Did Your Last Campaign Work? Why You Need Both Social and Search Data to Know for Sure
By Ksenia NewtonAug 14
The agency game is constantly evolving.
Though adapting to change is not always easy, it’s an exciting time for digital marketers to push their boundaries and compete to win new business in an environment where agility is key.
Over the last few years, brands’ understanding of the digital landscape has accelerated, leading to increased expectations of their agencies to deliver excellence.
Unsurprisingly, this has led to a boost in competitiveness and greater sophistication and complexity in agency briefs.
In the burning quest to win new business, agencies struggle to juggle multiple challenges without dropping the ball. The pressure of consistently acquiring top talent, overcoming budget reductions and increasing churn rates, and keeping abreast of the constantly changing digital media landscape can be difficult to handle.
In this highly competitive field, the key to winning new business is being different, standing out from the crowd, going the extra mile, and leading your agency to a first-place finish.To empower you to stay ahead of the game and win new business, we’ve compiled a list of seven key ways social listening can help you create the perfect pitch.
1. Analyze the brand’s previous campaigns
They say you can’t move forward until you’ve looked back.
Using social listening tools, you can research the brand’s previous campaigns and learn what was successful, what worked, and what could be done differently next time.
Focus on a few recent and important campaigns and collect key metrics, charts, and visuals that can feed into your pitch to show results and areas of improvement. You can then discuss how you could have made that particular type of campaign more successful.
Provide easy access to clear and actionable insights to help inform future campaigns and boost your chances of winning that pitch.
You can highlight such campaigns in seconds by using tools like Brandwatch’s AI analyst Iris, our automated reports, live alerts, and interactive dashboards.
2. Identify the brand’s top advocates and influencers
Most brands have a rough idea of their most active fans, but you can go a step further and use social listening solutions, such as Brandwatch, to build lists of brand advocates and influencers from forums, blogs, the media, and social networks.
You can even segment those depending on the nature of their business and the platforms their audience is most active on. You can also rank them by influence scores, numbers of followers, engagement levels, and more.
Building strong, long-lasting relationships with your brand advocates and influencers starts with high-quality, thorough research.
3. Reveal insightful and surprising data
Surprise and originality should be two key elements of a successful agency pitch.
Use tools like Brandwatch to unearth online communities, heated discussions, fan groups, or unexpected topics of conversation around the brand or the industry they operate in.
Bring to life conversations that the brand might not be aware of to pique their curiosity. Why is that worth their attention? Explain why they should care and how the information they’ve missed out on can help make a positive impact on their brand.
4. Showcase crisis management skills
You need to show your potential new clients how you’d handle a crisis if any occurs.
That’s why our agency clients love Brandwatch Alerts. This feature let’s clients be notified in real-time when a crisis strikes. Using advanced AI tools, you can help clients get to the root of the issue.
When pitching, it is crucial to reassure your potential clients that you are highly competent in crisis management, ensuring them that you can react promptly, respond effectively, and safeguard their brand's reputation. Additionally, successfully securing new business for your agency requires instilling a sense of confidence in your clients, assuring them that they can trust you with their brand image.
5. Turn data into action
Social listening provides access to vast amounts of data. But leveraging this data and turning it into actionable business insights can sometimes be a challenge.
Don't limit yourself to social data alone; blend it with other research sources to get a fuller picture. This way, you can offer informed recommendations for areas that need improvement and suggest practical steps to take.
6. Monitor the competition to win new business
It’s essential to be aware of what other businesses in your industry are doing to learn from their mistakes and devise a strategy that outsmarts them.
Agencies that demonstrate an understanding of the online discussions surrounding a brand and their competitors will grab the attention of the prospect – especially, if you can show that the competition is driving more engagement and currently holds a higher share of voice in relevant online consumer conversations.
Revealing deep insights into the competitive landscape has a greater impact than simply showing a prospect data about its own brands. Bringing competitor analysis into the pitch with a clear plan of action will usually help progress a pitch much faster.
It is important for agencies to differentiate and create a unique way of using social data to inform all their activities – which will ultimately help them win new business.
That’s a wrap!
It’s time to identify new opportunities and review your next agency pitch. Contact us if you are looking for a solution to get key insights to win new businesses.