You ever hear the proverb about the Cobbler's children having no shoes? It follows that despite the prowess in shoemaking and repair, the cobblers children walk around barefoot because because there isn't time or attention paid to their needs.
They say that the accountant often has the messiest financial situation and the home contractor lives in a fixer upper. Well, Let's look at agencies and consultancies in this same light.
Pure Genius spray painted in red on concrete
You do great and important work for your clients. You harness the strategic, creative, production, execution and reporting talent in your shop to deliver genius and results every day. But when it comes time to do the marketing for your own brands, the results is lacking. Why is this?
Is it because you're too busy with client work?
Is it because it's easy to put off? Like: "As soon as those two projects wrap up we'll focus internally" but projects keep rolling on in and you never get to it.
Is it because you don't have the rights to use client case studies?
Maybe you just haven't build a strategic plan like you do for clients EVERY DAY!
Or is it because it isn't tied to immediate revenue?
Truth is that it is likely some combination of these things. But let me spin it this way for you. In this brave new world we're contending with, if you want to attract interest, win new business, and dare I say THRIVE, you can't kick this can down the road to another time
The word ‘Ideas’ written on a crumpled piece of paper
Here are a few thoughts for you, centered by this thought: Treat yourself like your most important client. Through this lens, is there really anything that you wouldn't do to make it happen?
Know your audience and build a deep customer persona for them. What level are they? What are their problems? How might those problems be even more challenging now? Imagine that you are an agency with a focus on experiential marketing, how do prospects handle events or the lack of them right now? Where do they go to find solutions to those problems? How do they make decisions?
How Can you develop a POV and create all kinds of helpful, inspiring content that isn't real salesy? How can you look at the customer's purchase journey and think about what types of content might attract them. Or what types of content might get them interested in you. Even what kind of content might get them to ask for your help directly.
How can you go about producing content for these various purposes? You do it for clients all the time. Now you need to do it for your brand with your prospect customer as the target audience.
Deliver that content in different formats across the channels where your prospects spend both their professional and personal time. You never know when they are thinking about their challenges. Heck how many times have you heard people say that they do their best thinking in the shower... (that was not a suggestion by the way).
Take all the great work you've done for clients and turn them into stories that can attract the interest of prospects. What do you do if you don't have the rights to use the client case study? I've run into this many times. Ask the client for permission. They might really like the PR as well. Sometimes though, they will say NO. After all, what is the benefit to them? One thing I'd recommend is when you win a pitch and you're negotiating the terms of your relationship, request approval to use future case studies. Potentially even reduce their spend in exchange for this approval. I mean think about how valuable that proof of your work might be to you from a future revenue standpoint. Now you are able to give them value accordingly in exchange for this asset.
Various forms of gold from Credit Suisse on display
Another way to market yourself is to solve an industry problem, create a movie trailer and showcase it for that industry. That can draw attention and drive inbound requests for your counsel. Is there a possibility that a client will garner enough from your effort to go and solve the problem themselves? Sure that's possible. But let's not focus on the dubious ethics. If that happens, publicly congratulate them and move on. They'll know and you'll rack up Karma credits...Yes I believe in Karma.
This is by no means a comprehensive action plan but it is a reminder that your agency brand should not be barefoot like the cobbler's kids. You have so much skill and talent in house but your brand needs to be on blast for the world to realize it!
BE HELPFUL. BE INSPIRING. BE HIRED