Ad Agency New Business: Creating an Expert vs. Agency Blog
Creating good content helps to fuel long-term new business success. However, with almost 75% of agencies blogging today, why are so many failing to gain traction? The reason is this, prospects want to connect with experts. The thinly veiled promotional content that many firms use to fill their inbound voids lacks the in-depth substance that most executives seek when deciding where they are going to allocate their precious time.
So what’s the problem? Time and focus. Content creation gets delegated and the quality becomes lackluster, irregular and burdensome.
How can you change this pattern of failure?
Start with these actionable steps to help improve quality and efficiency:
Schedule a Leadership Meeting
Your agency’s best experts are its leaders. They are the glue that binds and have more credibility tying their knowledge to a particular expertise. They are also less likely to leave, taking any equity built amongst prospects with them.
Incorporate content development into one status meeting per month with your principals in attendance. Review issues impacting clients. Poll the account teams to determine which topics best address current client needs. Use these topics to generate content ideas for that month – client work then doubles as content strategy time for the agency.
Assign a Research Team
Good content is based on good research. Task your account teams with collecting the necessary facts relating to key topics. It will cut cold writing time in half while enriching your team's service provision and overall professional development.
Consider an Expert vs. Agency Blog
Ask your principals to create an expert blog highlighting a particular industry or service niche. These blogs will both live apart from AND directly link to your website. To illustrate, check out: barkleyus.com.
By decentralizing content, you will reach a much larger audience and inspire team leaders to take their ideas to bigger and better realms.
The world of agency blogs is a crowded and often dull space. Take steps to streamline your process and achieve an expert position. Your new business rewards will be measurable.