Flash Report – V25.7
Time-sensitive practical powerful agency new business development content for marketing firms everywhere.
SPECIAL EDITION – As Your Agency is Opening Up
- Money, Money, Money – Did You Get Some?
- Your Agency New Business Expenses Are Essential
- Few New Business Email Leads? Maybe This Will Help.
MONEY, MONEY, MONEY – DID YOU GET SOME?
The other day ADWEEK reported “There are approximately 14,000 agencies in the United States, at least in terms of how the federal government lumps together creative, media and other shops. Of those, 2,085—representing 15% of the industry—have received loans ranging from $150,000 to $10 million through the federal effort to boost businesses that suffered from the Covid-19 pandemic.” We’ve got the list and it’s impressive. Impressive in that it includes so many we’ve never heard of. Never seen media mention, never seen a LinkedIn or Facebook Post. But worthy enough to complete the paperwork and request assistance. Here in our Richmond SMA there are about 100+ agencies; the list identified 35 as receiving funds. We did well. The prognosis isn’t so good for agencies that don’t adapt. I wonder how the other 11,915 are doing.
YOUR AGENCY NEW BUSINESS EXPENSES ARE ESSENTIAL
The agency community encourages clients to keep advertising in down times. The same applies to agency business development. As one of our voluntarily registered agencies, you benefit since we enjoy the fact that advertisers seek us out, typically when they have already decided on a new or replacement agency. And they don’t tire-kick. We’re not a directory either, so clients are granted consulting assistance in their search and selection process.
As you might imagine, things have tightened up here and everywhere. Paid agencies get preference in all client searches. If you want to participate, select and pay for Manager Plan or EVP Business Plan. Full details here.
FEW NEW BUSINESS EMAIL LEADS? MAYBE THIS WILL HELP
This might help explain and offer a fix, so stay with me. Here at AgencyFinder.com we use our own send-mail server for Flash Reports and group email intended for our registered agency contacts. We don’t use services like MailChimp or Constant Contact because we don’t want their Opt Out feature to remove a critical agency contact. Even in our emails, an incorrect Opt Out request can end up taking the agency off-line. Read our Opt Out instructions below for details.
For years our incoming mail came in through Earthlink. They proved to have an aggressive filter that seldom grabbed anything we should have seen. Your agency should also want to see all non-malicious email so you can pick and choose. After all, we’re both wanting to engage anyone looking to hire an agency. In our case, we’re also on the lookout for agencies wanting to enroll for new business.
Six months ago, we experienced a change. By example, email from my ISP Webmaster wasn’t getting through to me. When he asked why I hadn’t been answering, I went looking. Nothing in my computer’s Outlook Junk folder, but I did find his messages in the upstream Earthlink web-mail folder. To make a very long story short, EarthLink had hired a new aggressive third-party service to screen and filter their incoming mail. And I was told in no uncertain terms that they couldn’t and wouldn’t do anything on our behalf. My Webmaster tells me all the carriers have tightened up considerably in response to bogus COVID-related traffic. And all that “trapping” takes place well prior to whatever filters you have set locally, including your White Lists. So for incoming mail we switched to Gmail with good results.
But there’s more. In our recent group emails, we’re seeing evidence of increased blocking by Outlook. Bounced email example: “Outlook blocked access to the following potentially unsafe attachment.” All I did was use a semi-colon in the subject line. If you knew this already, great. If not, hope it helped!
Opt Out Example: To remove only yourself from AgencyFinder, Opt Out here. To remove your agency from any future invitations, you must be a C-Level Officer. Type REMOVE in the subject line and reply.
Thanks for taking time to look this over; as we have since 1997, we look forward to getting you face- to-face with great prospects. Then & Now – We built it for you!
