I get an absurd amount of spam from agencies.
The spam comes in two flavors: sales spam and podcast pitch spam.
Some of it is from what I would characterize as the “usual suspects” — agencies that seem to be infused with too much sales swagger and too little client service.
But a concerning amount of it comes from agencies that seem to genuinely think that they are serving their clients and their own business.
I’ll talk more about this later in this week’s newsletter, but first let’s take a look at what Jen has rounded up for us this week.
— Chip Griffin, SAGA Founder
Weekly Roundup
Below are some articles, blog posts, podcasts, and videos that we came across during the past week or so that provide useful perspective and information for PR and marketing agency owners. While we don’t necessarily endorse all of the views expressed in these links, we think they are worth your time.
— Jen Griffin, SAGA Community Manager
Latest from SAGA
- Choosing the right exit strategy as an agency owner (Agency Leadership Podcast)
Articles & Blog Posts
- Should you consider an Acqui-Hire exit for your agency? (Sakas and Company)
- Q/A: Staffing, Culture, Careers, Finance, AI (Punctuation)
- What’s the Best Format for a Case Study? You’re Asking the Wrong Question. (The Sutter Company)
- How Allies Management Broke Free From the Agency Growth Trap to Scale Without Chaos (AgencyAnalytics)
- More Best Days (Anchor Advisors)
Podcast Episodes
- Facing an Existential Crisis? (2Bobs)
- From CMO to CRO: How Marketing Leaders Are Evolving (The Digital Agency Growth Podcast)
- How the Social Media News Anchor Is Redefining Journalism (Spin Sucks)
- CEO Essentials, with Brad Farris (The Innovative Agency)
- The Good, The Bad, and The Ridiculous of Wordplay (That Solo Life)
- Scaling a Digital Marketing Agency With White Hat SEO: Insights From Cody Jensen (The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast)
- Mentoring: The Lost of Art of Making Leaders (Working/Broken)
- Understanding Your Agency Model, with Carson Pierce (The Agency Profit Podcast)
- Kyra Cavanaugh, Free Yourself – Workplace Wellbeing (Agency Bytes)
Videos
- Audrey Kwan on Just Ask Jody Live (The Sutter Company)
- Prepare now to sell your agency in the future (special guest Jonathan Baker) (Sakas and Company)
- Time to Raise Prices (Agency Management Institute)
AI in focus
- Sam Michelson on How AI Search is Changing Reputation Management (FIR Interviews)
Why are so many agencies sending spam?
Let me start with a bit of a confession. Back in the 1990s I sent a lot of fax spam at the direction of bosses and clients.
We would pump out press releases and fax them to hundreds or even thousands of media outlets.
We ran up massive phone bills and charges with bulk fax providers to make this all happen.
When I worked on Capitol Hill back then, we also got a ton of spam sent to our own fax machine. That darn curly paper would pile up on the floor with messages from various advocacy groups and others.
It was really annoying.
In the decades since, we have all become accustomed to lots of email spam. Modern email servers do a pretty good job of filtering out the worst offenders, but that doesn’t stop most of the “legitimate” spam from getting through.
Of course, many people will euphemistically refer to this kind of spam as “cold email outreach.”
But it’s worse than simply cold. It’s frozen tundra email outreach.
And your agency might be doing it without even realizing it.
As I did in the 1990s as a young employee and then consultant, team members feel pressure from clients and bosses to “do more” to generate new business or produce results for customers.
Owners put this same pressure on themselves — or they feel it when they look in their business bank accounts.
The result is really poorly targeted and completely impersonal rubbish spewed out in the hope of landing a lead or getting a story.
Every day, I get blasted by email and LinkedIn messages from agencies wanting to sell me their services. But the vast majority show absolutely no understanding of what I do.
Worse, I get hammered with countless podcast pitches that are not just entirely self-serving (dressed up as being “helpful” to my audience) but also completely uninformed about the nature and format of my various podcasts.
Most of these awful podcast pitches come from agencies.
If you own an agency, you need to knock it off and must work with your team to find a better way.
Feel free to reach out to potential clients, targeted journalists, and even podcast hosts but do it in a way that is more personal and shows at least a basic understanding of the person on the other end.
It may feel good to blast away at hundreds or thousands of people at a time, but I can assure you that even if you get some nibbles you are damaging your brand in the process.
If you want to pitch a journalist, you need to read some of what they have written.
if you want to get a client on a podcast, you should listen to at least part of a couple of episodes (oh, and maybe make sure they even have guest slots).
If you want to start a new business conversation, learn something about your target — and maybe offer them something of value or interest to them before launching into your sales pitch.
Finally, I don’t know where people are learning the tactic of attacking their prospects as a sales/marketing approach. Telling someone their website or videos suck or they’re failing at marketing isn’t usually the best way to start an agency-client relationship.
Take a hard look at what you’re doing and the pressure that you or your clients may be putting on team members. Ask yourself if you are an accidental spammer — and then take steps to stop it.
Don’t be like I was with the fax machine in the 1990s.
