For agencies hoping to win the new business of high profile clients, the stakes couldn’t be higher than when it comes time to pitch their offerings. For brands, the stakes are always high. They want assurances their agency spend will ultimately equate to higher revenue, among other business goals.
How do agencies prove their value and win the day? Our new eBook The Art of Possible: Using Social Media Analytics to Develop Data-Driven Agency Pitches has all the answers. Here’s a preview:
The Proof Is in the Pitch
A pitch is an opportunity to demonstrate how much you know about the client you want to sign. It’s the time to show – not just tell – how you’ll increase their success in ways they couldn’t do alone.
That means you’ve got to know everything you can about who they are, what they stand for, and more. In short, you need social analytics at your fingertips so you can speak accurately about their industry.
You want to offer insights on:
- Competitive Differentiation
- Industry & Category Trends
- Audience Segmentation
These are the main areas of a pitch analysis – something that happens quickly, about two weeks before your pitch. Insights any older may not be actionable, and you want to show your target brand you have your finger on the pulse of their business.
The Lay of the Land
Start with a picture of the brand. Comprising contextual conversation volume and the shape of that conversation in the market, your brand picture shows prospective clients a snapshot of their brand in the real world. And in real-time.
This part of your analysis reveals what the brand audience is sharing and talking about, as well as the channels where such conversations are happening. Talk of competitors and adjacent products matter here as well. And influencers – both advocates and detractors – should also be identified.
Combined social listening and sentiment analysis will bring into focus the keywords, hashtags, and strength of emotion driving social conversations. This will also point to emerging trends that can impact brand strategy.
Competitors to Conquer
Of course, the point is to come out ahead of competitors, so that’s another area agencies must focus on when pitching to brands. Category and competitive analysis provides an opportunity to wow them with insights beyond the obvious.
For this part of your analysis, focus your efforts on competitive context and threats, and unmet needs and consumer desires. You want to look specifically at comparing conversation volume as related to key issues, and themes, within the context of who owns what, and known market issues.
Additionally, you want to understand industry problems through consumer-driven feedback, as well as gender specific “I wish” and “I want” drivers, to find through-lines for crafting brand stories.
The idea is to demonstrate your knowledge of their challenges, while offering insight-backed recommendations for moving forward. This is an area where sentiment analysis particularly comes into play.
When you understand the sentiment driving consumer actions, you can inspire engagement for your own brand – the kind that leaves your competition in the dust.
It’s important to know – and be able to convey – that Brand Passion counts for more than mere mentions. As in the graph above, Southwest Airlines might have the highest percentage share of mentions, but with Net Sentiment at 15% and Passion Intensity at 71 not all of those mentions are an indication of brand love.
You must be able to drill down into true emotions about a brand – and show them what’s behind the emotions.
These are the insights that set agencies like Moxie, 113 Industries, and David & Goliath apart as they propel brands like Chick-fil-A, Ocean Spray, and Kia (respectively) into the stratosphere.
The More You Know
What those agencies would tell you is the more you know, the better your chance of winning the pitch. There’s so much you can layer onto a pitch – like product and industry themes – and with social analytics tools, it’s not only possible, it’s too accessible to refuse.
We’ve got a lot more about how to nail your pitch, and why each component matters for different objectives, in The Art of Possible: Using Social Media Analytics to Develop Data-Driven Agency Pitches. Download your copy and get ready to sign your biggest brands yet!
And reach out if you want to see our social analytics tools in action – we’re happy to take you through a customized demo!
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