As a marketing agency, you know you’re capable of delivering exceptional results for your clients. Yet, one of the biggest challenges is landing new contracts and expanding your client base. 

To secure new business, it’s essential to pitch your agency effectively, and that’s where a strong capabilities presentation comes in. A well-crafted agency capabilities deck not only highlights your unique services and expertise but also showcases how you can elevate a potential client’s business. 

It gives prospects a clear picture of what sets your agency apart and why you’re the right choice to meet their needs. Whether you’re meeting with a new client, delivering a pitch, or responding to an RFP, a capabilities deck is a vital tool for demonstrating your value and building trust. 

Not sure what to include? Let’s explore the key components that make a marketing capabilities presentation a successful sales tool.

What Is an Agency Capabilities Deck and Why Do You Need One?

An agency capabilities deck is a concise, strategic overview of your agency’s services, expertise, and proven success. It serves as the “north star” for showcasing what your agency can deliver, how you deliver it, and why potential clients should choose to work with you. 

By summarizing your key offerings and highlighting relevant case studies, it provides a clear picture of your strengths and positions your agency as the ideal partner to address client needs and drive results.

Why Are Agency Capabilities Deck Important?

When executed well, a capabilities presentation can offer a significant competitive edge. However, if not crafted carefully, it can come across as a lengthy, uninspiring sales pitch that’s easy for prospects to overlook. 

Having a strong agency capes deck provides your agency the opportunity to:

1. Gain Credibility 

By presenting a well-crafted capabilities deck, you not only showcase your expertise and services but also demonstrate your commitment to transparency and client success. Trust forms the foundation of any effective partnership, and when clients see that you prioritize their needs and understand their challenges, they are more likely to engage and invest in a long-term relationship.

2. Differentiate Your Agency  

A clear and concise presentation not only reinforces your credibility but also emphasizes the client-focused benefits you offer. In a crowded marketplace where many agencies claim similar capabilities, your presentation showcases your unique approach and proven track record, making it clear why potential clients should choose you over the competition.

3. Prove You Can Solve the CMOs Greatest Challenges

Addressing prospect pain points is a crucial step in demonstrating your commitment to solving their challenges. Explain why your agency is well-equipped to deliver the ideal solution, focusing on how your expertise aligns with their specific challenges, rather than making the conversation solely about your agency. This client-centered approach fosters trust and positions you as a valuable partner in their success.

When to Use (And Not Use) An Agency Capabilities Presentation

A capabilities presentation can be a powerful tool in winning new business, but it’s not something to be used indiscriminately. Knowing when to present your agency’s capabilities—and when to hold back—can be the difference between engaging a prospect and overwhelming them with unnecessary information. By understanding the appropriate context for using your capabilities deck, and customizing it for each scenario, you ensure that your presentation resonates, adds value, and positions your agency as the ideal solution for the client’s specific needs.

When to Use an Agency Capabilities Presentation

• Formal RFP Responses: Responding to a Request for Proposal (RFP) or competing in a pitch? A capabilities presentation gives you the opportunity to present a well-rounded view of your agency. However, this is where customization is critical—address the client’s specific goals and pain points to stand out. A generic pitch won’t win the day in competitive scenarios.
• Networking or Industry Events: For shorter, more general settings like events or conferences, your capabilities presentation needs some customization. Focus on how your agency’s offerings align with industry trends or the particular needs of the event audience, providing a brief yet compelling overview.
• New Business Opportunities: When approaching new prospects, customize your presentation to highlight how your agency can meet their distinct needs. Generic overviews are not as effective as capabilities decks that focus on a specific solution your agency can bring to the table, backed up by relevant case studies.

When Not to Use an Agency Capabilities Presentation

• Established Client Relationships: With long-term clients, you don’t need to present your overall capabilities—they’re already familiar with your strengths. Instead, focus on tailored solutions for their ongoing or future needs. Here, customization means shifting from broad capabilities to specific, solution-driven discussions.
• When You Haven’t Done Your Research: If you don’t fully understand the prospect’s business or pain points, skip the presentation for now. A generic capabilities presentation can do more harm than good. Do the research, understand their unique needs, and then customize your presentation to directly address their challenges.
• Early Casual Conversations: In discovery calls or informal discussions, jumping into a full presentation can feel too scripted. Customize your conversation by asking questions and gaining insight before showing a customized deck later. Let the conversation guide how much of your capabilities you reveal.

8 Components That Make a Great Agency Capabilities Deck

A capabilities deck is more than just a showcase of your agency’s work—it’s your chance to communicate your unique value, expertise and approach in a way that resonates with your audience. A great capabilities presentation goes beyond listing services; it tells a compelling story that connects your agency’s strengths with the specific needs of the client. It’s about making your agency memorable and giving the client confidence that you’re the right partner to help them achieve their goals. 

Let’s dive into the essential elements that transform a standard capabilities presentation into a powerful tool for winning business.

1. Clear Value Proposition 

With thousands of agencies to choose from, what makes yours different from the rest? 

Once your potential client has a basic understanding of who you are and what your agency offers, it’s time to shift your focus to their specific needs and how you can address their challenges.

2. Tailored Approach 

To customize your presentation for a prospect, start by researching their business and industry challenges, which helps tailor your message. Engage them with questions to foster discussion, and present metrics that highlight your success in similar contexts, building credibility and showing the potential impact of your services.

3. Proven Expertise

Nothing demonstrates your point more effectively than a real-life example. Share a success story that illustrates how you’ve helped a client similar to them achieve their goals through your unique approach. Including evidence such as quotes and metrics enhances your credibility and strengthens your case.

4. Services Overview 

Start your services overview with a brief introduction to your agency, highlighting who you are and the range of services you offer. This initial context helps build rapport without making your agency the sole focus of the presentation. 

Provide just enough information to give the potential client a clear understanding of your expertise and capabilities, ensuring that the emphasis remains on how your services can address their specific needs and challenges.

5. Measurable Results 

As you explain why your company is the ideal fit for the client’s needs, incorporate testimonials and case studies from previous clients with similar requirements. Present clear, easy-to-understand data that illustrates the value you provided and its positive impact on their bottom line.

By presenting hard data and metrics, you can effectively showcase the ROI you’ve delivered for past clients, providing potential clients with tangible proof of your ability to drive results. 

6. Visual Appeal

According to research, 100% of people think a presentation slide should include visuals, and people prefer that about one quarter of the slide be composed of text at most.

A visually engaging design, characterized by professional aesthetics, minimal text, and impactful imagery, helps capture and maintain the audience’s attention. This approach not only enhances understanding but also reinforces your message, making it more memorable.

7. Strategic Process

You don’t need to reveal all the secrets behind the curtain, but providing insight into your process fosters trust and authenticity, ultimately helping prospects in their decision-making. 

Outline your business processes so they can visualize the experience of working with you. Highlight any unique aspects of your process that differentiate you from the competition. By doing so, you not only build confidence but also demonstrate your commitment to transparency.

8. Client Testimonials

72% of customers trust a business more after reading positive reviews and testimonials. Client testimonials are a powerful addition to your deck, offering genuine proof of your agency’s success. By featuring quotes or video testimonials from past clients, you build trust and authority, showcasing tangible results that resonate with potential clients. Here’s a few tips to encourage more referrals and testimonials for your agency.

How to Structure Your Agency Capabilities Deck

Now that we’ve explored the key components of an effective agency capabilities deck, it’s essential to understand how to structure your presentation for maximum impact. By thoughtfully arranging your content, you can effectively highlight your strengths, address client needs, and create a compelling case for why your agency is the right choice.

1. Introduction and Value Proposition 

Provide a brief refresher on who you are, highlighting your years in business and the qualifications of your team, which serve as easy wins to establish credibility. This initial overview should reinforce your expertise while emphasizing the client-focused benefits, ensuring that the prospect understands why engaging with your agency is a worthwhile opportunity.

2. Client Pain Points 

Focusing too much on your agency can lead to an awkward dynamic, where the prospect feels sidelined. By recognizing their specific needs early in the presentation, you demonstrate that you value their concerns and have tailored your approach accordingly. 

Since they are already familiar with your agency from their research, discussing their pain points reinforces your relevance and sets the stage for how you can effectively address their challenges.

3. Core Capabilities and Services 

Highlighting core capabilities and services is the perfect opportunity to ensure alignment with the prospect’s needs. When presenting your core capabilities and services, organize them logically to create a clear narrative that aligns with the prospect’s needs. 

Focus on highlighting areas of expertise that are directly relevant to the client, ensuring they can easily see how your offerings can address their specific challenges.

4. Case Studies and Proof Points 

By showcasing real-life examples of how you’ve solved challenges for past clients, you help potential clients visualize the outcomes they can expect. When presenting case studies, be sure to include specific details such as the strategies you developed, any brand audits conducted, and key metrics of success—numbers that illustrate the impact of your work. 

Highlight any substantial growth the company experienced as a result of your efforts. The more evidence you provide, including client quotes and measurable outcomes, the stronger your case will be. 

5. Process Overview 

Demonstrating your process helps manage expectations about what collaboration will entail. In your process overview, clearly outline your unique approach to delivering results by breaking it down into simple, digestible steps. 

This structured format helps potential clients understand how you navigate projects from start to finish, highlighting the thoughtfulness and strategy behind each phase. By simplifying your process, you make it easier for clients to visualize their journey with your agency.

6. Results and Metrics 

Let your numbers do the talking. Include specific examples such as percentage increases in sales, improved conversion rates, or reductions in costs. By providing these concrete metrics, you not only demonstrate your agency’s effectiveness but also help potential clients envision the tangible benefits they can expect from your partnership.

7. Call to Action 

Finally, outline the next steps for collaborating with your agency. This may involve sharing details about your onboarding process or explaining the decision-making timeline on their side. 

Ensure that everyone involved in the meeting understands these steps to keep the momentum going, and establish an actionable timeline for all stakeholders. Clarity at this stage is crucial for facilitating a smooth transition and moving forward.

Crafting a Compelling Agency Capabilities Deck to Win Clients

Key components of a successful capabilities deck include a clear value proposition, a tailored approach to addressing client needs, proven expertise through relevant case studies, and measurable results that demonstrate your impact. By organizing your presentation logically and incorporating visual appeal, you create an engaging experience that resonates with prospects.

Ultimately, a well-structured capabilities presentation equips you to confidently showcase your strengths, address client pain points, and outline a collaborative path forward, making it a vital tool for any marketing agency looking to expand its client base.

If you’re looking to elevate your agency’s business development strategy, but find yourself with little to no time for securing new clients, that’s where Catapult comes in. We identify and engage potential clients, ultimately finding new business wins – let’s talk about how our team can help your agency grow! 

When it comes to growing your business and hitting sales targets, the conversation often revolves around lead generation—getting potential clients into the pipeline. But here’s the thing: lead generation can’t exist in a vacuum. Without demand generation—strategic marketing efforts to create awareness and interest—your leads will dry up fast. 

Marketing doesn’t just help get your name out there; it fuels your entire sales process. From building credibility through blogs and social media to having an impressive website and creating compelling sales collateral. Demand generation and lead generation go hand in hand. The real question isn’t which one you need—it’s how well these two critical components are working together to drive your sales.

Let’s dive into the difference between demand generation and lead generation—and why you need both to fuel sustained growth.

Understanding Demand Generation

Demand generation is the strategic marketing function focused on creating awareness and interest—or “demand”—for your services. Its core purpose is to engage your target audience with valuable, educational content that sparks curiosity and gets prospects to “raise their hands” and reach out for more information.

Rather than pushing a hard sell, demand generation nurtures relationships at every stage of the customer journey. It’s designed to build trust and familiarity with your brand, making it more likely that prospects will convert into high-quality leads. In fact, leads converting from demand generation efforts tend to have higher conversion rates because they’re typically more informed and engaged than those generated through traditional outbound sales efforts. By the time they reach your sales team, these prospects already know, like, and trust your brand, making them more likely to close.

Demand generation operates at the early stages of the sales cycle, using a mix of tactics and channels to reach and engage potential customers:

• Organic social media
• Paid social media
• Email
• SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
• Earned media (e.g., PR, influencer mentions)
• Paid media (e.g., ads, sponsored content)

The goal is to get your brand in front of the right audience and create a steady stream of inbound interest. Once a prospect engages, it’s the sales team’s job to convert them into customers. But because demand generation leads are already warmed up with brand knowledge, they’re far more likely to buy and even refer your services to others.

Understanding Lead Generation

While demand generation is about attracting prospects to your business, lead generation takes a more proactive, outbound approach. It’s the “boots on the ground” strategy, where a dedicated team or individual actively seeks out potential customers and initiates contact. Lead generation requires focused effort to build targeted lists, conduct ongoing outreach, and engage prospects directly. Instead of waiting for prospects to come to you, lead generation is all about going out and finding them.

Key areas of lead generation include: 

1. Targeting ideal clients

The first step is identifying your ideal customers—those who are most likely to need or benefit from your products or services. This involves understanding their needs, pain points, and industry, and then crafting a tailored approach to engage them.

2. Cold calling/emailing

This is the traditional backbone of outbound lead generation. Reaching out to potential customers via phone or email introduces them to your business and opens the door to further conversations. It’s not just about volume; it’s about crafting messages that resonate and capture the attention of your ideal prospects.

3. Networking

Industry events, trade shows, and professional gatherings are goldmines for lead generation. Face-to-face interactions allow for personal connection and relationship-building, which can significantly increase the likelihood of converting prospects into leads.

4. Sales pitches and presentations

Tailored presentations and sales pitches are often necessary to convert high-value leads. Whether over the phone, in person, or via video call, the goal is to showcase the value of your offerings in a way that speaks directly to the prospect’s needs.

5. Market expansion

Sometimes, finding new leads requires exploring new markets or sectors where your business can expand. Lead generation often involves researching and identifying untapped opportunities, whether geographically or within new industries.

6. Partnership development

Building relationships with other businesses can lead to mutual benefit, creating opportunities for referrals, co-marketing initiatives, or joint ventures. Strategic partnerships can become a powerful lead source when both parties are aligned.

The goal of outbound lead generation is to expand your business’s reach, keep your pipeline full, and increase sales. This approach is especially effective when paired with demand generation efforts, ensuring your team has a pipeline of warm, informed leads ready to be engaged.

Why You Need Both: The Synergy Between Demand Generation and Lead Generation

Demand generation and lead generation are two sides of the same coin. While they have distinct functions, they work together to fuel a complete business development strategy. Relying solely on one over the other can leave gaps in your pipeline, but when they operate in harmony, they create a powerful synergy that drives sustainable growth. Here’s why you need both:

1. Building awareness vs. capturing interest 

Demand generation creates the awareness and interest necessary to prime your audience. It’s the top-of-funnel activity that ensures your target market knows who you are, what you offer, and why they should care. On the other hand, lead generation captures that interest and turns it into actionable opportunities for your sales team. Without demand generation, your outreach efforts will likely fall flat as potential customers won’t know who you are or trust your brand. Without lead generation, the awareness you’ve created will struggle to convert into tangible business outcomes.

2. Long-term brand building vs. immediate engagement

Demand generation focuses on long-term brand building. It’s about creating a consistent presence in the minds of your audience, nurturing them over time with valuable content and engagement. Lead generation, meanwhile, provides short-term wins by identifying prospects who are ready to engage now. Combining the two ensures you’re not only building a pipeline for the future but also securing opportunities in the present.

3. Warm vs. cold prospects 

When demand generation is working effectively, it warms up your prospects before they enter the lead generation phase. By the time your sales team reaches out, prospects are already familiar with your brand, your value proposition, and are more likely to be receptive to further conversation. This reduces the time and effort spent on cold leads and improves conversion rates, as you’re now talking to a more educated and interested audience.

4. Efficient sales process 

An aligned demand and lead generation strategy streamlines your sales process. Demand generation ensures that the leads coming into your funnel are high quality—meaning they have a genuine interest in what you offer. Lead generation then takes these warm leads and drives them toward action. This reduces wasted time on unqualified leads and allows your sales team to focus their efforts where it matters most: on prospects that are already primed to buy.

5. Fueling consistent growth

A healthy business development strategy needs both consistent inbound interest and targeted outbound efforts. Demand generation feeds the top of your funnel with a steady stream of interested prospects, while lead generation actively pushes qualified prospects through the sales pipeline. Together, they ensure that your funnel remains full and that opportunities are constantly moving forward.

Building a Well Oiled Business Development Arm

The debate between demand gen and lead gen isn’t about choosing one over the other, but rather understanding their complementary roles in a successful business development function. While lead gen focuses on capturing individual leads, demand gen creates broader brand awareness and engages prospects at every stage. 

By integrating both, companies can take a more holistic approach to marketing that maximizes engagement and ultimately drives higher conversion rates. The challenge isn’t just recognizing the importance of both demand gen and lead gen – it’s about executing them effectively. 

Many companies find themselves lacking internal resources or struggling to align these critical functions. That’s where Catapult steps in. We’re not just about managing demand gen and lead gen – we’re about ensuring their seamless alignment and success. If you’re ready to propel your business forward, let’s build a unique growth plan for your company!

In the fast-paced world of adtech, speed to market can make or break a company’s success. As an adtech company, you may have the most innovative product, a deep understanding of market needs, and a clear vision for growth. But without a dedicated team to drive new business, your go-to-market strategy could falter before it even begins.

Why Outsource New Business?

Outsourcing new business efforts isn’t just a stopgap measure—it’s a strategic decision that allows you to focus on what you do best while leveraging the expertise of specialists who know how to penetrate the market quickly and effectively. Here’s why outsourcing new business has been a game-changer according to several firms we’ve worked with:

1. Expertise Without the Overhead

Building an in-house sales and business development team is time-consuming and expensive. From recruiting to training, the costs can quickly add up, diverting valuable resources from other critical areas of your business. By outsourcing, you gain immediate access to a team of seasoned professionals who bring a wealth of experience in navigating the complex adtech landscape.

2. Faster Time to Market

In the competitive adtech industry, timing is everything. Outsourced firms are equipped with the tools, processes, and connections to hit the ground running. They can quickly identify and engage key decision-makers, accelerate your sales cycle, and get your product in front of potential clients faster than an in-house team that’s still finding its footing.

3. Scalability and Flexibility

As your business grows, your needs will change. An outsourced new business firm offers the flexibility to scale efforts up or down based on your current objectives. Whether you’re launching a new product, entering a new market, or doubling down on an existing strategy, your outsourced partner can adjust their approach to meet your needs without the challenges of hiring or downsizing staff.

4. Focus on Core Competencies

Your team’s expertise lies in developing cutting-edge adtech solutions—not in managing the intricacies of business development. By outsourcing new business efforts, your internal team can focus on innovation and product development while your external partner takes care of generating leads, building relationships, and closing deals.

5. Data-Driven Insights

Outsourced new business firms bring a data-driven approach to sales and marketing. They leverage advanced analytics and CRM systems to track every interaction, providing you with valuable insights into what’s working and where adjustments are needed. This level of visibility allows you to make informed decisions and refine your go-to-market strategy for maximum impact.

Choosing the Right Partner

Not all outsourced firms are created equal, so it’s essential to choose a partner who understands the adtech industry and aligns with your company’s goals. Look for firms with a proven track record of success in your sector, a deep understanding of your target market, and a commitment to transparency and collaboration.

Outsourcing new business efforts isn’t just a practical solution for adtech companies lacking internal resources—it’s a strategic path to accelerated growth. By partnering with an experienced firm, you can go to market faster, scale efficiently, and stay focused on what you do best: driving innovation in adtech.

If you made it this far, Catapult offers a complimentary consultation to determine if outsourcing is right for your business. It’s not right for everyone, but Catapult can help you weigh the pros and cons.

From figuring out this whole AI thing, keeping up with the ever-growing demand for integrated tools and strategies, and the big one, consistently adding value to our client relationships– there are a variety of areas sellers need to navigate in the new year to remain competitive.  

That’s where this blog comes in – think of it as your friendly guide to help you prepare to navigate what’s on the horizon in 2024. We’ll dive into the trends that are reshaping our industry, like understanding why brands might be breaking up with agencies more often, and how the rise of AI in marketing is changing the game. 

What to Expect from Brand Marketers in 2024

1. Brands Will Be Replacing More Agency Partners 

A new marketing relationship survey indicates that a rising number of brands are unsatisfied with their existing agency partners.The report indicates that 55% of brand marketers who responded are considering a change of agency within the next six months. Why? According the the survey, top reasons including:

• Dissatisfaction with value: Brands are increasingly dissatisfied with the value provided by their current agencies. This dissatisfaction is a primary factor driving brands to consider changing their agency partners.
  
• Issues with delivery: Brands are also unhappy with the delivery of services by their agencies. This includes aspects like the timeliness, quality, and effectiveness of the services provided.

• Agency-client disparities: There is a significant disparity between the perceptions of brands and agencies regarding the reasons for ending agency-client relationships. While brands cite dissatisfaction with value and delivery as top reasons, agencies underestimate these factors.

• Changes in strategic needs: While agencies are recognized for bringing strong strategies, they are perceived as overcharging for their services. Brands are seeking partners who can offer both strategic excellence and cost-effectiveness.

• Chemistry and professionalism: For brands looking to select a new agency partner, chemistry and professionalism have emerged as important aspects. This indicates a need for agencies to align more closely with the culture and values of their clients.

• Demand for specific services: There is an increased demand for specific services like content creation and video production, suggesting that brands are looking for agencies with particular capabilities in these areas.

2. Acquisitions and Consolidation Will Increase Pressure

Boutique and niche service offerings might run into a bit of more competition going into the new year as agency holding companies continue their acquisition spending sprees. This gobbling up of the market share has been inspired by a multitude of factors, including:

• Client demand for integrated services: The consolidation trend is largely driven by client demands for integrated, simplified service offerings. Agencies are responding by creating larger, more comprehensive entities that can offer a range of services under one roof, making them more attractive and efficient partners for brands.

• AI and tech integration: Agencies are heavily investing in AI and technology, focusing on measurement and insights. This trend is driven by advertisers’ demands for more robust analytics and validation of their campaigns’ effectiveness. Major acquisitions, such as Omnicom’s purchase of Flywheel and Stagwell’s acquisition of Left Field Labs, emphasize the growing importance of digital commerce solutions and AI in marketing.

• Influencer and social marketing emphasis: There’s a notable shift towards integrating influencer and social marketing capabilities. With the influencer market and social media spending growing rapidly, major holding companies are acquiring specialized agencies in this area. These acquisitions, such as WPP’s purchase of Goat and Stagwell’s acquisition of Movers+Shakers, show that a strong social and influencer presence is essential for modern advertising campaigns.

• Streamlined financials and full-service models: Brands are demanding more streamlined, integrated agency models. This has led to mergers aimed at simplifying structures and offering comprehensive services. Examples include WPP combining VML, Y&R, and Wunderman Thompson into VML, and M&C Saatchi’s restructure to combine multiple subsidiaries. This consolidation aims to make agencies more appealing and easier to work with for large clients.

• Increased focus on detailed reporting and campaign measurement: Recent acquisitions indicate a future trend where advertisers will demand more detailed reporting and precise campaign measurement. The emphasis is shifting from creative novelty to data-driven insights and analytics.

• Adaptation to the creator economy: The integration of influencer and social marketing arms within agencies reflects an adaptation to the creator economy. This approach allows brands to engage with audiences in more authentic and creative ways, leveraging the influence of social media personalities and platforms.
  

3. More Project Work, Less Traditional Pitches 

In 2024, we anticipate that more and more brands will be leaning toward more project-based work and run fewer traditional agency searches. We have several reasons for this prediction:

• The cost of a pitch is upwards of $1M with brands footing most of the bill 
• In 2023, agency pitches brought in 35% less revenue Y/Y
• Continued economic uncertainty 

Going into 2024, brand marketers are being asked to do more with less spend. These stats coupled with the increasing amount of resources like Wripple, that make it easy for them to get matched with agencies who can quickly start executing on projects, makes us believe that in the new year, many brands will ditch the traditional pitch and look for faster means of completing project-based initiatives. 

4. The AI Revolution Will Continue to Grow

Marketers will continue to focus on leveraging AI in 2024 due to its transformative impact on various aspects of marketing. Primary areas of focus will include hyper-personalization, content creation, and predictive analytics. This will enable marketers to create highly targeted and personalized campaigns by analyzing vast amounts of data, thus offering customer experiences at an unprecedented scale.

The challenge will be balancing this personalization with consumer privacy concerns. AI’s integration into marketing and technology software will impact all facets of marketing, offering both opportunities and challenges. Marketers will search for solutions that help them maintain content authenticity and originality. 

AI’s role in predictive analytics will also be significant, aiding marketers in foreseeing market trends and consumer behavior. Overall, the integration of AI is expected to drive marketing towards more efficient, responsive, and customer-centric approaches.

What These Trends Mean For Sellers in 2024

With these expected trends, ad tech sellers, sponsorship sellers, and ad agencies need to focus on aligning closely with client needs, specializing in high-demand services, adapting to market consolidation, leveraging AI and technology, and being flexible and responsive to project-based work demands. This presents several areas for new business leaders to focus on in the new year:

1. Consistently Add Maximum Value

Acquiring a new client costs 5x more than retaining an existing one. To ensure you’re not one of the agencies on the chopping block, take a look at your existing accounts to ensure your team is offering as much value as possible to secure the relationship for the long-haul. A few ways to do this include:

• Develop customized solutions: Move beyond generic service offerings. Tailor your strategies and solutions specifically to each client’s unique needs and business goals. Show that you understand their specific market challenges and opportunities.

• Have a results-driven approach: Focus on delivering measurable results. Utilize data analytics to track campaign performance and make data-driven decisions. This approach will demonstrate your commitment to achieving tangible outcomes for your clients.

• Have regular communication and transparency: Establish a clear and consistent line of communication. Regularly update clients on progress, challenges, and successes. Transparency in your operations builds trust and shows your commitment to their success.

• Always educate and inform: Build a culture that prides themselves on going the extra mile. Always strive to provide clients with insights and knowledge about the latest marketing trends and how they can be leveraged for their benefit.

• Strategic partnerships and network utilization: Always remember that there’s enough success for everyone to go around. As agency conglomerates continue to expand, boutique shops need to find creative ways to offer omnichannel solutions that drive results. If you can’t execute a capability, leverage your network to offer clients additional value through strategic partnerships, expanding their reach and resources.

2. Now’s the Time to Start Proactively Reaching Out to Marketers: 

With this many brands suggesting they are looking for new partners, now is a great time to start building relationships with brand marketers. Getting started can be challenging if you don’t already have an outreach strategy. But here’s our best tips to get going:

• Research and identify prospects: Success always starts with your list. You have to be contacting the right people. Conduct thorough research to identify brands that are the best fit for your agency’s expertise. Look for brands that may be experiencing challenges your agency is uniquely qualified to solve. Not sure what kind of brands to go after? Start by looking at your agency roster and identify right to win clients.

• Personalized communication: No, we don’t mean adding their first name to a mass email. After conducting thorough research, reach out with personalized messages that demonstrate your knowledge of their brand and industry. Avoid generic sales pitches. Instead, focus on how your agency can address their specific challenges or goals.

• Develop a must-try offer: Whether you’re providing a service or a software, provide something complimentary to get your foot in the door. This could be a free trial or a free brand audits or consultation. This can be an effective way to demonstrate the value you can bring to their business while also building trust with the potential client.

• Get comfortable with following up: Email cadences are your friend. If you think you’re being annoying by sending 7 emails over a few months– you’re not. It takes an average of 8 touches to get an initial meeting with a decision maker. So strap in… and get comfortable with following up regularly until they book the call or tell you to go away.

3. AI Won’t Replace You. But It Can Help You Sell More & Should Be Used Correctly.

AI isn’t going to steal anyone’s job in 2024. It is still very much in its beginning stages and is merely a tool that needs to be utilized in your toolkit. But it’s an incredibly powerful tool that should be leveraged both as a selling proposition, and internally to improve your sales processes. 

Using AI as a unique selling point:

Brands are going to continue looking for partners who can use AI to reduce costs and streamline processes and help solve problems quickly. AI innovation will be a unique selling point in 2024 and something partners will get public recognition for. For example, this year Adweek announced the first-ever AI award to MediaMonks for their use of AI in both internal operations and client work. There will be an increased focus on how partners can use AI in meaningful and creative ways for clients.

A few ways you can utilize AI as a unique selling proposition to brand marketers include:

• Predictive analytics for targeted campaigns
• Personalized customer experiences
• Automated content creation and optimization
• Streamlined production 
• Enhanced ROI measurement and analytics
• Combating social injustices and stereotypes through brand messaging 
• Voice and visual search optimization 
• Programmatic advertising
• Interactive and immersive experiences
• Inclusive and purpose driven advertising

AI is still a new territory– and in many cases, it isn’t quite living up to where marketers are hoping it can be.  So it’s important that whatever you are providing brands delivers on the promise you sold. 

Using AI to enhance your internal sales process

At Catapult, AI has been a major topic among our clients and how they can leverage it to enhance their internal sales processes.

Dixie Gilbert, Director of Partnerships at Catapult  commented, “I was just having a discussion about AI prompts and how AI is messing up good content because everybody’s using the same AI cadence.” She goes on to explain that the most important thing to know about AI is that you really have to learn how to prompt AI and then craft your messages around it. It should be a creative assistant. Prompting really holds a key for creative collaboration.” 

Remember, AI is a tool, not a replacement. So when crafting scripts, decks, email cadences using it– remember to proofread and add a human element to everything it produces. 

Conclusion: Close More Deals in 2024

One thing brands, agencies, sponsorship sellers and adtech providers alike share– the economic state of 2024 is unpredictable, yet we are being asked to hit higher and higher quotas.

Right now, expanding your sales budget for tools and adding to overhead may not be an option. But you need senior level sellers out there getting your products and services in front of brand marketers.

If this resonates with you, outsourcing your sales operations may be a great solution. 

Catapult is the industry’s leading fractional new business development firm for agencies, sponsorship sellers and adtech providers. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you close more deals in 2024 and beyond.

By Jody Sutter

New business is one of those responsibilities that should be fully integrated into your daily schedule—some days in a more active and focused way, other days more passively and opportunistically.

But for a lot of agency leaders, it’s not.

New business is an activity for times when the pipeline dries up. Or it’s what you do when you’re in a competitive pitch. When it’s not a daily habit, consistent action is hard to sustain—because it means starting over again and again and again…

You’ll reach points when you conclude you can’t go on like this any longer. You’ll pause, gather your team, and brainstorm ideas for a better business development strategy. 

There’s satisfaction in developing new ideas. It’s inherently optimistic and creative! You remove yourself from the daily grind and whisk your team off to an inspirational spot to think big strategic thoughts and reshape your agency’s destiny. And I encourage this! In fact, I conduct these kinds of workshops. They’re energizing and I get satisfaction from watching an agency team walk away excited about the plans they’re going to implement.

What I don’t enjoy is watching them neglect those plans as soon as the daily grind takes over again.

Good Habits are Helped by Strong Frameworks

Acting on new ideas requires us to form new productive habits, which is a challenge in and of itself. I’m not an expert on how humans form habits, but I can speak from personal and professional experience that good habits around business development are aided by strong frameworks.

I created such a framework a few years ago after I’d had an epiphany: if money, time, and resources were no object, an agency would do it all—blogs, Instagram Lives, webinars, proprietary research, PR, prospecting outreach… Anything that you didn’t like to do or have time to do, you’d hire someone else for or you’d outsource it. 

But time and money is always an issue. And agency leaders are rarely going to do stuff they don’t like to do. 

What I realized was that to make a business development strategy stick, it must be based on tactics that are right for that agency.

This inspired me to create the New Business Ecosystem™ framework.  

A New Business Ecosystem includes anything your agency uses to support business development, from a pricing proposal to a website to social media strategy. Like a natural ecosystem, it promotes growth when the interconnected parts are suitable for the environment. 

When I’m building a New Business Ecosystem with my clients, we look at all they’re doing and all the tools they’re using and we assess their utility against goals, resources, and strategic positioning. We ask:

• Are the tools and activities right for the culture and environment?
• Do they encourage and nurture growth?
• Do they support the agency’s goals?
• Are there too many tactics to easily sustain?
• Do they all interact in a healthy way? 

Usually, the outcome of this exercise results in a sort of kanban board for new business. From there we can create a plan and define the activities required to get to the goals

Filling the Void between What You Want and How to Get There 

This plan helps fill in the void between stating a goal, such as increasing revenue by 25%, and taking the right steps to achieve it.

A New Business Ecosystem offers you not only a bird’s-eye view of the activities that are most likely to get you closer to your goals, but a roadmap for what you must be doing on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual basis. 

When you know exactly what actions to take, and those actions nudge you out of your comfort zone, you start to see progress. You can apply this to any goal you have in life, whether it’s to retire at age 50, learn how to juggle, or grow your agency’s total revenue by 25%.

Your New Business Ecosystem will be custom to your agency, but here’s my advice on the actions you should take on an annual, quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily basis.

Annually 

Your New Business Ecosystem is essentially your new business plan and you should evaluate it annually. Look for opportunities to systematize and scale what you’re already doing if it’s producing good results. And explore what can be added or taken out of your ecosystem to keep it at an optimal level of health.

Here are four areas to consider:

1. Recommit to your core tactics. Analyze the core business-generating activities you’ve chosen based on your new business strengths. (Here’s a quick and fun quiz you can take to find out your new business strengths profile.) Are they working? Do they need improvement or optimization? Can they be delegated to others or are they still dependent on your involvement?
2. Add complementary tactics. If you’ve got the core activities running on autopilot, consider adding complementary activities that support them. For example, if you’ve got momentum behind a speaker strategy and it’s starting to generate leads consistently, complementary activities might include nurturing those leads with a webinar series, getting a better CRM tool in place to manage those leads, or adding functionality to your agency’s website to better engage leads.
3. Assess the health of intellectual property. Review IP workhorses like case studies, team bios, and credentials documents to see if they need updates. These don’t change frequently, they do require care and attention if they are going to work effectively. Be proactive instead of being forced to make last-minute and hasty updates to fulfill an immediate need. 
4. Review and recalibrate new business policies and procedures. Are they still working smoothly? Do they help you make the right decisions about what new business to pursue?

Quarterly 

I’ve become a big fan of quarterly working sprints to accomplish goals (I think they can be so effective I’ve re-engineered most of my programs to include them).

Quarterly sprints can be a great way to tackle both necessary projects, like a website redesign, that easily get pushed aside by daily emergencies and distractions as well as “always improving” projects—projects that push you into new areas and have a positive effect on your new business operations over time. These are often the complementary activities I mentioned in bullet #2 above—initiatives you’ve been wanting to start but never seem to have the bandwidth for.

For your first foray into quarterly sprints, choose one or two goals and make them manageable. Outline a plan for what must get done on a daily, weekly or ongoing basis and use that plan to assign yourself and your team weekly actions that, if taken, will lead you to successful completion. 

This approach works because it deconstructs big, amorphous statements like, “we’ll improve how our agency generates leads” which can be hard for teams to convert into action, into a tactical road map that everyone understands and follows. Seeing progress being made instills a priceless sense of satisfaction.

Daily, weekly, and monthly

I lump these together because they’re all related to frequent and consistent action required to keep your new business ecosystem humming.

Plus, they tend to vary by goal, individual, and agency.  For example, if your core activity is outbound sales, your activities will include things like daily list-building and sales calls. If your activity is content marketing, your weekly and monthly activities will be related to keeping the content engine running: writing, shooting, editing, formatting, distribution, and promotion.

And, of course, always include:

• A regularly scheduled new business status meeting. Many agencies have these weekly (a few neglect to have them at all, which astounds me). I like a biweekly cadence, which frees up time on the schedule and allows you a wider perspective to see progress over time.
• Pipeline report updates and distribution. I’m all for a wider distribution of the pipeline report, especially if you expect most people at your agency to be involved in new business. Consider having a modified report that omits sensitive financial information that you can share with your larger team. I bet you’ll find they feel more invested and willing to participate.

And, finally, document ongoing activities that won’t be going away any time soon in an operations manual so that you can grow and scale them as your agency grows.

I was recently a guest on Marcel Petitpas’s The Agency Profit podcast and Marcel and I talked in-depth about how to operationalize a new business strategy, including many of the points I make here (if you want to take a listen, click this link). He asked me how an agency owner can stay accountable to goals and objectives when it’s so easy to get pulled off track by client needs.

My answer: lean on your New Business Ecosystem. 

Having a plan and supporting structure in place makes it much easier to regain the momentum you’ve lost. It eliminates that common and demotivating feeling of “starting from scratch”. 

Because the fact is you will get derailed (I haven’t figured out how to crack that case yet but when I do, you’ll all be the first to know)—you just want to minimize its impact by going back to the actions that are right for you. 

About The Author:

Jody Sutter, is the owner of The Sutter Company, a business development consultancy that specializes in working with leadership at small ad agencies who are underperforming when it comes to winning new business and would like to win the right clients consistently but also make the process less chaotic and exhausting for their teams. To learn more about how she can help your agency, schedule a free 45-minute consultation here. For more information about The Sutter Company’s programs for optimizing new business at small agencies, go to www.thesuttercompany.com.

The average agency-client relationship lasts 36 months, which means at any given moment one of your competitors is about to lose a client. But what if you were the one that is losing the client? Do you have the resources in place to make sure you can protect your agency from the inevitable turnover of clients? 

The first resource your team needs to be investing in to protect against churn is a proactive Business Development Director.  It should come as no surprise that experienced business development professionals capture a bigger slice of the new business pie than those just getting started. The tough part is identifying those directors with the right type of experience to best grow your firm.

In order to help you identify those Business Development Directors with the right type of proactive experience, we’ve listed out 6 interview questions for your next internal or outsourced partner.  Being smart with these questions can make a massive difference in the amount of growth your team experiences this year.

6 Interview Questions For Agency Business Development Directors

How much “hunting” have you done?

New business—indeed, any sale—is about experience in the field.  Isn’t it amazing how the best new business people always seem a bit lucky?  A lot of “right place at the right time”. Well it isn’t luck, it’s hours and hours of experience working through what prospects want and need so that their message is the one bubbling to the top over all the other agencies out there pursuing new business.

How comfortable are you with approaching a prospect cold?

Cold calling or cold emailing is a complicated business. Even with tools to increase your chances of setting appointments, you have to be able to handle rejection (or worse…the cold loneliness of no response) every day without letting it affect the next conversation. If you find someone that thrives on making conversations out of nothing, then you’ve found a keeper.

What role did you play in helping to win a new client?

There are many stages to a new business win. Your potential new employee may have been involved in the first outreach call, set the appointment, gave the presentation or closed the business.  It’s vital that they can recognize the value of their contribution—without over-valuing it. New business acquisition is often a team sport and we want to make sure that their expertise fits in the current team’s mix and brings value to any new business engagement.

Were you involved in face to face meetings with clients or teeing up initial conversations? What has been your involvement with client new business presentations?

While closing and prospecting are both important, they are two totally different skill sets. Many agency new business people come from a background of receiving RFPs and responding to them.  That’s a very different task than going out and creating opportunities out of nothing. If you’re moving into a more proactive new business approach, your new business person needs to reflect this move.

How do you go about building strong relationships?

Business development is all about maintaining and improving relationships. Transparency, honesty, mutual respect and shared interests are as vital in a sales engagement as they are in any other relationship, and sales professionals who excel at managing their relationships are more likely to be viewed as trustworthy by their clients.

What would clients you closed say about you?

No candidate is going to lead with a negative, but the reason you ask this question is to gauge their willingness to be candid and honest about their weaknesses.  We also want to find out what do they really value? Do they put emphasis on their ability to connect, to persuade, find a problem, or identify a solution? Their answers will open many new questions about their personal style and how they might go about helping potential prospects learn more about your agency.

Finally, if your reaction to a candidate isn’t an emphatic “yes,” it’s a “no.” If they can’t sell themselves then they certainly can’t sell your agency.  Time to keep looking!

When embarking on a proactive prospecting program, there are some core steps that can’t be skipped over on the road to success. And the foundation is developing a solid, well researched target list.  Below are the steps we recommend to clients to set that foundation.

1. Focus On A Vertical

Catapult programs are designed around core verticals or segments. Most often we build out lists with our agency clients by selecting target verticals they are best suited for, where they have subject matter expertise and case studies to provide credibility to prospects. A narrow focus enables you to curate and create outbound messaging to all companies within each selected vertical with a high level of relevance, leading to stronger engagement faster than a general message across verticals typically does.

2. Identify Your Right-To-Win Brands

…and research them well. For each vertical selected, the company list can be narrowed by such criteria as revenue, media spend and location. By targeting the companies that you can build credibility with, you’re able to laser-focus sales efforts around their unique needs. Don’t just rely on lists pulled from your criteria. Review top business rankings lists within specific verticals we are targeting to ensure we have all relevant companies included on the lists for our agency clients.

When researching each company to determine if it fits note challenges the company and/or industry is facing. These insights are later converted into talking points for email and phone outreach. 

3. Uncover Key Decision Makers

When the list is narrowed down to the top companies in a vertical, find the key decision makers within each based on job function and rank. Who the right contacts are will vary depending on your agency’s services. For example, a social media agency surely will want to connect with a social media director. However a branding agency likely would not.

Focus on C-suite, VP and director-level marketing professionals; depending on your agency, you may also want to target manager-level contacts. What’s important is that you’re only targeting decision-makers or influencers. Pro Tip: try to find at least 5 – 7 contacts per company/brand. Experience tells us that there is rarely just one decision maker, and it’s not always the obvious one that will respond and champion engagement with your agency.

It’s also helpful to scour the web for financial statements, press releases and trade articles for mentions of other relevant contacts at the company.

And, once you’ve completed the list, make sure to import it to a CRM database so you can effectively track your outreach. A few that our clients have used Salesforce, Pipedrive, and Hubspot to name a few.

4. Dig Deeper for 1:one or 1:few personalization

Uncovering information on your contact list through LinkedIn helps confirm the employee is still with the company and remains in the appropriate role. LinkedIn is also useful for mining additional contacts in the company – you may find additional relevant prospects you have not found previously.

During this process make sure to take notes of mutual contacts, past employers, links to presentations, schools attended or other points of connection that you can use in your outreach to that contact. You will need the email address information for these contacts found outside of the database. Try looking at the email naming conventions of the other contacts in the company; 90 percent of the time the naming convention will hold for the missing emails. If all else fails, there are a number of online tools available to help find alternative email address suggestions like Clearbit, Hunter.io, or RocketReach.

At this point, you may be asking yourself how to do all this with the resources you have.

At Catapult, we’ve heard, and done, it all to try to crack the code on list building. Calling the company’s main line, filling out a web form, or hoping you have a mutual connection in your core network are not efficient or effective ways to connect with senior decision makers.

And getting the decision maker information is not an easy task. All too often, agencies rely on new business people or account people to track down prospect contact information on their own. If the contact data is even found, it’s often inaccurate and incomplete. This process eats up your team’s time and takes them away from more important business activities.  

To solve this dilemma, many agencies subscribe to database services that provide accurate, direct contact information on prospects. And they supplement this data with their own due diligence to gain information that is relevant, current and provides insights for smarter prospecting messages.

There are a number of database providers available online, such as Winmo, our sister company, which offers vetted and current prospect contact information for relevant to ad agencies, marketing firms and creative agencies. A sophisticated database and intelligence service provides much more than contact information. It also can offer company financial data, existing agency relationships and recent news articles to help you better identify your best prospects.

When selecting a database provider, look for one that employs teams of researchers to validate and refresh the data on a regular basis, at least every 3-6 months. It’s also important that company specializes in advertising and marketing contacts so the prospects align with your target audience. 

 

Your prospect data list is the most important part in agency new business outreach. If you don’t have a relevant and accurate list of prospects and an efficient way to get this data, even the best messaging will fall on deaf ears. Using the steps outlined above, supported by a database platform for efficiency and speed, makes this scalable so business development folks can spend more time on outreach, engagement and conversion to new business…and less time trying to track down contact information!

Can you believe we’re approaching an entirely new decade? As you begin planning for 2020 new business, remember to plan the resources required to support that growth in the new year. While those resources will be unique to your agency’s specific growth plan, it never hurts to follow a proven formula to calculate what you need. To help with this forecasting, we’ve built an Agency Growth Calculator which evaluates your objectives and realistic requirements from each of the following steps of the agency growth funnel.

Understand Your Growth Requirements

Your KPIs are a direct reflection of your overall growth requirements. While this may seem obvious, some agencies find it extremely difficult to clearly identify their metrics for success. Here are some questions to answer during your initial planning meetings to ensure you set the right metrics:

What’s your overall revenue goal?
While there are many approaches for setting your revenue goal for the year, make sure it’s nailed down and clearly communicated prior to the new year so all parties can set operational KPIs off of that plan.

How much have you grown organically?
This gives you a good idea of the outbound effort you need after organic growth.

What’s your typical churn rate (loss of clients)?
You can only put so much on top of the funnel if you’re losing all of it at the bottom. This is why it’s important to understand how much revenue is falling off each month.

How big is this goal in comparison to new business amounts you’ve produced in years past?
Knowing how much you’re planning to grow new business Y/Y is important, particularly so you can understand the resources required to achieve that growth.

What’s your overall pitch win percentage and what’s the win percentage when they are inbound warm leads vs. cold opportunities you have generated?
Be honest when answering this question; the higher pitch win percentage you have, the less outbound effort will be required. Keep in mind that warm opportunities close at a higher rate than cold opportunities.

Have you ever generated a cold pitch opportunity before?
Many agencies rely on referrals for 100% of their pitch opportunities. While those are warm and close at a higher rate, they are not reliable or sustainable. Evaluating this gives you a better understanding for how long it can take to produce cold opportunities in the future.

Define Warm New Business Opportunities

It’s important to understand the amount of new business opportunities your agency brings in. These opportunities typically come from referrals, networking, and word of mouth. And let’s be honest, who doesn’t love these lead sources? They are seen by most agency principals as the most attractive type of lead as it’s free business that came directly to you.

To help generate more of these we recommend activating your core 100 network. We define this as the core network of decision-makers with budget or marketing decision power that you have a 1st-degree relationship with. By connecting with this group at least once per month, whether a simple hello or providing them with relevant thought leadership, the likelihood of getting more referral leads increases significantly.

Lastly, while warm opportunities are nice it’s important you aren’t solely relying on them. Here’s why:

1. They are unpredictable and you never know when your next project will be coming in.
2. You have no control of how your portfolio expands.
3. Losing one major client could drastically impact your revenue.

Now let’s talk about how you can warm opportunities with cold prospecting for ultimate success!

Add Proactive Prospecting For New Opportunities

Since you can’t solely rely on your referral network, you must find a way to incorporate cold prospecting into your mix. Often new business directors will wonder how much outreach is enough? How many phone calls and emails will result in a qualified meeting? We recommend tracking your success rate at each touchpoint. This allows you to know if you are consistently reaching out to enough prospects in your outreach cadence. Proper measurements typically include:

• How many people typically reply to a cold email or call?
• Of those replies, how many of them turn into a discovery meeting/call?
• What number of discovery meetings turn into qualified leads?
• How many qualified leads convert to RFI/RFP opportunities? 
• What’s the win percentage of RFI/RFPs for your agency?

If you’ve never kept track of these numbers before, you can use benchmarks.

Our clients typically see conversion rates of:

• 12% – 15% opens to cold emails (above industry average of 5% – 7%).
• 7% – 10% conversion on call volume to live conversations.
• Approximately 25% of leads moving to discovery and qualifying.
• And 60% or more qualified leads moving to an RFI or RFP.   

Agencies that are just getting started on proactive outreach can see numbers a bit lower than these. Keep in mind many agencies underestimate how many prospects they actually need in their pool and keeping steady pipeline is a full-time job in itself. Make sure you have the resources and bandwidth necessary to fuel the fire.

Estimate The Investment: Time and Money

If you’re an agency executive responsible for driving new business and running the entire agency, be aware of what that double duty is costing you.

If you’re juggling too many tasks, it’s likely you are completing projects, but not doing them exceptionally well. As an agency executive, your time is best served strategically looking at ways to grow the overall business, not just through the lens of new business. If you’re worried about the time and investment it would take to hire someone in-house, we can manage this function for you at Catapult. There’s huge potential in having someone solely focused on bringing in both cold and warm opportunities for your agency.  

 

Now that you have a better understanding the agency growth funnel, what goes into forecasting your new business goals, and the resources required to hit them, check out our Agency Growth Calculator to see how the numbers line up for your business!

Websites are revenue generators; in fact, I’ve written about it before.  If you’re like most agencies, you want to represent your business in the best light which often means refreshing your website once a year, or possibly create an entirely new one.  When undergoing changes it’s critical to not sacrifice your business development efforts.

Often times I hear from clients that they’d prefer to put their prospecting on hold until their website is just the way they like it. Their fear is: I talk to a prospect, they visit my site, they don’t like our old site, and we have now burned that prospect forever. Because of that fear, outreach efforts are put on hold, and new business takes a back seat to web design.  If it’s like most website redesigns, timelines get dragged out and that one month projection somehow turns into three.

Don’t fall into this trap. A four-month hiatus is something your new business outreach can’t afford. Business development is a process that should happen consistently throughout the year, regardless of your website redesign. There are options however to keep your new business machine up and running through situations like this.

Play to your strengths, and drive conversations to those areas with these workarounds:

Landing Pages – I find these are grossly underused in the agency new business world, which is crazy.  They are the easiest way to create specific content attached to your site that is directly relatable to your new business conversation.  Need a page highlighting a particular service, vertical, or expertise?  Create a single new page and link to that while your new site is being build.  This allows you to drive people to something relevant and there is less distraction to some of the weaker parts of your site.

Hosted content – Every good marketing automation platform at this point has the ability to host media content.  That means we can utilize the hosted media links to not only send people to a safe space for content, but we can track every one of those clicks and reads in order to follow up with them at the right time.  For those of you trying to avoid your website completely, there is the added benefit that it is entirely away from your site.
Trying to perfect the imperfect can be a long, daunting task.  Losing sight of your new business goals while obsessing over a website redesign can put you behind your revenue goals by 4-6 months in the blink of an eye.  So if you are starting that site redesign, I’d encourage you to build a few new landing pages, get yourself a few pieces of content hosted, and keep selling!

Agencies win more business when they can better connect to the marketing decision makers they are pitching.  We want to arm our agencies with as much information as possible, so your new business approach is flawless.

We co-hosted this webinar with Chris Martin from Advertiser Perceptions, an expert on making decision makers pick your agency.  Chris will take you deep into the minds and decision processes of marketers so that you can feel confident in your new business approach.

We will cover specific topics like:

• What drives the decisions during the agency selection process for marketers?
• How do they compare your agency competitors during a pitch?
• Which areas of your agency are marketers analyzing before/during a pitch?
• What aren’t marketers telling you about their decision process?