Convince & Convert launches consultancy to help agencies figure out a digital marketing game plan
(July 8, 2008 — Flagstaff, Ariz.)
Thousands of advertising and public relations firms find themselves under siege as new tactics and digital specialty agencies chip away at their client base.
What’s an agency to do? Outsource digital marketing? Hire an in-house expert? Merge with a digital marketing agency? Ignore the Web and hope it goes away?
Convince & Convert, a new digital marketing consultancy, has launched to answer those questions – and more. The firm is believed to be America’s first devoted solely to helping agencies get better (and more profitable) at digital marketing. Convince & Convert improves agencies’ in-house expertise in email marketing, search marketing, Web strategy, Internet advertising, social media, and mobile marketing.
The company specializes in Digital Marketing Audit and Actions, an intensive, 2-day analysis and examination of an agency’s digital capabilities, with a detailed roadmap for improvements. The firm also works with agencies on an ongoing basis to increase in-house digital marketing expertise and profits.
The firm is led by Jason Baer, a 15-year Internet veteran who has worked with dozens of agencies and hundreds of major companies including: Nike, Fujitsu, Pulte Homes, Cold Stone Creamery, and RJ Reynolds. He founded the award-winning digital marketing firm Mighty Interactive, which he sold to integrated Tempe, AZ agency Off Madison Ave in 2005. He remains a senior consultant to Off Madison Ave.
Notes
• To provide a true competitive advantage to its clients, Convince & Convert will work with only one agency in each U.S. market.
• Digital marketing is expected to double in the next 4 years, according to eMarketer, yet many advertising and PR agencies continue to struggle with integrating digital marketing tactics and executing them competently and profitably for their clients. A recent Forrester Research report says agencies “…must build new interactive competencies quickly in order to succeed.”
• Convince and Convert maintains an active blog on digital marketing issues for agencies
Tags
digital marketing, digital marketing consultants, ad agency consultants, interactive marketing consultants, internet business consultants, PR firm consultants, social media consultants, ad agency roundtable
Links
Convince & Convert digital marketing blog
Convince & Convert digital marketing consultants services and fees
Are You Digital Ready? Quiz for Agencies
Quotes
(attributable to Jason Baer, President Convince & Convert)
Advertising and PR firms have been having their lunch eaten for years by digital-only shops, and I’ve done some of that eating. Agencies must act now to dramatically improve their digital capabilities or their core business will begin to erode.
Ultimately, there shouldn’t be a “digital” group within an agency. Every marketing tactic should have a digital component. That’s what Convince & Convert does – shows agencies how to integrate and profit from interactive marketing.
Attributable to Forrester Research Report “Agencies Must Build Digital Skills to Survive) April, 2008
Traditional advertising agencies face significant technical difficulties. Clients are shifting business to digital shops, and consumers have turned away from media channels that built the agency industry and toward emerging Internet media. Ad agencies must build new interactive competencies quickly in order to succeed. How? They must build digital skills with a three-tiered approach of establishing digital commitment at the executive level, retraining existing staffers, and building a pipeline of future talent.
Multimedia
Jason Baer
Convince & Convert
(602) 616.1895
jason@convinceandconvert.com
Twitter: @jaybaer