Hello AAR Agency Growth Program Partner,
AAR Partners has joined forces with Catapult and Winmo to help provide leads for new business opportunities based on the right timing.
But this time, we’ve put science behind the art of prospecting by using data from technologies like Winmo, Pathmatics, and Bombora. This powerful combination helps increase the probability of reaching out at the right time to engage and eventually convert.
This month our research showed a surge of interest around “Creative Agencies” and “Creative Services” within the financial sector and tourism sectors.
While there are a host of brands/companies looking for creative help, we have isolated two opportunities, for our AAR Agency Growth Program Partners to evaluate, who may be in need of some creative help right now.
FINANCE
Intuit – Intuit Inc. is a software company that provides business, financial management and tax solutions for small businesses, consumers and accountants. The company’s headquarters are located in Mountain View, CA. Both their social spending and DRTV dropped during the Covid summer, but both have been on a slight incline recently. While DRTV is lagging behind the category average, you can see that they were well above their category average at the beginning of the year. Could be a sign of a come-back?
Key Contact: Lara Balazs, CMO
Email: lara_balazs@intuit.com
Personality Type: Determined; Persuasive; Ambitious
Lara is most likely a high-energy, strong-willed negotiator, whose people skills and deeply-rooted drive can help her guide others to success. She may enjoy lively discussion and verbal inspiration.
What energizes Lara?
- Making quick decisions
- Ambitious goals
- Opportunities to advance
- Leading others
What drains Lara?
- Failing to achieve goals
- Deep research and analysis
- Over-planning
- Slow, drawn-out events
TOURISM
Steamboat – Steamboat Ski & Resort Corporation is a U.S.-based resort operator. Some of the resorts offerings include spa services, tubing, back country winter adventures, steamboat mountain watch, ski rentals, cross-country skiing, helicopter tours and shuttle services. Steamboat Ski & Resort Corporation is located in Steamboat Springs, CO.
No listed creative agency, listed to be working with Thayer Media.
Key Contact: Loryn Duke, Director, Communications
Email: lduke@steamboat.com
Personality Type: Enthusiastic; Personable; Adaptable
Loryn is most likely an optimist who strives to leave a positive impact on those around her. She may appreciate spending a lot of time talking with others. There’s a chance she may occasionally be late to a meeting, but when she arrives, she will likely bring a lively, colorful story.
What energizes Loryn?
- Innovation
- Peer recognition
- Social energy
- Interesting ideas
What drains Loryn?
- Having her ideas shut down
- When others nitpick details
- Feeling stuck in the same place
- Lack of creativity in an environment
Hello AAR Agency Partners,
I hope you’re looking forward toward a pleasant (although, very unique) Thanksgiving holiday weekend.
Before everyone splits for turkey dinner next week, we’re sharing another new smAARt lead to help you with new business opportunities.
Whether you’re eating turkey (or tofurky), there are also alternative milk options to wash down your Thanksgiving dinner that are popping off the charts… Take a read and you may find some opportunities to help you make a little more MOOlah!
The signal: Coconut milk. Oat milk. Almond milk. Cashew milk. Soy milk. Less than a decade ago, the idea of drinking lab milk never crossed our minds. But a slew of alternative milk have us chugging more than just dairy milk with your cookies. RethinkX’s recent Food and Agriculture report estimates that the cow milk industry will be near bankrupt by 2030, with a major disruptor being milk made with precision fermentation.
Crying Over Spilled Milk
Milk consumption has been not-so-slowly falling for years, and it’s starting to hit home. Borden Dairy, a 163-year old milk processor, filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this year. Last November, Dean Foods — America’s largest milk producer — did the same. The smaller players aren’t in the clear, either: 94k dairy farms have gone out of business since 1992. Meanwhile, farm debt is at a record high ($416B).
Cows Need to MOOve Out.
With livestock responsible for an estimated 14.5% of greenhouse gas emissions, many consumers are pressuring companies to pivot to more sustainable solutions. RethinkX believes lab-made solutions will be cheaper and higher quality, stating that precision fermentation will lead to proteins being 5x cheaper by 2030 and 10x cheaper by 2035, as compared to their cow counterparts.
The opportunity: The opportunity is building or investing in a budding software-led food company. Perfect Day, for example, recently raised their $140m Series C. But those aren’t the only milk-related opps:
Alt-milks: Alternative milk is slowly taking over and it has already cornered 13% of the market. With the exception of soy milk, all of the alt-milks have been on the up, with some of the newer entrants including hemp milk and pea milk. Other alt-products are getting attention, including cashew cheese, with 18,100 searches per month.
What happens to the farmers? Millions, some even estimate a billion, are indirectly involved with milk production across hundreds of millions of dairy farms worldwide. As dairy milk goes dark, farmers are left with few options.
- Organic farming: Some can pivot to organic farming, which is taking off (certifications were up 58% between 2011 and 2016). But the high cost of organic farming isn’t possible for many struggling farmers.
- Transition support: Unfortunately, the dire conditions have resulted in a spike of farmer suicides, with Farm Aid (a 1-800 hotline for farmers in crisis) seeing a 109% spike in calls last year. The Farmer’s First Act dedicated $50m over 5 years for behavioral health for struggling farmers, and there may also be opportunities to build businesses directly supporting farmers transitioning to new roles (think The Last Mile, but for farmers).
What can you do?
Don’t fail to “milk” this opportunity. There are many alternative milk brands who need your help with generating awareness as they continuing raising capital and more are exploding onto landscape every day.
Remember, don’t stalk! Don’t hound. Don’t sent a myriad of messages about yourself. What do you do?
Build trust fast by offering ideas to help with their operations, manufacturing and distribution dilemmas. Share your expertise and show how it’s relevant. Just… don’t… sell!
Prospect smAARt, pitch with passion and most importantly, with purpose.
Always remember to pitch with passion.
Finally, have a Happy and Blessed Thanksgiving!
Hello and welcome to AAR Partners’ new biz quick tips shared exclusively with our AAR Partners Agency Growth Program Partners.
Your website… I have lost count with how many agencies have asked me over the years to take a peek at their website and give them my quick thoughts. I want to give you more than just my quick thoughts because your website is more than just a website. It is the face of your agency and it instantly establishes credibility… or not. Since 90% of prospects start their buying journey with an online search (and especially now with the pandemic pivot to just about 100% digital), it is vital to make sure your website is up to snuff.
So, what makes for an engaging website?
There are many tactics that make up a great website but there are three critical elements that are musts for an engaging website.
- Navigation and design.
- Content, content, content.
- Branding.
Let’s break these three elements down a bit.
Navigation and design
A well-designed website is one that has a simple and clean user interface with easy to navigate menus and links. It is the foundation for a great experience that is engaging without getting lost in the site. And it must be search friendly allowing the visitor to be able to search for information on your site. When websites get too complicated and links are everywhere taking the visitor all over the place with no easy way back, it is completely disengaging. The viewer should always know exactly where they are on the website and have easy access to where they would like to be. In terms of a clean design, make the site easy to read and easy to view. Knock out text or too much flash, for instance, is hard on the eyes after a while.People are visually oriented creatures, and using great graphics is a good way to make your website more appealing. Your website has about 1/10th of a second to impress the visitor and let them know that your agency is trustworthy and professional.
Content. Content. Content
The whole point of your website is to provide critical information about your agency, services, people, experience, and resources to allow prospects to make informed decisions or at least engage them to ask for more. AND, the content should keep changing in order to give the visitor a reason to keep coming back to you as a reputable resource. Some pieces that must be included are:
- Capabilities – highlight in simple terms your expertise and competencies.
- Experience – highlight your experience in the form of mini case studies; most important highlight key sectors and marketing challenges that are your forte. And please be clear about the type of work and the tenure of the work you do or did for your clients. Showing a bunch of client logos that are no longer active clients can disqualify your agency thinking that you have a conflict.
- Thought Leadership – highlight your innovative industry thinking by linking your blog and other resources to the site. And make it simple for visitors to share thought leadership on social media by having social media share buttons.
- News and Accolades – highlight your credibility with trade mentions, client testimonials, award-winning work and give your visitor a sense of confidence.
- Contact Information – please, please, please do not use some abstract or no name email address as the contact email. Include a person’s name and title with a direct email and phone number to make it easy for a prospect to contact you directly.
- Fact Sheet – highlight your main logistical information and “why you” in a downloadable fact sheet that the viewer can print and/or share easily.
Branding
And finally, why and how is your agency unique? Why do you exist? What kinds of agency are you? What do you stand for or against? What is your positioning? Your philosophy is a sweeping statement of your beliefs and your process helps to get to the heart of your philosophy. Your positioning is how these beliefs translate into value for clients and your process activates it. Nearly 50% of prospects leave agency websites and are not clear about the kind of work they do. Showcase your expertise with regard to targets, discipline and category but highlight why and how you go about doing what you do – have a clear positioning.
Most of all make every word count. Prospects want to see insightful thinking; short cases that show experience and business solutions; talent behind the team and the resources that you can bring to the table… And remember, your website should be a never-ending project with new content consistently being added preventing it from becoming stale! Finally, your website must be mobile-friendly… Be sure to pull up your website on your phone and see what pops up.
If you’d like to sample some awesome websites, take a scroll through Airbnb; Boosted Boards; Adkins Parker; Loomo and I think the team page on Agence-SBA is adorable (this one is a French agency).
There you have it. That’s my counsel on this topic and I hope it helps. Look out for more of my new biz quick tips shared exclusively with AAR Agency Growth Program Partners…
Good morning, AAR Partners’ Agency Member.
As part of the AAR Agency Growth Program, little lessons learned from reviews are important to share with you.
What makes for a successful relationship? Depending upon who you ask, you will get a different response but we all know that a successful relationship with your client is a surefire way to be in business now and long into the future.
After two decades of managing agency reviews and more importantly, helping client-agency relationships to succeed, there are three keys that have stood the test of time helping to optimize successful relationships while building the agency and client brands:
One Team.
Great partnerships must be aligned and equally accountable. It’s not often during a pitch that a client team says, “It feels like one team. I can’t tell the difference between the brand team and the agency team.” But when they do, let me reassure you that that agency team is the winning team for that agency search. Of course, every client-agency team should strive to get to this level with their on-going relationships and it starts with being attentive and passionate about the common denominator – the brand.
Activate Agility.
Clients want to be part of the creative process. They are not interested in having your team go off into a corner and return with a presentation. They want to be able to course correct. They want to be able to discuss options. They need to be heard. And they want both teams to optimize talent and resources during creative development… not afterward. They need agile teams to move quickly keeping the consumer at the center of all pivots that need to be made.
Silent = Listen.
It’s the same letters that spell both words. But it’s not about passive listening. Brand stewards need their agency team members to listen carefully and effectively in order to fuel strong acumen. A recent comment from one client on the review team almost became the reason why the winning agency could have lost the pitch: “They’re a solid agency with strong talent and resources. But will they listen to certain vital brand guidelines when in the process of creative development?”
There is a common thread with each of these top key factors for successful relationships: L I S T E N I N G
Anyone can listen but the art of listening has been lost. Let’s remind ourselves of this important skill.
The Art of Listening
Listening is noting what, when and how something is being said.
Listening is distinguishing what is not be said from what is silence.
Listening is not activing like you’re in a hurry , even if you are.
Listening is eye contact and a hand shake.
Sometimes, listening is taking careful notes in the person’s own words.
Listening involved suspension of judgement.
It is neither analyzing nor racking your brain for labels, diagnoses or solutions before the person is done relating their symptoms and pain points.
Listening creates a safe space where whatever needs to happen or be said can come.
Pitch with Passion. And remember, when you actively listen with your heart more than your head, the passion shines…
