Truly outstanding marketing firms understand that their presentation must be well structured, and the importance of “theatre” throughout the presentation is well understood.

ad agency pitch advice

Put a little magic in your new business pitch.

This is a chance to create that “magic” that so many clients have been looking for since the days of Samantha and Darrin in Bewitched, where the agency comes in with that little something special and wins the day. How can a truly great marketing firm mess up an opportunity to do something that should be natural for most advertising agencies?

Easy enough it seems. Over at Australia’s media, marketing & entertainment umbrella site mUmBRELLA Nathan Hodges listed some great pointers for those seeking to really lose a new business pitch! His list, and some of the comments, are outstanding and well worth a read!

My personal favorite on his list is number nine:

“Spend at least ten minutes messing around unsuccessfully with the presentation equipment. Preferably over a laptop in a huddle of two or three with puzzled expressions. If you’re really brave – and this is the showstopper – disappear under the table and try to re-connect stuff with your backside in the air. Unbeatable for destroying confidence. If you can’t show a simple presentation, they’re not going to trust you with a million bucks of production budget are they? (This is gold, you know. Gold.)”

You have no idea how many times I’ve seen a marketing firm fail to practice the set-up, then watch as they crash and burn in the presentation. Lucky for us, the last time this happened it was the competitive agency, as the agency I was consulting with knew better.

A Thousand Winning Pitches.

Now as many of you know we help many marketing firms behind the scenes win new business pitches. One of the reasons we’ve been so successful is we have seen every one of those mistakes, and more. In fact, we’ve written many posts on the topic of how to pitch, how to win, and what the pitch process is really about. I’ve collected a few of them below in one handy list for you to review the next time you have a pitch you really want to win. Think of this as your ad agency pitch advice from the experts.

We also have a day-long training session that outlines the “best practices” and sets up your firm for long-term success.

Pitches are “once in a lifetime” opportunities. Your presentation will make the difference between winning and losing. A truly great presentation will make great thinking and great ideas even better. And it can, sometimes, compensate for average ideas and performance.

Having someone who lives and breathes pitching, whose pitched thousands of products and services, with some of the best marketing firms in the world, in your corner seems like a winning idea. So the next time you have a pitch you really want to win give us a call.

 

Photo by Cruenta
 
 
 

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