Ad Agency New Business: Patience Darling

Consistency is the mother of all virtues when it comes to ad agency new business prospecting.

Consistency of messaging, consistency of methodology, and consistency of outreach.

 

This is not only important leading up to the meeting, but it is also critically important after the meeting – as you work your way to close.

I was recently on a monthly update call with an RSW/US client of four years.

We had just set three highly qualified meetings for him in a span of just two weeks.

He astutely pointed out that all three of the prospects had been on our list for about a year and a half and despite our best efforts, we hadn’t busted through.

Fortunately, as with all RSW/US programs, we created a thematic email series after an initial volley of mailings and “politely persistent” calling and emailing against these prospects.

With each program we stay in touch with real value-added insights and thought starters.

These three prospects had been receiving the email series for about a year, never having once opened an email.

For whatever reason, all three took action on the same release.

After some prompt follow-up calls from the New Business Director – and some good conversation about their need states – we opened the door and brought the client to the table.

The client is now in the final stage of a short-list review for one of the prospects.

 Point is…stick with it.

I know you don’t have a ton of time, but there are ways you can keep the heat on without killing yourself.

Build up a good list of prospects in a tightly defined space. Develop an on-going, themed email campaign, and then make sure you keep the content fresh, tightly tied to your value-added theme, and relevant to your prospects’ worlds.

Then make sure you have the mechanisms in place (time set aside once a month) to touch base with those who take action on your campaigns (“clickers” and/or “openers”).

And the beauty of this is you might already have the content.

Your blog. I’ve talked a lot about activating social media.

Here’s a perfect way to do it.

Why create content anew when you have what is hopefully value added content sitting right in your backyard.

What do you think we do? Same thing – for both our program and the programs we manage with our clients.

So…keep it simple, don’t over-think it, and by gosh, stick with it.