Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

To Moriarty:
As I said there is nothing going on in company for marketing. Newsletter is way long.. Recently we printed brochures for the first time. I have asked my director for permission to modify website and start SEO. I am planning to run SMO simultaneously. But before I joined, all the clients were brought by my director with no marketing knowledge (he is designer), no marketing material. All of our past clients are B2B clients. But creating all marketing for company and getting its result will take long time. I've less time if I want to survive. Another problem is about positioning. How can we differentiate from other companies? I asked my boss to limit company for B2B companies as our strengths and portfolio matches for that sector. But my boss does not want limitations. Another reason this sector spends very less on marketing and advertising. So, He wants Consumer company who spend good amount of money on advertising. What is sales strategy generally used by ad agencies? How do clients select the agency?

I am sorry that your boss wants to sell to all comers - it is a sad reflection on modern society. Put simply it's a lack of confidence, and it's a plague across most businesses. It makes your life very difficult too, as your marketing becomes ineffective - leading to problems for you because you can't bring in good quality clients. You can't bring in good quality clients because your boss wants to sell to every Tom, Dick and Harry.

However that doesn't stop you from finding out who the best customers are, and writing copy or aiming brochures at them. If your boss isn't interested in them, will he notice that you have slanted the copy towards the kinds of customer who appreciate what his business does best? Just make sure that all the references from happy customers meet the needs of these people. If you don't know who they are, ask some of the designers - they'll tell you who's "in" and who's not. I speak as an ex industrial designer, and some of our clients were a real pain. Perhaps a quiet word over lunch? Give it a few weeks and you'll have a good picture, and you'll be fired with ideas for copy/advertising too.

I think you have a problem: when you say "I have asked my director for permission to modify website and start SEO" - this should be under your authority entirely. You are paid to do this, you shouldn't be having to ask!

Most advertising agencies have one strategy: listen to the boss (their client) and do EXACTLY what he wants - and charge large sums of money for it. (If he demands results, just tell him that his TV adverts are running nicely which means he can brag about them when he meets his friends for a round of golf). In other words, they have no advertising strategies, because most bosses are like your boss - they neither know nor care about advertising nor its results.

I have no idea how clients choose an advertising agency - perhaps word of mouth or by opening the Yellow pages at the appropriate place and throwing a dart? ;-) ;-) ;-)

Of course, if your boss wants to offload cash for no return, he could get in touch with me ;-) But on the other hand, I don't need bad clients, and in any case he'd not my lack of qualifications, so that's out (phew!).

Does this help ... you've got something to work on at least.

above replies are really good and I appreciate efforts of every responder.... But frankly I am looking for more responses. Issue is NOT A SINGLE SALE... I've contacted more than 100 companies which were fit in our target. We did more than 30 final meeting. In few of them, we reached after winning at every step in RFP and when we submitted our rate card, client never called us again. I cannot say our rates are high. Because when I conducted research on our competitor agencies, I managed to get their rates somehow and I found that their rates were too high than ours. When we sales is no. game, we know that after every 6 calls you get 1 appointment, after every 5 appointments you get 1 hot lead and after every 3 hot leads you get one client. Even if person is dumb, not good salesman he can get at least one client after 30 hot leads and meetings. I think someone who has got insight both on agency side and client side can figure out the possible reason.

There's something going on here that we're all missing.

My first instinct is to ask you how many of those 100 companies you contacted got back to you for more information.

Any?

Were those final thirty pressured into a situation where you knew you had to close the deal?

Because whilst you may expect an appointment after six calls, that may (or may not) apply to your immediate situation. Furthermore, how do you define a "hot lead"? Are they ones you think look likely, because they fit the characteristics *you've determined* that mean they should be a good client? Or do you have a more subtle distinction? I've let the cat out of the bag already - but I'll let you join the dots. Hot leads have a way of talking (as it were) that cold ones don't.

Bear in mind that there are no few businesses that want a quote from someone else, just to be able to wave under their current supplier's nose - and thus be able to force a lower price. They'll happily leave you imagining you've landed the job until you phone three weeks later and the secretary tells you he's in a meeting.

Now when you say in your initial question that "The reason which I heard from most of the clients: - Your prices are too high" - and then you say "Because when I conducted research on our competitor agencies, I managed to get their rates somehow and I found that their rates were too high than ours" it tells me that something is going on here that we don't know about.

Is price your only selling point? If it is, we need to know why.