What a weak pitch looks like from the other side
The prospect sits through three agencies in a week. Each shows credentials, a point of view on the category, and three creative routes. The routes are good. They are also interchangeable, because all three agencies started from the same brief and the same taste. The prospect picks on chemistry and price, which is the outcome nobody wanted.
A strong pitch changes the starting point. Instead of a view on the category, it shows the prospect their own market this week, their competitors as they actually behave on social, and their own posts read more honestly than their team has read them. That is hard to be interchangeable about.
The five parts, in the order the room wants them
- Their market, right now. The sounds, formats and topics rising in the prospect's country this month, and which of them fit the brand. Three or four, with the curve, not a list of twenty. This is the part no other agency in the week will have.
- Their competitors, honestly. Who in their set posts what, how often, and what outperforms. Which trends the competitors already took. The whitespace left. Keep it to one page and name names.
- Their own posts, read for patterns. The themes, hooks and formats that beat their own usual numbers, and the ones that do not. Done from public posts, so it needs no access. This is the slide that makes the room sit up, because it is about them and it is specific.
- Three concepts tied to the first three parts. Each one names the trend it rides, the competitor gap it uses and the learning it applies. Not three routes, three bets with a reason.
- The first 30 days. What ships in week one, how it is measured, when the first learning comes back. A plan with a date beats a vision with a mood board.
What to leave out
The agency's own history, beyond one slide. The platform landscape, which the prospect knows. Any trend that is already everywhere, because the prospect's intern has seen it and will say so. And anything you cannot back with a number or a screenshot. One unsupported claim makes the room doubt the supported ones.
Why this is usually not done
Time. The market read, the competitor read and the audit are each a day or two of a strategist by hand, for a pitch the agency may lose. So agencies do it for the big ones and wing the rest, and the rest is most pitches.
Doing it for every pitch
In Social Thirst a pitch is a frozen snapshot of a prospect: their brand set up as if they were a client, their market's trends scored for fit, their competitors tracked, their public posts read in Learnings, and concepts drafted in their tone. The strategist's day goes into choosing the three bets and telling the story, and the snapshot expires after the pitch so the prospect's data is not kept around. Win, and it becomes the client's live account on day one.
Questions
Do we need access to their accounts?
No. Public posts are enough for the audit and the competitor read. Account-level numbers come after the win.
How long does the prep take?
By hand, a week for a strategist. With the market, the competitors and the posts already analysed, a day, most of it spent on the concepts.
Should we show the tool in the room?
Show the evidence, not the tool. The prospect buys the agency that understood them. Where the evidence came from is a question for the second meeting.