Every business is struggling to be seen and heard. They spend a lion’s share of their budget fighting to find an audience. Sometimes, it doesn’t have to be that hard. They are often overlooking an incredible resource. Their own employees.
Employees can be some of the best advocates for any business; especially with the right system in place. They know the company inside and out, they talk to current and prospective clients about it and, if they love their work and their employer, they probably share that love when they get the opportunity.
What if you could amplify that critical voice for your clients and help them create a program that encouraged their employees to shout it from the rooftops?
Glenn Gaudet, the CEO of GaggleAMP, founded his company with this idea in mind. GaggleAMP helps companies get the most out of their social media efforts with solutions that help amplify their efforts through employee engagement and interaction.
In episode #209 of Build a Better Agency, Glenn and I discussed employee and brand advocacy at length. We talked about incentivizing employees to engage with their company’s social media, recognizing employees as influencers, using advocacy from raving customers and channel partners, and so much more.
A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here: https://www.whitelabeliq.com/ami/
What You Will Learn in this Episode:
- What employee advocacy is and what it looks like in practice
- How to market employee advocacy strategy to employees and clients
- Implementing and evolving employee advocacy programs
- The myriad benefits of the different kinds of brand advocacy
- Specific strategies to incentivize employee advocacy
- Common pitfalls when approaching advocacy programs
- The mission of Glenn’s company, GaggleAMP
Ways to Contact Glenn Gaudet:
- Website: https://www.gaggleamp.com/
- Podcast: www.gaggleamp.com/build
Every year we partner with Audience Audit to conduct research that we know will benefit agency leaders. This year, we decided to re-visit some of the questions we initially asked in 2014 to see if there had been significant shifts. In some ways, the results showed a consistent trend and in some other areas, there’d been some pretty significant changes.
In the 2019 study we included clients from the US, Canada, Australia and the UK and there were over 1,000 respondents who participated.
In this episode we’ll walk you through some of the most significant ah ha moments in the study in terms of what clients value, how they view us, and the kinds of work they think we do best. We will also talk about some of the new questions around agency specialization and agency owner involvement in key accounts.
Listen in as Susan Baier, president of Audience Audit and I explore the insights and talk about the implications of this new research. We’d also like to invite you to join us on November 12th (if you’re listening to this in real time) as we walk folks through every single question and data point in a live webinar just for you!
A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here: https://www.whitelabeliq.com/ami/.
What You Will Learn in this Episode:
- What remained steady and what shifts we saw from the 2014 study
- The three distinct audience segments we uncovered and how each of them view agencies
- Why over 50% of all respondents work with an agency who is 200+ miles away from them
- How you can get the complete download during the webinar on November 12th
Ways to Contact Susan Baier:
- Website: www.audienceaudit.com
- Email: susan@audienceaudit.com
- Twitter: @susanbaier
In the agency world, there are days where it seems like tomorrow will never come. It’s easy to get fixated on what is broken or what else needs to be done. There’s always one more tweak and THEN things will be good.
Actually, no matter where you’re at in the ebbs and flows of agency life, it’s all pretty good.
Even on your worst day, you have it better than most. The problem is, we often fail to realize that. We get tunnel vision digging ourselves out of holes and preparing for the next fallout when things are going well.
In this solocast of the Build a Better Agency podcast, I share the story of a conversation I recently had with a friend who just sold his agency. His perspective was so telling and for me, so inspiring.
My hope is that it will give you a fresh look at how to approach agency ownership, no matter what the day brings.
A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here.
What You Will Learn in this Episode:
- Why some agency owners fail to enjoy the ride
- How to show gratitude and the impact it will have on your agency
- How to recognize the privileges of being an agency owner or leader
- Why it matters that you slow down and appreciate your role
- Different ways that you can improve as an agency leader
- How to articulate what your clients and employees mean to you
Drew McLellan is the CEO at Agency Management Institute. He has also owned and operated his own agency since 1995 and is still actively running the agency today. Drew’s unique vantage point as being both an agency owner and working with 250+ small- to mid-size agencies throughout the year gives him a unique perspective on running an agency today.
AMI works with agency owners by:
- Leading agency owner peer groups
- Offering workshops for owners and their leadership teams
- Offering AE Bootcamps
- Conducting individual agency owner coaching
- Doing on-site consulting
- Offering online courses in agency new business and account service
Because he works with those 250+ agencies every year, Drew has the unique opportunity to see the patterns and the habits (both good and bad) that happen over and over again. He has also written two books and been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Fortune Small Business. The Wall Street Journal called his blog “One of 10 blogs every entrepreneur should read.”
Ways to contact Drew McLellan:
- Email: drew@agencymanagementinstitute.com
- LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/drewmclellan
- Website: https://agencymanagementinstitute.com/
Our agencies and the work we do will inevitably be impacted by artificial intelligence in the next 3-5 years. That’s just a fact. Odds are, it’s probably already changing the way you do business every day. There’s a lot of hype and buzz about jobs going away and most agencies are struggling to figure out how to keep up.
Questions of what data to use, how to analyze it, what tasks can be automated, and what AI can do for clients pop up all of the time. And it all shifts on what seems like a daily basis.
Fortunately, the agency space has a beacon to light the way into the uncharted territory of AI. His name is Chris Penn, and he is an authority on analytics, digital marketing, and marketing technology. A recognized thought leader, best-selling author, and keynote speaker, he has shaped four key fields in the marketing industry: Google Analytics adoption, data-driven marketing and PR, modern email marketing, and artificial intelligence/machine learning in marketing.
Chris is a generous guy who frequently shares his knowledge over his own podcast, Marketing Over Coffee, as well as through books like “AI for Marketers: A Primer and Introduction.” I was thrilled to welcome Chris as my guest for episode #208 of the Build a Better Agency podcast.
I barely scratched the surface of questions I had but we got a good start, talking about data analysis, keeping up with the flux of AI, and the tasks that agencies can automate to save time and money. The conversation was fascinating and I’m excited to share it with you.
A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here: https://www.whitelabeliq.com/ami/
What You Will Learn in this Episode:
- What data actually looks like in the agency environment
- The importance of hiring people with analytics and software skills to an agency
- How to keep up with the ever-changing field of AI in an agency setting
- Common mistakes agencies make around data and analytics
- The most onerous tasks that can be automated using AI
- The capabilities of machine learning and where humans come in during the process
- What Chris does to keep current with technology in the agency space
Ways to Contact Chris Penn:
- Chris’s Blog: https://www.christopherspenn.com/
- Website: https://www.trustinsights.ai/
- Chris’s Podcast: https://www.marketingovercoffee.com/