Attention strategies for agencies

Frameworks for aligning your content and business strategies

Hello, friendly human. Every week (or so!), this dispatch helps you make better creative and strategic decisions. Sometimes that means essays. Sometimes that means resources. Last time it was an essay on meditation. This time it’s a framework for aligning your content strategy to your business offering. I wrote this for the folks who ask me about my time as an agency content lead, and how we decided what our content strategy would be. It’s oriented towards agencies, but I think it’s a useful framework for any brand. Anyway, hello, it’s good to see you. -Steve

Every agency needs attention

Agencies don’t really want attention.

Agencies want revenue.

An agency acquires revenue by selling its service.

But in order to sell its service for revenue, the agency must first get people to pay attention.

The more attention the agency gets, the more services it can sell, and at a higher price. Attention, in this way, is the great differentiator.

So every agency needs to be in the business of getting attention whether they want to be or not.

There is only one way to get attention

That way is to tell stories.

A story is an idea you put out into the world.

A story can be a case study or a story can be a sizzle reel, a story can be a quote in The New York Times or Ad Age, or a story can be something your co-founder drunkenly scribbled on a cocktail napkin and asked the intern to publish on the agency blog.

Regardless, you have to put stories out into the world if you want people to pay attention to you.

There are only two business cases for attention

There are only two business cases for getting attention. Those business cases are Public Relations and Business Development.

Public Relations is things you do to get noticed.

Business Development is things you do to get business.

Ideally, the things you do to get noticed are the same thing as the things you do to get business. Winning at Cannes Lions, for example, might win you admiration and new clients. 

Similarly, publishing a great case study might get you a great client, which will then get you noticed by trade press and creatives.

There are only two audiences for attention