The Only Content Map You’ll Ever Need
A map of attention targets for agencies and creatives
Every agency wants attention
The only way to get attention is to tell stories.
And while there are many different ways to express a story, there are only two business cases: Public Relations and Business Development.
PR is things you do to get noticed.
BD is things you do to get business.
Sometimes, the things you do to get noticed are the same thing as the things you do to get business. But it’s the intent behind the actions that determines the efficacy of the choice.
Why? Because:
There are only two audiences for that attention
Regardless of why you’re courting attention, you’re usually only trying to gain the notice of two types of people: Creatives and Buyers.
Creatives are people you want to hire.
Buyers are people you want to hire you.
Public relations and business development for creatives and buyers. That’s it.
No matter how you express your story.
No matter whether it’s about clients or awards or insight.
It’s just PR and BD for creatives and buyers.
Creative PR
Creative PR is speaking to creatives about your agency’s point of view on creativity.
Creative PR can take many forms: Articles, slide decks, social, whatever. The form is immaterial. What’s important is the audience (creatives) and the intent — your desire to establish creative leadership.
Creative BD
Creative BD is speaking to creatives about what you believe, why you believe it, how you work, and the conditions of that work.
Creative PR can take many forms: web site copy, articles, videos, whatever. The form is immaterial. What’s important is the audience (creatives) and the intent — your desire to recruit.
Buyer PR
Buyer PR is speaking to potential clients about your agency’s growth or book of business.
Buyer PR can take many forms: press releases about new clients, tweets about your agency growth, stories in the trade press, whatever. The form is immaterial. What’s important is the audience (prospects) and your intent — your desire to establish credibility.
Buyer BD
Buyer BD is speaking to potential clients about your agency’s work product or methodology.
Buyer BD can take many forms: web copy about what your agency can do, case studies about clients served, research reports about any manner of topics. The form is immaterial. What’s important is the audience (prospects) and your intent — your desire to directly sell your services.
Put it all together, the map of possible content looks like this:
Good attention works across the matrix
Every story an agency tells can do an incredible amount of work.
Creative PR can also work as Creative BD — that is, the quality of your creativity can incentivize creatives in your audience to apply for a job.
And Buyer BR can also work Buyer BD — that is, your latest client win can convince prospective clients to give you a call.
After all, good attention is good attention.
But what matters is the audience and the intent, because attention converts in different ways depending on who you’re publishing to.
An agency that was desperate to grow its accounts wouldn’t spend resources on Creative PR hoping for BD wins. Just as an agency that wanted to attract creative talent might not want to spend resources on Buyer BD.
This isn’t a prescription, it’s a map
Stories take infinite forms.
Stories appear on infinite platforms.
But that form and those platforms are less important than the audience and the intent, which are finite.
Determine your audience and intent first—determine your why—and you will surely be successful.
