Ad Agency New Business: Your Effort is Only as Good as Each List
When I first arrived at RSW/US, I was thrust into the world of list development: developing large lists of potential clients for the agencies we represent.
When I started, it seemed pretty easy.
A quick pull from our resources gave me thousands of companies! I sat back, smiled, and thought this was the easiest job ever. I sent the list to my boss and she just laughed.
I quickly found out that there is a lot more to it.
It is not enough to just throw a bunch of companies on a list and send it over.
These companies need to be compatible with your client or they are just going to create more work that will lead to a whole lot of nothing.
I was told that my marketing background would be helpful for my job and I wasn’t really sure how that would come into play.
I took a step back to look at the big picture of how my job contributed to the overall service RSW/US provides.
In college, I was taught that good marketers understand exactly what a company is looking to accomplish and then they capitalize on it.
That is exactly what I have to do in list development. Understanding the company before building a list for them is crucial; otherwise the clients you send to them will be a poor fit.
If you know their end game, you can customize the list to their needs.
You can send them the companies that would benefit from their services.
It is not enough to simply check things like revenue or geography (though those also play a pertinent role); you need to dig into each individual company to get a feel for how they do business and whether or not your client can provide value-added services.
Your lists will be much shorter and may look less impressive, but the quality of companies will be much higher, and that is ultimately your goal.
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.
