Your Personal Brand is Key for Ad Agency New Business

Brian Morris/Brad Ball, the Silver Advertising Agency

Developing your personal brand is one of the best investments you can make for new business.

Through my experience working with hundreds of advertising, digital, media and PR firms, I’ve discovered how important it is for the agency owner to be the face of their company. Given the rise of social media, their personal brand story is as essential, or even more so, than the agency’s brand.

Being the “face” of an agency is an intimidating role, and as a result, many owners and founders avoid the spotlight. 

Take a look at personal branding from a prospective client’s perspective:

• Humanizing the agency
• Building media relations
• Sharing company news and information
• Improving the agency’s reputation
• Enhancing credibility
• Attracting the right kind of employees
• Improving employee communications
• Sharing social responsibilities and causes

Here are four simple steps to advance your personal brand story:

1. Community Development Comes Before Business Development

Growing your personal brand is made much easier through social media and content marketing.

One of the most significant changes to new business is that audience development is now a core marketing responsibility. You grow your personal brand by identifying and developing a targeted online audience.

There should be a significant shift in your thinking. You need to embrace audience building as an important new business initiative and provide the necessary time and resources to build your online community of prospective clients.

2. Learn to Be of Value

Here’s a crucial tip for building your online community of prospects: Stop trying to sell your agency.It’s not about touting your credentials, capabilities and case studies. You will never build an audience without value. Value is simply being of service. You identify the needs of your potential clients and then create and share information that is relevant to their challenges. You must be willing to share your expertise freely.

This is the secret sauce of success in social media and growing your personal brand. Spend more of time thinking about them than about yourself.

You won’t be valued if you are constantly touting your agency’s accomplishments and services. It’s not about you or your agency, you must stay focused on the needs of your audience.

3. Provide a Direct Connection to Your Agency’s Brand Leader

As spokesperson-in-chief, your skills and experience in social media have become even more important.

Prospective clients now expect to have direct connections to a company’s brand leader. As an owner, you should communicate through social media to help your company appear more human and create a strong emotional connection with those you are trying to reach.

I learned long ago that people want to work with other people that they know, trust and like. The mix of your personal brand story with a prospective client community can be powerful.

4. To Build Your Personal Brand Story, Write

Prospects are looking for expertise. An an effective way to build your personal brand is to become a thought leader to a specific target audience.

Agencies fail to realize the importance prospects place on having a knowledge of their industry. Industry expertise is more than credentials, capabilities and case studies. The commonality among experts is that experts write. This makes content marketing a tremendous tool in establishing a positioning of expertise quickly. You’re not “selling” your expertise, you’re demonstrating it. Your content becomes the fuel that builds relationships and trust.

Bottom line, if you develop your personal brand story, then you can help your agency acquire more new business.

Email me at michael@michaelgass.com if you’d like a copy of my guide, Seven Steps for Fueling New Business Through Social Media.

Additional articles that may be of interest:

• Do this ONE Thing to Build Your Agency’s Brand
• Best Practices of Highly Social CEOs for Ad Agency New Business
• Content Marketing Benefits Ad Agency New Business
• Ad Agency Prospects are Looking for Expertise