Connecticut Agencies Are Blogging

At one time, it was said, “every business needs a website.” Today, it’s “every business needs a blog.” Which certainly applies to Connecticut’s creative agencies. But with many agency blogs feeling forced and bandwagonesque, only a handful find a voice that resonates, with the drive to keep that voice current and updated.

helloelements.com is the three-year-old blog of Elements, a graphic design and marketing communications firm in New Haven. The blog bills itself as “a daily dose of inspiration from the staff of Elements.”

The mission is a simple one, according to founder Amy Graver: “Increase exposure. Be a creative outlet for our staff. Show our ‘personality.’ Drive traffic to our site.”

What appears to be a casual list of friends and links can actually be a powerful positioning tool, particularly for a “boutique” agency, showing potential clients a strong brand personality that positions and differentiates.

“No one has directly come to us and said they hired us based on our blog, but almost everyone who has hired us has commented on our blog,” says Graver. “It’s clear that when prospects are checking ‘under the hood,’ the fact that we have a daily updated blog showing what inspires us and what’s current and interesting to us helps to demonstrate our devotion to design, social media and marketing communications.”

The casual and “insider” feel of the website also makes the occasional self-promotion feel much more organic and friendly and much less like your typical press release fare.

surfthedeepend.net is the blog of Fathom, a Hartford-based brand and creative firm. Playing off their agency name, the blog invites readers to dig deeper, to “find something to provoke, entertain, instigate, nudge and yes, possibly tweak you.”

“There are two reasons we started the blog,” says Suzi Craig, Fathom’s Director of Marketing and Engagement. “To bring our thinking to the outside world beyond client and prospect meetings, and to bring some thinking back in.”

True to their name, Fathom dove into their blog head first. “Honestly, when we started, we didn’t really have that much of a plan. We knew that we wanted to focus on specific topics that made sense for us so we weren’t talking out of our ass, but how it was going to evolve was a bit of a mystery.There are a few of us at Fathom who were more active on the blog than others; we each have carved out our own slice, our own voice, yet they all collectively harmonize as part of the larger Fathom voice.”

Positioning yourself as a thought leader is another common goal of the agency blog, one that certainly seems to suit Fathom’s brand. “We are very careful about what we write about — we don’t want to just add to the noise. When we write something, we want to have time to research and edit and produce it like it is an article for a publication. While you are not publishing The New York Times, you should act like you are: develop an editorial calendar, identify roles and assign articles to the editorial team — HAVE an editorial team — and operate like you have an audience waiting for your next issue.”

And blogging also forces you to focus on what is important to your prospective clients. It forces you to talk to THEIR benefit instead of talking about YOUR agency. “Next up for us is implementing a much more targeted approach — writing articles that would attract marketers in higher education, non-profits, Architecture, Engineering and Construction, etc.”

brandflakesforbreakfast.com is the brainchild of Darryl Ohrt, founder of The Agency Formerly Known As Plaid in Danbury. (The agency is currently in the process of rebranding.) The blog feels much like a hybrid of the Elements and Fathom models: it’s an amalgam of everything new and cool in social media and marketing, but also clues us in on the latest in hip design, interesting ads and viral video. It somehow balances a vibe of being super smart while still being entertaining and sometimes downright silly.

“When we started Brand Flakes,” says Ohrt, “we created the blog for an audience of about 12 people. Our clients at the time. We figured that if we could share a little bit of our world with them, they’d be smarter clients, be inspired as marketers, and perhaps be entertained. We write with the same person in mind today, although it’s a much larger audience (approx 4,000 visitors daily). The purpose of the blog is to give our readers content that inspires, educates or entertains.”

Ohrt champions blogging as a powerful business development tool, but stresses the importance of content.

“A lot of agencies jumped on the blogging bandwagon and created blogs about themselves — but in reality, most marketers aren’t interested in reading about you. That just feels like marketing. We’ve created content that isn’t about us, yet is a valuable tool for marketers. So it becomes a part of their regular reading routine — and then when they DO need an agency, we’re top of mind.”

It’s no coincidence that all three of these blogs are done by agencies who stress their expertise in social media. Learning is doing, and you must experience blogging firsthand to discover the benefits it has for your agency and your clients. Practice what you preach; it makes for a powerful case study when you’ve actually used the tools you recommend to your clients.