New Business Best Practices

Tips and Tricks from the New Business Pros – First of a Series

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We recently had an internal sharing session with our New Business Directors to share tips and tricks used to prospect marketers.

We do this every now and then – one of the benefits of having all 40 of us here at our Cincinnati HQ location.

It’s a great way to share best practices/that which is working – to help everybody do the best possible job for their agency clients.

I thought it might be helpful to you and your efforts to see some of the things that we discussed.  Not every one of these is going to work well for your agency, but it might be useful to give a handful of them a try and see what sticks.

New Business Best Practices

And there are many more where these came from.

In the weeks that follow, I’ll continue to share ideas and insights that can help you better your efforts.

  1. Ask yourself, “If I got the email I just sent, would I open it?”
  2. Use gatekeepers to find your way into the right prospect
  3. Try to use prospect’s language on how they describe themselves on LinkedIn
  4. Keep subject lines short and sweet
  5. Limit the number of links as it affects email deliverability
  6. Cultivate “No’s”
  7. Use very relevant subject lines
  8. Store phone numbers that come from replies and text them with an “Apologies for texting…”
  9. Don’t use too many indents, bullets, centering as it can negatively influence deliverability
  10. Don’t use URLs in text.  So instead of www.rswus.com, insert the URL into RSW/US to improve deliverability.

So while all this is good and can be helpful to an agency, it’s only as good as:

  • How consistent your outreach is
  • How well/versed/skilled your new business director is in the agency world
  • The resources you employ to support list needs, content needs, and marketing needs for the outreach
  • The effort put into nurturing prospects down the line to close

With email deliverability becoming an increasing challenge and more agencies reaching out to fewer and fewer marketing prospects, the need to be smart and strategic about your outreach is that much more critical.

Happy hunting!!

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.

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