Agency Leadership Podcast Chip Griffin and Gini Dietrich

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the importance of email marketing for agencies. They emphasize that email newsletters should be a top priority for agencies to nurture leads, share content, and maintain direct communication with clients.







The conversation highlights the risks of relying solely on social media platforms, which can change or disappear. They also advise agency owners to publish thought leadership content to differentiate themselves and align with their values, despite potential fear of alienating prospects.







Lastly, they stress the importance of owning one’s content and not just focusing on the size of the email list, but rather the quality of engagement and relevance to the audience.







Key takeaways









* Chip Griffin: “The vast majority of agencies I talk to do not regularly send an email newsletter or anything like that. And I think it is a giant mistake for an agency.”







* Gini Dietrich: “The idea that you are essentially renting out your content or selling your content for free to a social media platform that you don’t own is dangerous. The fact that you don’t have all of those followers and subscribers in an email database that you own is really scary because it could go away.”







* Chip Griffin: “The reason why clients hire you is not because you have the best team in the world. The differentiator comes in the form of your ideas and your thought on how do you approach things.”







* Gini Dietrich: “Email marketing helps you do business development in a way that doesn’t feel sleazy, that feels more comfortable for our people pleasing personalities. And it does it in a way that generates those leads for you so that they’re coming in, they’re inbound versus you having to make cold calls and do outbound.”









Related









* What kind of content should you create to market your agency?







* Eating your own dog food and marketing your agency (featuring Aaron Strout)











View Transcript

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.







Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin.







Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich.







Chip Griffin: And Gini, I think I’m going to just start spamming the heck out of you. I’m going to email you all day, every day.







Gini Dietrich: I can’t wait. My inbox will thank you.







Chip Griffin: I already sent you a fair number of emails, mostly with, you know, humorous observations or depressing thoughts about the overall environment we live in.







Gini Dietrich: Yeah, we do have a lot of that stuff.







Chip Griffin: Indeed. But, we’re actually going to talk about email and how it relates to, How agencies can grow. How important are email lists or email newsletters for agencies? Should they care about them? Should it be a priority? Should they forget about it and just go do something else?







Outreach on LinkedIn, direct mail, direct message spamming on LinkedIn, or cold calling, or all of these other tactics. So where does, where do newsletters and email fit in?







Gini Dietrich: The answer is yes,

If you’re a regular listener, you know that Chip and Gini have strong feelings about staying away from RFPs when possible. But sometimes they can’t be avoided.







In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss offer practical tips for handling RFPs efficiently, like templatizing repeat information, asking insightful questions, and focusing on building relationships. They also touch on strategies for incumbent agencies facing potential renewal through RFPs, emphasizing the importance of not burning bridges and maintaining a full pipeline of business opportunities.







Overall, they highlight the necessity of minimizing effort while maximizing the chances of success in the RFP process.







Key takeaways









* Chip Griffin: “A lot of RFPs are just giant wish lists. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you’re only going to win this if you respond in original detail to every single question. Because you’re not. That’s not how they’re making their decision. You need to provide enough information to keep moving through the process, but your only goal is to get to the next conversation. You don’t win it on the RFP alone.”







* Gini Dietrich: “If they want to see the way you think, you don’t have to create new material. You don’t have to invest a bunch of time in design and copy. You can definitely use stuff that already exists.”







* Chip Griffin: “Ask some questions and get clarifications. Don’t make assumptions, particularly if your assumption is going to require a lot of work.”







* Gini Dietrich: “Templatize some of the work. Every RFP usually asks for the same thing about the agency, about your team. Sometimes they ask for financials. The things that are standard in almost every RFP, you can templatize that. You don’t have to recreate it every time.”









Related









* Conversations are key to successful RFP responses







* Should Chip stop blindly hating RFPs for agencies?







* ALP 7: The pros and cons of RFP’s for agencies







* Common mistakes agencies make when pursuing new business











View Transcript

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.







Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin.







Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich.







Chip Griffin: What’s that?







Gini Dietrich: How did I say my name?







Chip Griffin: I don’t know.







Gini Dietrich: gibberish







Chip Griffin: and usually it’s me screwing up the opening here. I think we’re going to keep this in though, just so people understand that Gini is not perfect.







I am not the only one who flubs things. Gini does too. I didn’t even hear it cause I wasn’t even listening cause I was, I was trying to think of my witty opening.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss whether PR agencies should report to the head of communications or the head of marketing. They reference a LinkedIn post by Parry Headrick, which suggests that PR agencies should ideally report to the communications lead.







Chip and Gini explore various considerations such as the size and structure of the client’s organization, the types of projects being handled, and the importance of having someone who understands PR work. They also emphasize the need for agencies to adapt and possibly integrate the PESO model to better serve modern client needs.







Key takeaways









* Chip Griffin: “It’s our job as agencies to make sure that we are working with people who understand what we do. Either because they knew it coming in or because we’ve helped educate them, preferably during the business development process, so that they have a clear understanding of what we can and frankly, what we cannot do as an agency, what results are reasonable to expect.”







* Gini Dietrich: “If we’re going to report to the CEO, do they really have time to work with us, or are we going to be left sort of flailing around trying to do it ourselves? Ideally, we have somebody internally who can sort of be the gatekeeper project manager, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be a communications person.”







* Chip Griffin: “When it comes to measurement, I think we also need to realize that on the marketing side of the house, it’s easier to produce numbers. Whether they are truly measuring anything that matters is a whole different thing.”







* Gini Dietrich: “You can have really smart, sophisticated executives like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, who believe in the value of PR, but because you can’t measure it in the same way as marketing, I think we’re going to always fight that battle.”









Resources









* Parry Headrick’s LinkedIn post











View Transcript

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.







Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin.







Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich.







Chip Griffin: And Gini, I’m trying to figure out who I should report to. Who should be, I mean, I guess probably the agency owner. I probably shouldn’t, oh, I should report to you always. Yep, right. For those of you not watching on video, Gini was very helpfully pointing all of her fingers at herself.







So, yes. I mean, look, we all know that I report to you, particularly on this show, at least.







Gini Dietrich: Yes.







Chip Griffin: But what we’re going to talk about is who, who PR agencies should be reporting to, because this is a topic that was brought up on a LinkedIn post by Parry Headrick and of Crackle PR, and he puts out lots of great content on LinkedIn.







Some, some, some less great content that I disagree with, but you know, most of it I agree with. And,

For years, agency advisors like Chip and Gini have implored agencies to be strategic and avoid being simple order takers. Owners were told that this shift was key to increasing profitability and client retention.







But has it gone too far? In this episode, Chip and Gini examine whether agencies have hit ‘peak strategy’ as suggested recently by Blair Enns.







They ask whether some agencies are overemphasizing strategy at the expense of implementation. They note that clients say they want their agencies to think strategically, but they also balk at explicit costs for strategic planning.







They maintain that agencies should incorporate strategy into their overall services without explicitly charging for it, and emphasize the need for balance between strategic planning and practical execution.







Chip and Gini also discuss proper pricing strategies, ensuring clients receive value without feeling nickel-and-dimed. The conversation highlights the necessity of delivering workable strategies tailored to client needs and the importance of understanding costs and pricing based on agency specifics.







Key takeaways









* Chip Griffin: “You need to be strategic. You need to be viewed that way, but you don’t need to rub it in the client’s face and make them pay for it explicitly in a line item on the invoice.”







* Gini Dietrich: “When we say you need to look at your pricing, you need to increase your prices, it’s because you have to fold in your account management and your results reporting and your data analysis and your strategy.”







* Chip Griffin: “A restaurant doesn’t offer someone wine and then itemize the glass because you’re not going to let them sit there and drink it straight out of the bottle. That’s how strategy should be. It’s the glass.”







* Gini Dietrich: “There’s a common occurrence that’s happening that I see happening more and more where people are asking one another what they’re charging for things. And I think that’s the completely wrong approach. When you’re thinking about pricing, you have to figure out what it costs you and price it that way.”









Resources









* Have We Hit Peak Strategy?











View Transcript

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.







Chip Griffin: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin.







Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich.







Chip Griffin: Gini, you know, strategy. Does strategy even matter? We don’t really care about strategy, do we? We just kind of amble forward. And that’s what we should do with our clients, right?







Gini Dietrich: We do care about strategy.







I think it’s in how we position it, that is different.







Chip Griffin: Oh, Really, the topic is, have we hit peak strategy? That’s something that Blair Enns of Win Without Pitching was writing about recently, and he was talking about how agencies have been encouraged to head towards strategy, to build for strategy, to demonstrate strategy to their clients, and he’s questioning now whether agencie...

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the widespread apprehension about AI in the agency world, urging listeners to embrace the technology rather than fear it.







They emphasize that AI will not replace jobs but will change the nature of work, making tasks more efficient and allowing for more strategic focus. The conversation also explores how agency owners can leverage AI to create new service models and improve client offerings.







Key takeaways









* Gini Dietrich: “I don’t think AI is going to replace us. I do think it’s going to change the way that we do our jobs. It’s going to make us more effective.”







* Chip Griffin: “One of the things that I hear is, it’s going to cut down our rates. Well, like for like, it ought to. If you’re not doing something new and different and additional, you absolutely should charge less for the things that AI is helping you do faster, because that’s what happens with all technology.”







* Gini Dietrich: “Technology is coming at us really fast, and the way that we adapt to it is what’s going to set us apart.”







* Chip Griffin: “Instead of freaking out about artificial intelligence, you need to use the other kind of AI – actual intelligence – to come up with a plan to move forward.”









Resources









* How AI is Shaping the Future of Communications (Spin Sucks podcast)







* What a pink “While You Were Out” message pad looks like









Related









* Is AI writing an agency’s friend or foe?







* Should AI upend your agency business model today?







* What does ChatGPT and generative AI mean for PR agencies?







* Introduction to generative AI for agencies











View Transcript

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.







Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin.







Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich.







Chip Griffin: And Gini. I don’t have a witty opening. I just have a message for people. Stop being afraid of AI.







Gini Dietrich: Amen. Yes, totally agree. 100%. Yes.







Chip Griffin: The amount of hand wringing that I see, not just in the agency world, but elsewhere around AI.







Gini Dietrich: In general. Yeah.







Chip Griffin: You know, it’s going to take our jobs. It’s going to mean that we can’t charge clients as much. We’re going to lose business because of it. The we’re going to get scammed and conned because of it. It’s, I mean, just all of these things, it just take a deep breath folks. Take a deep breath. You don’t need to go out and disclose everything.

Are you finding biz dev harder in 2024 than you expected?







In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the increased risk aversion and prolonged decision-making processes among clients and prospects in the agency industry, especially in light of economic uncertainties and the 2024 U.S. election. They emphasize the importance of agencies adapting by providing project-based work and suggest looking into using AI for optimizing tasks and offering new services.







The conversation also explores the benefits of flexible, short-term engagements and the potential pitfalls of long-term contracts.







Key takeaways









* Chip Griffin: “Something that agencies frankly should always be thinking about, but particularly in times like this is how do you offer less risky solutions, or at least things that appear less risky to the prospect if you want to close business in the near term. And, a lot of agencies don’t want to hear this, but that means doing more project work.”







* Gini Dietrich: “The flip side of a short-term engagement is it gives you the opportunity to know if they’re the right client for you because you’re not married to them for the next year.”







* Chip Griffin: “I think that agencies by and large today would say that they are more fearful of AI than hopeful for it. I think that is a giant mistake.”







* Gini Dietrich: “I don’t think the industry is quite here yet, but I think Artificial Intelligence is going to offer agencies a really big opportunity in the next couple of years.”









Related









* Is business slowing down for agencies in 2023?







* How to build accurate PR agency project budgets







* The challenges of project-focused agencies











View Transcript

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.







Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin.







Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich.







Chip Griffin: And Gini, I really don’t have an opening today, so I guess…







Gini Dietrich: I was waiting patiently.







Chip Griffin: Yeah, I, I just, I, I couldn’t come up with something on the fly today. I don’t know whether my brain’s not working or what, but we’ll just, we’ll just have to dive right into the topic without that witty opening that I always have.







Gini Dietrich: Witty is in quotes.







Chip Griffin: Wow. Wow. Already taking shots at me in less than 30 seconds.







Gini Dietrich: You’re welcome.







Chip Griffin: Well, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. Probably well deserved today since, you know, I couldn’t even come up with my bad opening. So what we are going to talk about though, is whether our, our clients out there in agency land are taking longer to make decisions and, and more risk averse when it comes to spending their organization’s money and what that means for agencies.







Here in, in mid 2024.







Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I mean, we talked earlier this year about how crappy 2023 was genera...