Smart Agency Masterclass With Jason Swenk: Podcast For Digital Marketing Agencies

In this week’s session of The Smart Agency Master Class, I sit down with Tom Fishburne to talk about how you can spice up those boring newsletters you’re sending out, and how you can invest in your audience to get better email open rates.     Tom is Founder and CEO of Marketoon Studios, a content marketing studio that helps businesses reach their audiences with cartoons. He started cartooning at Harvard Business School, and was putting out a weekly cartoon about marketing for several years before finally building it into a business model. For Tom, it was all about connecting his passion with his business. Cartooning is a great tool to increase engagement. Cartoons have been described as the best involvement tool out there. Plus, you can fit a lot of information in a small space. Best of all, you don’t even have to be a good cartoonist to draw one. In fact, one of the most successful web comics out there is XKCD, which is done entirely in stick figures, but has over a million unique visitors to the site every

Going from Agency Owners to Agency CEOs In today’s session of The Smart Agency Master Class, I chat with Hannah Paramore, president of Paramore Digital. Hannah is going to talk about the five jobs of an agency owner, how to handle those roles and transition from agency owners into an agency CEOs.   The 5 Roles of an Agency Owner. As the agency owner, it is your job to: Grow and mentor the leadership team. To be the face of the company. To set vision and direction. Manage the financials. Be available for key relationships. Whatever you’re doing, make sure they are part of these five roles. If it’s something outside of these, you need to assess whether or not you are the one that should be doing it. Being comfortable as the agency CEO. No doubt you started out as the smartest person in the room. You were consumed with passion and drive. You were the best at everything, from account management to writing to sales. But as you started to grow from a one-person agency, you probably realized you need to hire peopl

Do you have an agency podcast? In this episode I chat with the master of podcasting, founder and host of Entrepreneur on Fire, John Lee Dumas about why your business needs an agency podcast.   Podcasting is seriously great for agencies. Here are just some reasons why you need to have an agency podcast: It’s on demand. You don’t have to say no to something else to listen to a podcast. You can’t watch a video and drive a car, just like you can’t run and read a blog. But you can do all of those things (and more!) while listening to a podcast. Podcasts are targeted. There are thousands of podcasts out there, specifically tailored to your interests. All you have to do is find one. They’re full of free, valuable content. And really, what’s better than free and valuable.  People listen to podcasts an average of 27 minutes. Compare that to the 45-second average for video and the three-minute average for blogs, and you can easily see how podcasts have the advantage. To be in someone’s ear for 20+ minutes is a big wa

Going from Agency Owners to Agency CEOs In today’s session of The Smart Agency Master Class, I chat with Hannah Paramore, president of Paramore Digital. Hannah is going to talk about the five jobs of an agency owner, how to handle those roles and transition from agency owners into an agency CEOs. https://traffic.libsyn.com/jasonswenk/The_5_Roles_of_an_Agency_Owner_1.mp3 The 5 Roles of an Agency Owner. As the agency owner, it is your job to: Grow and mentor the leadership team. To be the face of the company. To set vision and direction. Manage the financials. Be available for key relationships. Whatever you’re doing, make sure they are part of these five roles. If it’s something outside of these, you need to assess whether or not you are the one that should be doing it. Being comfortable as the agency CEO. No doubt you started out as the smartest person in the room. You were consumed with passion and drive. You were the best at everything, from account management to writing to sales. But as you started to g

The Power of Visual Storytelling Do you want to learn the power of visual storytelling and how it can improve your branding marketing on social media as well as your relationship with clients?     In this episode I chat with Ekaterina Walter who is a marketer who has worked with numerous Fortune 500 brands to help them with social business. She’s also an expert at visual storytelling and is going to show us the power of using video on social media to market your brand. Why visual storytelling is the future. Just go ahead and accept it. We are so inundated with various amounts of information that we have a hard time figuring out how to sort it correctly. So we’re just kind of making up our own filters as we go along. What’s so great about visual storytelling is that it’s a filter that comes to us naturally. Humans process visuals faster than they process text. Considering our attention spans are about 3.9 secs long, presenting information as a visual makes sense. How to make your content snackable. You don’t

How to Overcome the Common Sales Objections In today’s episode, I chat with Pamela Bruner about the common sales objections owners and salespeople encounter when dealing with prospective clients. How to change the perception of sales. Sales get a bad rap. People think of salespeople as being sleazy, or that the whole process is manipulation which leads to common sales objections. This bad perception is a challenge, but definitely something that can be changed. Talk to the prospective client as if you’re partners. You’re not selling, you’re providing a service. Changing the conversation is how you’ll do away with the negative image of sales. How to put the client at ease. Don’t go in thinking “I have to get this sale no matter what.” That’s how you end up with bad clients. Not to mention, you’re not really going to be listening to their needs or to see if they’re the right fit for your agency if it’s just about the sale. Let’s face it, people are uncomfortable in the sales process. They’re nervous. And when yo

Agency Problems: How to Overcome the Struggles of Growing an Agency When you want to grow your business, there are common agency problems every owner can experience from the very beginning. In this episode, I chat with Ronn Torossian, founder of 5W PR, the 24th largest PR firm. Ronn tells us about his experience growing an agency, and how to overcome the many agency problems that come along with growth. Success is not a magic formula. Every client, every project is something different. Not all clients want the same thing, so you need to make sure that you are actively listening to what they want. But it's not just about listening. You also need to be communicating with them regularly. Conference calls, activity reports, whatever it takes. Even if you’re speaking with them every day, make sure you are also giving them formal weekly and monthly reports. Relationships matter. Strive for building real relationships. Get to know the person, not just the professional. Nurturing solid relationships will go a long wa

Why Giving Free Consultations is Actually Bad for Your Business In this episode, I talk with Troy Dean about Post Traumatic Client Syndrome and why giving free consultations is actually bad for your business. The struggle is real. One of the biggest struggles out there is wasting time on unqualified leads. You drop everything to drive across town for a meeting with a potential client, buy them lunch, only to find out they have no plan and no budget. An afternoon totally wasted.   What you need is better screening. Here’s how: Draw a line in the sand and say “I will not touch a project under X amount of dollars.” Stop doing free consults. Find out the budget before you meet. If you don’t want to be doing projects under $10,000, then find out the project’s budget before meeting with the client. When someone contacts you, reply with a survey of their project, asking things like budget and timeline. This will help you weed out those just casually browsing. Start charging for the initial meeting. This will help

How to Generate Agency Business By Helping Rather Than Selling Do you find struggles within your agency of ways to generate business and bring in more clients? You wouldn't be alone and I have discovered that you can generate business much more successfully by offering help rather than constantly working and offering a sales pitch. In this episode I chat with Jay Baer, marketing strategist and best selling author. Jay has done everything from sales to social media to content and digital marketing, and he’s going to explain how helping rather than selling will give you an edge.   Forget what you were taught. Business is more competitive now than ever before. Sure, it used to be that the way to build your business was to do marketing, use the Four P’s, and all that jazz. But nowadays, it’s different. The best way to grow your business now is to create content that is useful. So useful, that people would actually want to pay for it, but don’t have to because you’re giving it away for free. It’s this kind of supe

In this episode of the Smart Agency Master Class, I chat with Lauri Flaquer, a business consultant with over 20 years of experience in television and film. Lauri specializes in using content to maximize business opportunities and she’s going to help you understand why you need to use video content marketing to grow your agency's new business. https://traffic.libsyn.com/jasonswenk/Why_you_need_to_use_video_to_increase_your_agency_new_business.mp3 You need to be making videos to generate agency new business. If you want to become an authority in your marketplace and establish credibility quickly, then you need to be creating video content. The power of video is limitless! It's another opportunity for your clients - and potential clients - to know you and fall in love with you. Because, let’s face it - people make buying decisions more and more off of what they see online. Video content marketing gives them another way to really get to know who you are, what you’re about and what you can do, and realize they wa

Getting CMO Attention as a Digital Agency When you are a digital agency, there could be a CMO attention you have been aspiring to achieve. If you can't quite get there, then this episode is for you. In this episode I sit down with Evan Kramer, Chief Marketing Officer at The Neat Company. We cover the following: Understanding a CMO’s Decision-Making How to Get Their Attention What To Do When a New CMO Comes In   How to get the CMO attention you want most Evan, like a lot of CMOs, is very data driven. If an agency can really assess performance in a holistic way, it’s a big bonus. Agencies need to be comprehensive in respect to their integrative portfolio, as well as individual campaign performance. The second attention-grabber is showing that you really understand the client’s business and their capabilities. Each client has a different type of infrastructure, each with its own good and bad points. Your agency needs to know that infrastructure and how the client works within it. How does a CMO find an agency?

In this episode I talk with Scott Monty, former Global Head of Social Media for the Ford Motor Company. He walks us through landing big agency clients like Ford as well as other new clients.   How does your ad agency generate new business with big clients like Ford? It’s all about the research. According to Scott, about 90-95% of the people who contacted him didn’t do their research before approaching him. As a fairly public figure at Ford you can imagine that he got a lot of inquiries. But most of them were either form emails or total shots in the dark. So, how do you get in the door at Ford? Well, the company works almost exclusively with WPP companies. The are big, well established agencies with whom Ford has had a long relationship. It’s hard to break into that establishment. However, if you want to approach them, be sure to do your research beforehand. You need to really understand where a company like that has been, what they’ve done, and what it is that they want to do. In the case of a company like Fo

What do you need to do to improve your business management and get away from being run by your agency and start running it? In this episode of The Smart Agency Master Class, I talk with Chris Ducker. Chris is a serial entrepreneur that owns and operates three separate business that include a call center, a recruitment company and a co-working space for startup entrepreneurs. Chris is obviously someone who knows a lot about running a business and he’s going to share with us how he manages it all without being overwhelmed. Business Management: Why is the agency running you? Because you’re micromanaging! Let’s face it, entrepreneurs are wired to believe they should be doing everything themselves. Chris refers to this as “superhero syndrome,” and it’s something every entrepreneur will suffer from at some point. Eventually, though, you will hit a crossroad where one of two things will happen: A) You’ll burn out and be no good to anyone. B) You finally build a brilliant team to help you run, grow, and support the b

Are you holding your agency back by committing a common social media sin in your marketing by not showing personality? In this episode I chat with Laura Roeder, founder of LKR Social Media and creator of Edgar. Want to Take Your Agency to the Next Level by Using Social Media? Laura is a social media genius, and was - not once, but twice - named a Top Entrepreneur Under 30. She’s going to give you advice on what you can do better when it comes to social media and what social media sin you need to stop doing immediately. The Biggest Social Media Sin One of the worst things you can do on social media is not show any personality. Most agencies do great work for their clients in helping to create and craft a social media voice but are desperately lagging when it comes to creating their own. If you say your agency does social media, then you better be doing social media. How do you think it looks when you tell prospects social media is part of what your agency can offer but you only have 50 Twitter followers? Laura

Interested in learning how to increase user engagement with your target audience? In this session of The Smart Agency Master Class I’m going to tell you about some agencies that are using surveys all wrong and give you suggestions on how to use them to have more frequent conversations. How you’re probably using surveys now. Most agencies are using surveys to gain insights on their audience. These surveys ask questions like: What would you want in a particular product? The surveyor is asking because they're trying to find out what they should build. But the response they're most likely to hear is "faster" and "cheaper." Most surveyees don't know what they want. And how could they? They've never even seen it. Here’s how to use surveys to increase user engagement. I use surveys to engage my audience more. For example, as I’m building my list (you need to be building lists, too!) I will ask for more engagement. I want to know more about them so I can send relevant information in the future. In order to learn more

Do you want to know the #1 thing is that you need to stop doing when pitching to a big brand? If you are ready to become a big brand agency, this is the insight you need to get you there. In this episode, I sat down with Carlos Tribino, CMO of GiftCards.com. Carlos has been on both the agency and large brand side of the pitch and has 20 years of experience in marketing. He’s going to tell us why you should understand your prospect before you pitch and what big brands are looking for when picking an agency. What are the big brands looking for in an agency? The number one thing they want is for you to understand their business. By really understanding your prospect’s industry you can tap into smart insights and develop strong, compelling, and relevant ideas for brand positioning. Not to mention, this level of understanding will help you go beyond the obvious and craft original, compelling position statements. Carlos also points out that big brands aren’t typically looking for full service agencies but rather ag

Where to Find the Right Digital Agency Talent In this episode I sit down with Amy Hoover, CEO of Talent Zoo. Amy is going to talk to us about how to find the best agency talent, developing a recruitment and hiring plan, and what to ask in the interviews. Amy is adamant that you need to develop a recruiting and hiring plan. Finding someone is a multi-prong process, involving personal contacts, former coworkers, job boards, head hunting, and paid recruitment. Rarely does just one of these prongs end up working, so you need to come up with a plan to help you hit many of the angles at the same time. The plan. Start internally. Develop an “employer brand,” including why it’s great to work for your agency and why your employees think it’s great working there. And don’t forget to put it on your website! Look at options for getting your employer brand out there. Get the word out through your personal and professional networks, as well as agency-specific resources. Identify who needs to be involved internally. Do you

How to Get the Fortune 1000 Executives to Call You Here’s what worked for me to get the Fortune 1000 executives to call me. Warning! This is only for businesses that are targeting the Fortune 1000 companies. This will not work for smaller companies. Ok, so lets jump to it… We all struggle with trying to find ways in the doors of the big companies. Everyone wants to work with them. We have tried email marketing, cold calls, partners, etc. You name it, people have tried it. But here's something that no one does and it can work for you. Interested? Of course you are! Here’s what you need to do in order to get the BIG Companies calling you: Write a single page letter that describes an opportunity that they are missing and make sure you don’t get too detailed. Do not tell them about your business.  For example, I have something to show you that can increase Amazon’s sales by 15% and all it takes is 15 minutes. Leave mystery so you can't get a no. Are you interested enough to hear more? [You may want to listen to

Have you ever thought of developing your own product - or have already developed one - but have found that the client work is distracting you from finishing? In today’s episode, I talk with Kyle Racki about how your agency can create a product without killing it before it even gets started and how to upgrade any established product development processes. Product Development for Your Agency Kyle is a designer, blogger, technologist, and entrepreneur from Canada who ran his own web design agency for five years. During that time, he had several failures. Four to be exact. He then sold the agency and is now CEO and co-founder of Proposify. Let’s build a product! Being a service agency is tough. You have to deal with cash flow, invoicing, revenue, etc. All these make building a product even more attractive. But don’t be fooled, Kyle warns, “building a product while servicing clients is hard.” Hard, but not impossible. Ask before you build. Don’t just start wire-framing the second you get an idea. Get out and start

In today’s episode, I discuss how agencies should handle multiple niches. This is a solo episode where I’m talking to myself! Actually, I’m talking to you, the listeners, and answering the questions that you are sending into me. Should you even have multiple niches? How many niches you have depends on how many authority figures or experts you have for those niches. Pick as many niches as you want, but remember that just means more work. You need to make sure you’re equipped to handle all those niches. A lot of agencies are just starting outlook at the big players and try to model after them. If you’re looking at bigger, more established agencies you will see that many of them do have a lot of niches. But don’t be fooled - they probably didn’t start out like that. Take a look at Facebook, for example. When Facebook started out, they only went after Ivy League college kids. It was only after they dominated that market that they branched out to other colleges. Everyone has to start out somewhere. Dominate your n