Jay Baer of Convince and Convert: Account-Based Marketing –What’s in it for Agency New Business?
Our 2016 Thought Leader Survey presented questions from six industry Thought Leaders about current developments and trends in the industry. Each panelist also offered a piece of agency new business advice.
Best-selling author and consultant, Jay Baer is one of the contributors to the survey. Jay’s blog, Convince and Convert, is the #1 content marketing blog in the world, and he is the author of the New York Times best seller, Youtility: Why Smart Marketing is about Help Not Hype.
For our Thought Leader Survey, Jay provided several questions about blogging and content development. Certainly, the agency respondents’ feedback to these questions is interesting and insightful; I hope you read the report for the results and perspectives on those questions.
What I wanted to point to in particular is Jay’s final question for the survey:
“Does your Agency Utilize Account-Based Marketing Principles?”
This was a question that was really new amongst our Thought Leader Surveys, a fact reinforced by 46.2% of responding agencies choosing the response, “Tell me more about account-based marketing”.
The concept of Account Based Marketing deserves far more attention than a single blog post following up on the survey.
Still, just as a starting point to address the “tell me more” response, what Jay is considering when he talks about Account-Based Marketing Principles is a new business approach that targets and pursues an organization as a whole from a prospecting standpoint, versus simply a Marketing Director or the CMO; that is, courting the organization as a desired client rather than just particular individuals within it.
This concept poses fresh considerations across the spectrum of agency new business strategies and tactics.
Give this some serious thought:
- What does it mean for defining your prospects?
- How does this impact how you position your agency with respect to the desired organization?
- What are the implications in communicating to an organization versus an individual or several individuals within it?
- How does this impact our content strategy? Do we develop posts for specific organizations?
The implications go on, and they are pretty profound.
We are here at RSW/US to help our clients on that path.
Read more from our Thought Leaders Survey panelists and consider how their recommendations can benefit your agency new business program:
Mark O’Brien, Newfangled: No Silver Bullets
Blair Enns, Win Without Pitching: The Only New Business Indicator That Matters
Mark Sneider
Mark is a 30-year veteran of the consumer packaged goods, advertising, and marketing service industry. Mark started his career at DDB Needham in Chicago prior to earning his MBA from the J.L. Kellogg Business School at Northwestern where he majored in Marketing and Economics. Prior to starting RSW/US in 2005, Mark was General Manager for AcuPOLL, a global research consultancy. Sneider worked in Marketing for S.C. Johnson and KAO Brands. Sneider has been invited to speak at numerous Agency events and network conferences domestically and internationally including the 4A’s, Magnet, NAMA, TAAN, and MCAN. Sneider has been featured in prominent industry publications including Adweek, Media Post, e-Marketer, and Forbes. When not working (which often seems like not often), Mark likes to run miles, go to church, and just chill with a hard copy issue of Fast Company.
