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THE FUEL PODCAST – TOM RIDGES – GDLABS: LIFE AFTER COOKIES & THE ‘COLD START’ PROBLEM

Our love/hate relationship with cookies is about to end, so how will we be able to identify our new customers?

Fear not! Because solutions architect Tom Ridges is the CEO of GDLabs, a targeting platform that can analyze sales data to predict where your next best customers are and his company has just been VC funded to help agencies identify and track sales for their clients.

Using a ground-breaking combination of AI and data science, Tom’s team have turned the whole problem on its head and developed a solution that doesn’t rely on packets of data, but instead takes all your existing customer data and tells you where you should target your sales for growth.

Frankly it’s awesome, and if you work in business development and listen to this show, you’ll have bragging rights for months, in any discussion about where we go after cookies have been outlawed.

Tom delivers a tight 45 minutes of non-sciency data discussion to explain how your agency can stay ahead of the pack and give your client a best-of-breed solution.


In this show, we discuss:

1st, 2nd & 3rd party data advantages

The timeline for the end of cookies

The alternatives to cookies and why surveillance and intent marketing doesn’t work

The democratization of customer data

Big data -v- little data

Why it’s important to be ahead of the curve

Where to look for your next new clients and customers

Plus talking of giving up cookies, Jeremy Davies is back with a monologue about agency new year resolutions.

Show notes

Tom’s LinkedIn profile here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomridges/

GDLabs web site here: http://www.gdlabs.ai

The ‘Data For Bluffers’ podcast here: https://www.gdlabs.ai/blog/data-for-bluffers-3/

FREE TEST your data to see how it works here: https://www.gdlabs.ai/blog/test-your-data-and-grow-faster-with-network-effects/

How NBC Universal is handling it: https://www.adweek.com/convergent-tv/nbcuniversal-cookie-free-first-party-identity-platform/

All of us at The Advertist invite you to check out The Fuel Podcast, where we pull on the experience of leaders of companies in a variety of sectors with loads of fantastic interviews, tips and tales.

To check out this episode of the podcast click here.

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THE FUEL PODCAST – HELEN CALCRAFT – LUCKY GENERALS: ALWAYS ON A MISSION

Oops, we did it again! Helen Calcraft is undoubtedly one of the most high profile VIPs in the creative industry. A self confessed “New biz girl at heart”, Helen is one third of the leadership of Lucky Generals, the agency responsible for some of the world’s most creative campaigns on both sides of the pond.

If you want to know what motivates Helen to not only champion the cause of integrity in the advertising industry, but also commit so much time and effort to philanthropy, then this is a blockbuster of a show for you.

After several attempts to pin the recording date, we finally sat down together just before Thanksgiving but there’s not a trace of turkey to be found here. It’s all insight, tips and advice for anyone working in the creative industry – all delivered with Helen’s trademark personal and stylish touch.

In this show, we discuss:

  •  Helen’s early career at AMV BBDO, her inspirations, mentors and agency friendships
  •  The art of being an entrepreneur and what led to the formation of MCBD
  •  Can the magic still happen for advertising startups?
  •  Nabs #TimeTo and sexual harassment
  •  Cancer Research and Helen’s personal struggle
  •  Can we tax the wealthy?
  •  The need for change on our environmental priorities
  •  What agencies Helen really admires
  •  Helen’s top 3 campaigns of all time
  •  Outsized Post-It notes
  •  The importance of clients having a mission
  •  A totally honest appraisal of agency life under lockdown
  •  The back story to ‘that’ Amazon Alexa Super Bowl advert
  •  The importance of bathing
  •  And Helen’s nomination for the most beautiful and romantic pop song ever written
  • We also have a themed monologue from Jeremy Davies, who manages to link Peter Pan to new business research.

All of us at The Advertist invite you to check out The Fuel Podcast, where we pull on the experience of leaders of companies in a variety of sectors with loads of fantastic interviews, tips and tales.

To check out this episode of the podcast click here.

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6 WAYS TO FIND NEW BUSINESS IN 2022

6 Ways to find new business in 2022 & Who’s looking at you by Keith Smith, Managing Director of new business platform The Advertist.

How many of you put prospecting for new clients at the top of your business New Year’s resolutions?

Given the instability in most sectors right now, I hope that it’s most of you.

New business is your insurance. I like to call it business prepping because you’re insulating your business against the false starts, delays and ghosts that can eat away at company morale and that all important financial cushion.

We all need to put our own company’s survival at the top of the list, and keeping a solid list of new prospects on the books is a vital feature of good business practice.

All growing businesses need to know these three navigation tips:

  • Where they came from
  • How they got here
  • Where they’re going to

New business provides you with one of the critical components of the last part. New prospects help define the future direction of your agency.

So here’s a quick checklist of free advice on how and where you can prospect for new business in 2022 and they all have one thing in common; disruption.

New business thrives wherever there is disruption. Not catastrophic, but bumps and turbulence that your agency can address to make the prospect’s journey smoother.

Area 1: Current Affairs

Check the vertical trade press that cover your agency’s areas of expertise (or where you want your agency to be). Aside from the obvious sources, there are plenty of blogs, Vlogs and news channels run by enthusiasts and specialists. Look for NPD-related stories and breaking news about company activity that doesn’t always make the mainstream media. Armed with some current news and a few talking points related to your agency, you can not only pick up the phone and begin a conversation but you can also seed social media with thought leadership and opinion pieces to encourage conversations with new prospects.

Area 2: General news

Like the first point but a more long-range overview of current affairs. Looking back 2-3 months in any vertical sector, you can identify trends, concerns, issues etc that are talking points among your target prospects and not those that you assume are significant. There’s nothing more deflating than a cleverly constructed opener being met with “But that’s not relevant to us”.

Area 3: Database sales

You bought that subscription to a CRM system, so use it. Freshen up your cold prospecting database, identify ten of the top targets and create a narrative that works as a one-to-many sales piece. I never recommend mass-mailing – especially in a climate where ‘empathy’ is the key watchword but picking the best 10 prospects and working them through to a conclusion allows you to cleanse your list and adapt your horizon.

Area 4: People Moves

There is no excuse for not knowing the career updates of prospects and companies in your target sectors. We have so much information about new appointments available at our fingertips, and reaching out with offers of help is a guaranteed way to win hearts and minds. Everyone wants to shine in their first three months, so what can you do to help?

Area 5: Tenders

Many SME agencies think that tenders are too time-consuming and pointless to pursue, so they become low-hanging fruit for agencies that are set up to deal with them. Agency frameworks, opportunities to tender, and requests for information are circulating all the time and these can be big wins that can provide meat and potato revenue to underpin your agency.

Tenders are also a wonderful sign of disruption and can give new business prospectors a clue as to the future direction of big companies. So even if the tender isn’t relevant, it’s a great talking point with your prospect.

Area 6: Mergers and Acquisitions

The critical cause of disruption occurs when a fresh injection of capital or an MBO, MBI, seed round, acquisition, disposal or spin-out happens. Back in my early days of sales, new company launches were a minefield of time-wasting conversations. But with money looking for 3, 4, 5 and up to 10x returns, companies and innovations that were once to be avoided are attractive multi-million pound or dollar opportunities for growth. Their leaders are forward-thinking, imaginative disruptors who thrive on new ideas and ground-breaking, daring proposals.

Use your time efficiently; do the simple things.

Prospecting for new business #bizdev in this climate means that you cannot rely on historical spending trends. Neither can you rely on the biggest time-waster of sales – intent marketing. Using search engine algorithms analyzing search terms from a company does not provide proof of what a company is looking for. It’s pointless chum in the water, so don’t be distracted.

Instead, rely on your personality, sector knowledge and play to your agency’s strengths.

Here’s a piece of free advice that I love – Clients want to work with agencies that do work they love. In a neck-and-neck race for new business, a client will always pick the agency that has already won their admiration.

So be that agency. Get on the front foot and put your agency out there using any of the six simple rules for new business prospecting I’ve listed above and get 2022 off to a positive start.

Profile Marketing

You may have noticed but I am a massive fan of LinkedIn. It is a wonderful networking sandpit and – in the absence of in-person connections, it’s important to make the best first impression. I’m going to do a newsletter dedicated to this subject next month but I wanted to offer a quick word of advice. LinkedIn is the absolute first place that any new prospect will look you up to check that what you say is so.

With this in mind, it is vital that your personal and your company LinkedIn pages are optimized to the fullest extent. This doesn’t mean you have to splash out for Navigator, it’s perfectly acceptable to use LinkedIn’s free service and there are literally hundreds of ways you can tweak your profile using great photography, clever summaries and poignant posts that will help you demonstrate yours and your agency’s capabilities.

For a full overview of what you can do – for free – to boost your LinkedIn presence, I was fortunate to interview my personal LinkedIn hero John Espirian a few months ago on the Fuel podcast and not only is he a charming man, he’s also spent thousands of hours mining, testing, adapting and refining his LinkedIn activity using nothing more than the basic service. Ignore this advice at your peril because LinkedIn is destined to become the preferred field of play for all your competitors this year.

Check out the podcast here: https://thefuelpodcast.com/john-espirian-author-content-dna-the-stairway-to-linkedin-heaven/

I hope that you find these tips useful as a refresher for your new business drive and 2022 is your year for growth.

Happy prospecting!

For those of you who are looking for a business development platform to help fuel your new business pipeline we may be a bit partial but check out TheAdvertist and see how it can help you prospect for new clients!

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