As the pace of change continues, agencies must adapt to the ever-evolving landscape to win the battle for new clients. Reports indicate increased difficulty obtaining new business opportunities, necessitating more innovative, efficient, and practical approaches to identify and win new clients. The RSW/US 2023 Agency New Business Report shows that 58% of agencies reported greater difficulty obtaining new business, with decreased opportunities and budgets. Agencies that think cold prospecting will start generating results fast will be increasingly disappointed. This post will help put the elements of a successful process in perspective.
The dynamics of prospecting must also evolve. We know that acquiring new clients can be a long sales cycle, considering the average agency tenure is now over four years. The competition is increasing and splintering across traditional agencies, adtech, digital, social, influencer, e-commerce, in-housing, onshore, offshore, AI, SaaS, varying price points, minimal differentiation and commoditization, and hyper-aggressive prospecting. At the same time, trust and integrity rankings remain at rock bottom. Is there any other industry facing such challenges?
We want to engage and win over marketers, and so do an increasing number of other people, organizations, and AI bots. Search consultants, both established companies and a growing field of independent professionals who get paid to control the process and keep people like us out of the decision-making. More marketers are taking charge of their searches. The emergence of DIY platforms like Clutch, Agency Spotter, and Upwork are gaining popularity and stealing our prospects’ attention away from us. Lead gen, appointment setting, prospecting firms, and consultants like me add another layer of competition. And, of course, every other agency is actively prospecting for the same new client as you and I. Imagine the unrelenting barrage the marketer experiences from all these hungry sharks. This is the world that we play in, and we love it.
Your Prospect Universe
Research shows that in a typical B2B prospect universe, only 3% to 5% are actively looking to buy, while 30% to 55% are considering a purchase within the next six to 12 months and are focused on generating results with their current agency. 20% will consider a new agency the following year and have no interest in talking, and 10% to 15% admit they will never change their agency. Another factor to consider is that experts say between 25% – 49% of executives are actively searching or planning to search for a new job, making them less likely to initiate a new agency search now but highly likely, as high as 80%, to change agencies within eight months at their new job.
Considering these behaviors, the priorities for prospecting should be:
- Building awareness among the 30% to 55% who are considering a change in the next six to twelve months.
- Cast a wide net to reach the 5% actively looking with messaging about expertise, differentiation, trust, and confidence.
Remember to refresh and increase your Google alerts and other tools and tactics to monitor new hires and marketing leadership changes among the 50% actively seeking new jobs. Considering this unprecedented volume now is the time to check out Winmo and all the new features they have added. One of my favorites is their active ongoing research of Decision Makers and Accounts on the Move.
The Motivation to Search
It’s crucial to understand the motivations driving clients to seek new agencies. It may be dissatisfaction with their current agency because of stale creative, passive account services, lack of expertise, staffing or capacity issues, a desire for a fresh approach, or lack of expertise in new or emerging channels. The agency may be doing great, but shifts in company priorities, budget cuts, mismanagement or marketing missteps, or new marketing management may be the reason. Other changes like entering new markets, launching new products, exploring new channels, or adopting new technologies can trigger a new agency search.
In every case, the marketer has a problem they need to solve. Understanding what drives the decision to change is essential to your prospecting approach. Ideally, you want to know why for each prospect. If you can’t, consider things more general to their business, audience, or market, for example, and how your agency has and can uniquely and most effectively solve it. You need to give them a compelling reason to be considered. Unfortunately, mind reading is not a reliable skill set, so we have to look for clues like earnings reports, marketplace analysis, networking, content searches, company press releases, competitor press releases, research databases, wherever and wherever we can find.
The Marketer’s Journey
Research has helped us understand that marketers get through about 60% of the search process before contacting any agency or commencing a review. That part of your prospect’s time is the most important for new business efforts. Most agencies do a poor job of leveraging all the touchpoints in this stage. Social posting, PR, network activation, thought leadership, outreach, guest posting, and podcasting, anything that will get attention during this research and discovery phase, as well as things that will differentiate and distinguish your agency over others.
It’s not always a linear process but generally follows a similar path. The journey begins by realizing a need, hence the importance of understanding the motivation. The marketer will socialize the idea of change around the office and then develop a wish list of criteria and priorities with stakeholders. She will ask around for recommendations, look at industry mags, award sites, press searches, website visits, and perhaps open agency prospecting emails to explore options and discover potential choices. She and her team will analyze the possibilities and prioritize them based on the established criteria.
All of this is done without the knowledge of the agencies they evaluated or even the incumbent. If the marketer doesn’t know your agency or hear about you from a colleague, you don’t exist. You must have an active presence in all the places where they might look for new agency possibilities. Out of sight, out of mind, as they say. A consistent, comprehensive new business program will create awareness among your target audience so that they will already know you, understand your value, and want you on their list when the need arises.
Differentiation
In my many years of experience on both the agency and client side, I know the most critical factor in an agency’s growth is differentiation—standing out and standing apart from the endless performance bragging and capabilities sea of sameness. Of course, many factors are important, but none more than differentiation. No surprise, it is also the toughest for agencies to do for themselves. We’ve developed a methodology designed to unearth and articulate the unique core elements that define and set your agency apart, ensuring alignment with what’s most relevant and compelling to your target audience and markets right now and flexible enough to evolve with tomorrow. We don’t reinvent. We recalibrate. More details on this to come.
Once the marketer has her list of potential agencies, she will set up calls or meetings to get to know them, experience the chemistry, gauge trust and confidence, and ultimately sample their processes and services through a request for proposal or a pitch. In this post, I talk about the marketer’s journey and the enduring impact of covid on it.
Strategic Objectives
A successful business development program needs to accomplish five primary objectives so that your prospects know you, understand what you do, and why you are a good choice for them.
- Awareness: Establishing a recognizable brand presence.
- Expertise: Demonstrating industry experience, skills, and services.
- Confidence: Projecting a vision for the future and leadership capabilities.
- Differentiation: Highlighting a unique POV, processes, creative style, and purpose.
- Trust: Conveying credibility, transparency, and belief in the agency’s work.
Statistics show that you need between 13 and 18 touches to move a cold prospect to take a meeting. These touches should be strategically aligned with the five objectives to build upon each other and fill out a complete impression necessary to engage. It could happen in three touches or 23 or within the 13 to 18 range. The more personalized, brand-relevant, market, and customer-specific, the faster the process typically runs.
You’ll find that those considering an agency change will need a couple of emails to start recognizing your agency name and subsequent emails to understand what the agency offers. If it aligns with their need, the prospect will open more. In my post, The Anatomy of a Win, you can see how this behavior actually looks. If you have good tracking capabilities like I do, you can adjust the sequencing and messaging based on actual engagement behavior to make sure that all five objectives are accomplished.
The goal is to move the prospect from cold to warm to interested to ask for a conversation. Of course, not everyone will follow this pattern. As demonstrated earlier, some will only respond if they are interested in new agencies then, but in 6 to 12 months, they may. A few may react immediately because they are actively looking and are interested in learning more about the agency. Considering prospect behaviors, you can better appreciate the need for “always on” prospecting.
Media, Channels, and Content
There are many ways to reach these prospects, depending on your budget, resources, and agency support. I asked marketing decision-makers how they prefer to learn about new agencies. You can read that post here. In my experience working with many agencies, I have seen them use various media, including PR, blogs, websites, retargeting, SEO, SEM, digital, video, email, and direct mail. Many also use channels such as LinkedIn and industry-specific sites along with diverse content strategies encompassing posts, case studies, podcasts, conference panels, interviews, testimonials, endorsements, articles, thought leadership, trends, and predictions. It’s just the media challenge you deliver on for your clients—time to do it for your agency.
Given all these options and the time and budget constraints we typically work under, a pragmatic approach is best to ensure we can accomplish what we plan and that it will be manageable and always on. I recommend an ongoing media strategy (all organic or a mix of paid and organic, along with email) aligned with the five objectives across as narrow an audience that will cover your target prospects. Some parts of it can be automated to a degree. Simultaneously, I recommend targeted, personalized messaging strategies for individual prospects who have signaled their intent, are experiencing a triggering event, or are showing interest in your content.
Managing the Process
Agencies I have worked with or talked to that consistently acquire new clients have business development programs that are always on. They integrate it within the agency and its processes like another agency client. The benefit to them is that they have a pipeline of quality leads and the data to forecast new revenue, workload, staffing, services, and other things to sensibly manage client and new business work over time. Contrast them to agencies who do business development in fits and starts or not at all.
The secret is managing the process around the cycles, need state, and mindset of the target audience and being constantly on. It can’t happen overnight. It takes patience, conviction, and creativity—agencies that get forced into a standardized formula and repurposed outreach templates do not do well. Over time, an effective process fills the pipeline with identified and planned agency opportunities, allowing for more predictability in the new business funnel.
It takes time and effort to build out as you learn about key dates, contract periods, budgeting cycles, and other significant events. As the process gains momentum, more and more opportunities fill your pipeline so that you can spend less and less time trying to make something happen within the 5% and more time building and nurturing relationships with the 50% to 80% who will have a need in the next 6 to 12 months. After the first couple of cycles, you can begin forecasting potential revenue, allowing a much more planned and predictable new business funnel. When you can spend more of your time and resources on the highest potential opportunities, your success rate will improve. Of course, there is no silver bullet, but there is a silver lining. Instead of chasing anything that moves, pursue the things that matter.
Fertile Ground
Cold prospecting is the most challenging way for agencies to generate new revenue. Yet, it is necessary to grow, diversify, and lessen the peaks and valleys. It is scalable, semi-automated, efficient, measurable, and data-rich. Organic growth along with referrals and recommendations are easier to win but tough to scale. Your clients have a finite amount of work to give, and your network is limited to the number of connections you can nurture. Agencies that consistently grow are executing equally in each of these three channels. Each has its strategy, tactics, and accountability.
Happy Prospecting
If you are struggling to finish your new business plan or disappointed with last year’s results, I can help. Let’s schedule a call. I always enjoy talking about my favorite subject. If you like this post, sign up for my new business newsletter. Let’s connect on LinkedIn to network, share resources, explore new ideas, or discuss the latest ad agency business development news. #LetsGrow!
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