
“Help! The interns outnumber the staff!” I heard this (pretty funny) comment from a creative director at one of our Second Wind member agencies…but he did not mean it in the pejorative sense. The agency is looking to become a major creative force over the next few years. They have a very engaged owner and a very credible creative director. They also have a strong base staff...
3 tags
What's Working in Account Service
I believe there comes a time in the agency “growth curve” where a more centralized system of workflow ceases to be completely effective. Currently, I am consulting with an agency where there are 500 projects open in the agency. That’s a lot of work; certainly too much work for one traffic person—even one with an assistant and great software. In these cases, in makes sense to do what the big...
April 2011
2 posts
3 tags
What's Working in Organic Growth
Did you know that it is 4 times more profitable to get more business from a current client than the first year of new new business. That’s a healthy profit margin, and one which many agencies almost seem to ignore, based on how quickly clients get tired of agencies and move on to the next one.
Growing organic business with current clients takes some imagination and a little spunk. Following are...
4 tags
What's Working in Presentations...The "15 Sheeter"
Rather than using PowerPoint when you present to clients, why not try something different? One agency in the Midwest takes rough flip chart sheets generated during brainstorming sessions and brings them to the presentation. As a part of getting set up, they post these sheets around the room so that both agency and client are immersed in the clients’ world, target audience, competitors,...
March 2011
1 post
4 tags
What's Working in New Business
I have turned this around in my mind again and again. Throughout my career in the agency business, we have all tried to build the best programs for new business. We work on our brand, we build elaborate marketing plans to self promote our agencies, we build prospect lists of “A” prospects and hire new business hunters to call and make meetings. Sometimes this works, but many times it doesn’t. ...
February 2011
3 posts
2 tags
What's Working in QR Codes
Did you know that QR codes have been in existence since 1994? The tiny little squares of data were invented by Denso-Wave as a way to track parts used in car manufacturing. And as with many good ideas, coupled with the skyrocketing adoption of camera-equipped smart phones, QR codes are finally beginning to gain some traction amongst marketers and consumers here in the United States.
I have to...
4 tags
What's Working in Rogue Tweets
Not that we condone rogue tweeting but accidents do happen. Just ask Gloria Huang who mistakenly fired off this tweet from her employer’s (the Red Cross) account late Wednesday night.
Definitely an uh-oh moment. Fortunately disaster was averted, thanks to the composed reaction of the Red Cross and the quick thinking of Dogfish Head Brewery. The Red Cross responded, not with scorn or...
4 tags
What's Working in Agency Goals for 2011
One of our members has spent time early this year working on developing an agency pledge for 2011. This was accomplished by gathering their staff for a couple of brainstorming sessions and working through the possibilities. Out of it came the following list. FYI…all of the goals listed below were followed by proof points that outlined how the agency would achieve their goals. Only the...
January 2011
5 posts
5 tags
What's Working in Out of Home
Minneapolis agency Colle+McVoy introduced Caribou Coffee’s new hot breakfast sandwiches by making bus shelters look like ovens. The giant ovens warmed commuters while they waited for their buses (and most likely made them crave a sausage, egg and cheese). Very cool… I mean hot!
4 tags
What's Working in Social Media
Here are 10 examples of social media campaigns that not only worked, butmay have helped promote change along the way. This list first appeared in AdAge’s “Book of Ten: Social-Media Campaigns We Liked.” (Click on the links to read more or to see the actual campaigns.)
Red Cross for Haiti - Text Haiti campaign
Old Spice - “Old Spice Guy”
Pepsi Refresh -Pepsi has...
10 tags
What's Working in Media
A Second Wind member has seen a change in the way clients are responding to the “digital media craze” that has overrun marketing plans for the past couple of years.
“We are seeing clients much more anxious to utilize a full spectrum of media for their campaigns”, he says. “A couple of years ago, you couldn’t convince clients that a fully integrated media...
7 tags
What's Working in Agency Traffic
Forget the weekly meeting. Instead, hold a daily stand-up meeting each morning for 10-15 minutes. At that meeting review your daily “hit sheet”, a list of what the agency is working on for the day. The hit sheet should be produced every evening by the traffic person and emailed to all agency staff.
This combination of a daily hit sheet and a morning stand-up meeting keeps...
December 2010
3 posts
6 tags
What's Working in Time Keeping
As commissions and mark-ups dwindle, time sheets and time billing are an important part of agency life these days. Keeping a good record of time incurred against jobs and estimates helps to keep the agency from overrunning the allotted time. To do this, turning in time sheets on a regular basis is mandatory. But many agency managers have trouble getting the team to respond.
One Second Wind...
What's Working in Retail Apps
As the push to take commerce mobile increases, especially among retailers, agencies and their clients need to look at what mobile customers want.
Emarketer reported on a study by Accenture identifying customer preferences for mobile apps designed for use outside the store environment. Customers reported that receiving discount coupons, accessing driving directions to a local...
6 tags
What's Working in Client Relations
Sometimes clients need a little push. Here’s how one Second Wind member is giving their clients the push they need:
“We are an almost 30 year old branding firm. I told my clients, going into their planning and budgeting time to use us or drop us because they were not valuing our input. The results have been amazing. All of our retained clients have stepped up, brought us back...