Getting on the client radar - part 3 content marketing

In agency new business, identifying prospects and content marketing are two of the most important drivers of a successful B2B sales and marketing strategy.

Content is critical because potential clients care much more about their commercial problems than they do about your services. Thus developing content which helps to address business challenges and in turn helps prospects to do their job better, is an effective way of generating new business opportunities, and it fuels three key elements of B2B marketing; search, social and outbound.

Understanding your target audience and their business drivers enables the design and delivery of content which is both personalised and timely. By developing client persona's it's possible to profile which businesses, individuals and commercial challenges would benefit most from an agencies unique services. And it's matching our agency proposition to prospects which is vital if we're to get on the client radar and provoke a response.

A typical persona for a client prospect could be something like this:

Following a recent purchase of the brand by a competitor, Bob Smith joined Acme Beauty Products as their new CMO two months ago. Bob has been challenged with reviving a brand that is suffering from declining market share, poor distribution and limited consumer engagement. In the past Acme have used traditional marketing and retail channels to sell their products and Bob has identified branding, e-commerce and content marketing as his areas of focus. Bob is young, dynamic and is comfortable commissioning category defining and highly creative work. 

If you're an agency which specialises in the Health & Beauty category with a track record of reviving ailing brands, or you create new online sales channels and digital marketing campaigns, then obviously Bob and Acme Beauty are the ideal prospect to target. It sounds basic but it's interesting that many agencies fail to properly identify who would benefit most from their services and thus they pursue prospects which they have little or no chance of converting.

Agency content marketing can take many forms. It could be great creative work, client case studies, opinion pieces, research, agency news, thought-leadership articles, newsletters, blogs, film or infographics, but whatever form it takes it must be relevant and it must be targeted. The best content is born of a clear understanding of who you want to work with and who you don't. It's also most effective when anchored by a clearly defined and well understood agency proposition. As mentioned in previous posts, there are too many agencies with nothing unique to offer.

PR people will tell you that great content centres on a specific topic or area of expertise that you can own and eventually position your agency around as the thought-leader and go to provider. By identifying the topic it's not only easier to generate interesting and thought-provoking content, it is also easier to identify key phrases and words that can be used to optimise search marketing. Creating topic specific content also provides the hook for direct response communications and is a great conversation starter for sales people.

Developing content should not be the preserve of the new business team. Content and ideas can come from anywhere in the business. By creating an editorial calendar and communicating to staff which topic areas you would like to cover and why, it's possible to engage staff in the editorial process. It also allows the agency to tap into different areas of expertise and opinions, creating far richer and more engaging content.

Lastly, great content is authoritative and challenging. It's better to create a few high quality pieces of impactful content which will get a prospect's attention, rather than using a fire-hose approach to distributing low quality material. Each great content idea can then be broken down into spin-off pieces, allowing you to seed the content across multiple touch-points - increasing your exposure and feeding the sales funnel from every possible entry point.

Getting on the client radar - part 1 brand

If you're a start-up agency or an agency with a relatively low profile, getting on the radar of prospective clients and earning a place on a pitch list can be really tough. It helps if your key members of staff have a personal brand and a portfolio they can trade on. It also helps if you have a client that is willing to be an advocate for your work. If you don't have either of these two things then how do you put your agency on the map?

A truly unique proposition

Developing your brand and service proposition is the obvious place to start when considering your new business strategy. A compelling and unique proposition increases the chances of you getting noticed, it helps to clearly differentiate you from the competition, and it informs how you think and act as a business.

Your brand proposition must be based on a belief system, your organisational values and a point of view that is easy to understand, unique and compelling. Ultimately the proposition must be true to your personality and strengths i.e. articulating (simply) why you do what you do, not what you aspire to be.

There are four alternate strategies you could consider for your agency brand and it will depend on your agency skill set and the talent you employ, and whether you specialise in a particular discipline or disciplines:

Your proposition could be:

1. Relationship led e.g. Good Works® - Karmarama, a service POV that underpins their ethical approach to business and their promise to always put their customers (and staff) above everything else. 
2. Strategy led e.g. Predatory Thinking® - The Gate, a strategic POV which defines their approach to developing competitive business advantage for their clients. 
3. Creative led e.g. Fallon or Saatchi & Saatchi, who believe in the unreasonable power of creativity and it's ability to help businesses to outsmart rather than outspend their competitors.
4. Service led e.g. Energising Ideas -  McCann Enterprise, who offer brand strategy and integrated comms with the aim of engaging all stakeholders not just customers.

I've found from personal experience that employing an industry specialist PR agency during the development of your proposition will help you better understand the competitive landscape. They provide a valuable second opinion on whether your proposition is truly unique and if it will cut-through, giving you a fighting chance of gaining the media exposure you need to develop your reputation. An outside perspective will also help you to stay focused and encourage you to sacrifice everything that does not fit with your proposition, beliefs and ways of working.

Whatever route you chose to go with your proposition, you must ensure that it is Marmite. Some people should love it and others hate it because there is no room for indifference. By creating symbols of re-evaluation which represent your unique POV, breaking with typical agency conventions and seeking to change how clients view agencies, you stand a better chance of being considered as a viable alternative to more established competition. Your overriding aim must be to place yourself in an entirely separate space.

When your proposition is in place, look inward rather than knee jerking into a external launch. Your staff need to understand and then engage with your business strategy if they are to embrace who you are and commit to vigorously pursuing your business objectives. That doesn't mean launching it with a presentation and a few cocktails, it means involving your people in the process of developing and implementing your strategy and engaging employees in conversation across every function of the business. It also means making some tough choices on staff recruitment and retention.

As a challenger brand you will inevitably encounter the inertia and resistance that every business experiences in a mature market dominated by a few big players and saturated by a plethora of others. That's why overcommitment and a desire to do what everyone else is either unwilling or incapable of doing is essential if you want to stand out. Clients must perceive you as a can-do agency that is willing to adapt and innovate to suit the business and industry you are servicing.

With a solid brand and business strategy in place you have the foundation from which to take your proposition to market and begin the process of actively engaging customers, the media, key opinion formers and prospects. Part 2 will address some of the methods I have used for agency sales and marketing that I have found to be effective in engaging organisations and driving client acquisition.