Agency Life Archives - Page 7 of 8 - McLellan Marketing Group

Is it Greek to you?

April 3, 2007

Often times, when you receive concepts from an agency, you’ll see a headline and visual. And in the place of the body copy — you’ll see what we refer to as Greek or Lorem Ipsum.

Typically, it will look a little something like:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Lorem Ipsum is basically dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry that has been adopted by agencies as a basic placeholder. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.

It has survived not only five centuries, but also evolved into all realms of electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It’s based on the theory that readers will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English.

Contrary to popular belief, Lorem Ipsum is not simply random text. It has roots in a piece of classical Latin literature from 45 BC, making it over 2000 years old. Richard McClintock, a Latin professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, looked up one of the more obscure Latin words, consectetur, from a Lorem Ipsum passage, and going through the cites of the word in classical literature, discovered the source.

However, you can – thanks to the web, have you very own Lorem Ipsum generated.

Just a little fun fact for the day!

How would you tip the scales?

March 24, 2007

It’s the biggest sales job we have to do — sell ourselves.

We’re:

One of two agencies up for an account
One of two finalists for a job we really want
One of two small businesses pitching for a big new client

You know that the decision makers are in the final phases of weighing their options. Might be a few days, might be a week, might even be a month.

How do you stay top of mind? How do you let them know you really want the job/account? How do you demonstrate you’re the right choice? How do you balance the scales between looking too eager versus nonchalant? Or do you do nothing and just let your interview/proposal speak for itself?

How do you make sure that you stand out from the crowd?

Flickr photo courtesy of buggs.

Hurry up to help a grad!

March 24, 2007

Earlier this month I posted a request. Help me help the newly emerging college grad .

Let’s save them from all those horrific mistakes that leave us shaking our heads.
Let’s guide them by sharing our own war stories.
Let’s inspire them with words of wisdom.

In short — let’s get them a job!

I am compiling all of the great comments (and tracked back posts if I can find them throughout the blogosphere) into a free e-book that we’ll make available to any grad who wants the download.

We’re going to start assembling the e-book at the end of the month, so you have a few days left to get your comments in.

Come on — someone helped you once upon a time. Time to return the favor.

Are we playing the wrong role in our stories?

March 20, 2007

Think back to the days when you played pretend. Given a choice between safety pinning the towel around your neck or being the damsel/dane in distress about to be rescued, who did you pick?

I don’t know about you, but I was all about being the "Toweled Crusader!" (I never wore the rubber gloves, I must admit!) It was much cooler being the smart, strong, resourceful one. Wasn’t it?

It still is today.

I’ve talked a lot (and will keep doing so) about the power of storytelling. One of the ways that many of us tell our stories is through case studies and testimonials. Most often, because we want to demonstrate our capabilities, we assume the leading role. Client X was struggling with Y, but we swooped in with Insight Z and their sales tripled.

Sound familiar? Basic story construction, right? We have a hero, a problem/villain, a victim and a glorious solution.

Uh oh. If we’re the hero, guess who we’re casting in the role of victim? Yup. Our client.

Remember that the goal of the case study or testimonial is to get prospects to identify with the clients in the story. "Wow, if they can solve that problem, they can probably tackle mine too," is what we want them to think.

While the prospect might identify with the challenge and be heartened by the solution, do they really want to see themselves in the victim role?

If we gave them the same choice we had as kids, would they opt for hero or victim?

What if we twisted our tale in those case studies or testimonials, so that our clients were the heroes? We shift to being the glorious solution. (Not a bad role to play) But we give the credit, spotlight and heroine’s role to the client. They are smart enough to see the problem and devise a solution. And, in the end, everyone lives happily ever after.

Perhaps it’s time to re-write the stories.

* This post was inspired by a chapter in Harry Beckwith’s You, Inc. I am telling you — you’ve got to read it!

You need to read You, Inc!

March 18, 2007

Harry Beckwith gets it. Marketing. Branding. Communications. Relationships. Not only does he get it — he helps his readers get it.

Short, concise 1-4 page chapters. Each one punctuated with a summary lesson/thought. Compelling stories. And not just marketing lessons. Plenty of people lessons too.

Harry’s most recent book, You, Inc.: The Art of Selling Yourself was just released. It’s as good as the rest (see links at the bottom of the post.) of his offerings but a little different. The earlier books took a more global, company-wide perspective. This book shrinks the focus down to the reader.

If you want to:

Communicate more clearly
Sell more — for the right reasons
Advance your professional stature and value
Improve your presentations skills and results
Find more satisfaction from your work life

then you need to read this book.

Beckwith is a master storyteller who never leaves the reader hanging. Together with his wife Christine (a much celebrated pro in her own right) he outlines very simple truths that can have a significant impact on your life. Professional or otherwise.

I’ve read some great business books already in ’07. This one tops the list.

Harry’s other books:

No business library should be without the complete set.

What’s memorable about you? (part two)

March 16, 2007

A few days ago, I asked:

If you had a client/customer who took their business to a competitor for a year or two and then decided to come back…how would they complete this sentence…

"Do you guys still….."

What do you do for/with your clients that is so memorable that even 2 years later, they’d hope it was still part of your company’s culture?

I know the kinds of things that went through your brain — we deliver on time, on budget. We partner with our clients. We are accessible. Etc. etc. etc.

And you’d think that those are the things that matter. After all, they’re the big things.

But they are also the expected things. Our clients have every right to expect that we’ll deliver a quality product on budget and on time.

What they don’t expect but grow to to love are the little extras. Those gestures that say "we’re glad you’re with us. Something special happens here."

At McLellan Marketing Group, that extra something comes in the shape (and flavor) of M&M cookies. Warm from the oven. Every meeting at our place. Every time. To add a little branding lesson into the treat, we only use M&Ms that match the colors in our logo.

The scenario I painted above happened to us recently. A client left and then decided to come back. As we set up our first re-meeting at the MMG headquarters — the client asked, "Do you still bake the cookies?"

She was pretty happy when I said yes.

CK talks about how the little things make a big difference. Check it out!

And — find a way to be memorable.

Tell us your new business horror story

March 11, 2007

We all have one. That painful, horrifying moment when you were trying to sound/look your best in front of a potential new client and instead POW! fate smacked you right in the kisser with a faux pas that will haunt you for the rest of your days.

Come on…tell us all about it. It will feel good to get it out.

Me first? Fair enough.

Several years ago, a McLellan Marketing Group colleague and I were in an initial meeting with the CMO of a nursing home system. We’d done some research and one of the facts we’d gleaned about this potential client is that they were known for taking care of the most severely affected Alzheimer’s patients.

What made their work even more remarkable and reassuring to the families of their patients was that they very rarely sedated the residents. They were just that skilled in dealing with the behaviors and health issues of these residents.

So I am trying to demonstrate how smart we are and that we’ve really done our homework. So I say to the CMO (a woman in her 50’s who wasn’t so sure about us already) "one of the things that really impressed us about your facilities is the fact that you don’t sedate your patients."

Unfortunately — that was what I meant to say. But somehow, for some twisted and unknown reason, my mouth decided instead to say…"one of the things that really impressed us about your facilities is the fact that you don’t seduce your patients."

To this day, I have no idea why that came out of my mouth. But to make matters worse, I could not locate the word sedate in my brain. Instead, I stammered and stuttered until finally, what seemed like 20 minutes later, my brain synapes finally fired up, I corrected myself and limped through the rest of the conversation.

Needless to say, we did not get the business. My team, however, got a funny story that they love to pull out at company parties, and other public venues.

Okay, I’ve shown you mine…your turn!

Sampler platter marketing?

March 10, 2007

Last night, I ate at a restaurant called Buddakan. It’s offers modern Asian cuisine and since I was part of a large group (15) they served everything family style. But their version of family style was lots and lots of small sampler sized items. Everyone got to try a little of everything, but no one felt "stuck" eating just one thing.

Which got me thinking. First about my agency brothren and sisters:

How good are we, as agencies, at offering clients that option? Do you offer a "sampler platter" of marketing tactics or must a new client sign on for the whole kit n’ kaboodle? Can a prospect take you on a test drive?

For the non-agency readers:

How about you? Does anyone in your industry offer a bite of this and a bite of that so the customer can determine the best option? If no one is doing it, is it worth trying?

I wonder if this strategy isn’t a reasonable one for a business whose price of entry scares off otherwise viable prospects. What do you think?

Whip me, beat me, make me write bad checks…

March 9, 2007

…but don’t ignore me.

This is one of the biggest marketing mistakes we make. We ignore our clients. Or at least they think we’re ignoring them. We don’t return e-mails or phone calls promptly. We miss a deadline. We misspell their name. You’re laughing but you know it happens every day. And you know you’ve done it once or twice.

They want to be important to us. Really, if they’re being honest — they want to be our only client.

Your goal — create the illusion that they’re your only client. Or the only one that matters.

Do you think you do that well? What’s your best "make them feel important" technique. (And yes, it has to be genuine, not sleazy sales guy stuff.)

Flickr photo courtesy of aliceswnderland

Help me give college grads a fighting chance

March 5, 2007

It’s Spring. The birds will soon be chirping, the flowers blooming and the college grads descending like locusts on every marketing agency, marketing department and media outlet. They all want one thing — their first real job.

I remember how scary it was. 20+ years later, I shake my head at the mistakes the grads make while trying to vie for my attention. So I decided we (yes WE) could give them a gift that will put that digital camera to shame. We can help them get that job.

Here’s how you can help:

~ Post your answer to one (or more) of the following in the comments section:

How I landed my first job (war/success story)
What I wish I knew when I was trying to get my first job
My advice for someone trying to break into the marketing/advertising business
Words of wisdom about careers in general

~ Point to this post on your blog and encourage your readers to come over and add their 2 cents so we can gather even more answers and advice.

We’ll gather up all the comments, thoughts and stories and create an e-book for the grads to download and study. Who knows — maybe we’ll get some great employees out of the deal as well!

Come on — someone helped you once upon a time. Time to return the favor.

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