1. Set Clear Goals and Expectations
Goal-setting is essential for any campaign. You’ll have a tough time determining whether your campaign was successful if you don’t take the time to figure out your goals and how you plan to achieve them.
It is especially important to be professional when representing a client. Both parties need to be equally involved in this process to ensure that each party knows what is expected of them.
Break down the process fully
As a rule, it’s best to avoid surprises. Clients need an agency that is adaptable and can change quickly to meet their needs. They want an organized, well-oiled campaign.
I generally like to work by myself, but I am willing to work with this client specifically if they prefer. How do you develop your ideas, and why is this approach effective for this particular advertising campaign?
Create the gameplan together
You’re the expert, of course. This is the client’s business, and you want them to feel confident about the campaign you are leading.
This requires them to be involved in creating a plan of action. If you let your employees know what you expect from them and give them a chance to contribute, it will be easier for you to get the results you want.
Never bite off more than you can chew
A rule to live by, and an important one for business. Nothing looks worse than failing to deliver on promises. This is a quick way to end a business relationship with a valued client. Resist the urge to say “yes” to everything. do not forget that you are the expert and they have chosen to hire you for a reason.
Setting boundaries is important in order to maintain a healthy client-therapist relationship and to ensure that you are not overextending yourself.
2. Understand Your Client Better
In the early stages of a relationship, you need to commit time and energy to learning about your partners. At present, this is a significant challenge for agencies.
Learn more about their business
To be able to marketing or advertise a brand , it is necessary to have knowledge about it. Not just their products and customers, but their business model, their goals, and their challenges are all important factors to consider when planning a business.
If you can figure out what is important to your customers, you can give them better service.
Understand their industry
If an agency focuses on a specific niche, they may not have a problem. You need to be familiar with the industry of any client you take on.
Media monitoring can help with this. Monitor online discussions about topics related to your industry, and try to identify the general public’s opinion about similar products. This is a quick way to do market research before turning to time-consuming surveys and focus groups. If you want to do a quick market research, you can try this method instead of surveys or focus groups which would take more time.
Test out their product
This is almost essential. Even if you’re not their ideal customer, you want to know what a average user experiences.
You can also analyze your new client’s competitors to learn more about them. Looking at a company’s place in the industry landscape can help you see what opportunities they may be missing out on.
3. Work Together as Partners
Most digital agency clients say that their agency is more focused on selling ideas than on collaborating. That can’t work in the long term. Clients need to feel respected for their input. It is their business, after all.
So how can you build a partnership?
Choose the right partners
A happy relationship should not require force. There will always be obstacles, but if you can identify good clients from the beginning, you’ll be able to avoid the worst ones.
It’s important to choose clients that are a good match from the start. And on the other hand, don’t bother with those that don’t fit your agency. Though it may be difficult, it is beneficial to decline a salary occasionally.
Craft ideas together
We already talked about creating the gameplan together. But don’t stop there. As per a study, majority of the agencies (94%) feel that start-to-finish collaboration is necessary for a great product outcome while all clients interviewed agree to this fact. The client should be involved in every step of the process, from the beginning.
Communicate openly
But the vast majority of salespeople are out of practice when it comes to face-to-face sales conversations Even if you think you are good at face-to-face sales conversations, most salespeople are not. But there are positive steps you can take to make yourself more available:
- Be proactive . Anticipate issues and questions they’re going to have, and deal with them head on.
- Be honest . This can be hard, especially when something has gone wrong. But remember, the cover-up is always worse than the crime.
- Be transparent . Clients’ biggest concerns always include budget. Show them where their money goes and how much work you put in to deliver for them.
- Be receptive . It can be hard to hear criticism when you’ve slaved over something. But clients are more likely to bring more work your way if you’ve proven that you’ll deliver precisely what they want.
4. Report Your Progress and Results
You should already be aware that you need to keep clients updated on the progress of their campaign. The frequency and quality of reporting can make a big impact.
It is important to have clear reporting in order to show the client that you value them and to be able to prove how much progress has been made. This, in turn, makes the client feel relaxed and trusting of your services.
Make regular reporting a priority
You’ll lose clients if you try to impress them with complicated terminology or overly stylized reports. Instead of focusing on delivering statistics about their campaign at regular intervals, allow them to focus on asking questions when they need to.
This means communicating with the client in a clear and concise manner.
The best way to do this is to start from the beginning. Let your team know how their budget, timelines, and KPIs will be tracked and reported, and when this information will be available, before any agreement is made.
“Work in progress” meetings
I can hear you saying that the last thing we need is more meetings. And yes, having meetings for the sake of having meetings is harmful. If the purpose is clear and everyone involved agrees to meet ahead of time, the meeting will be productive.
The goal is to keep the client updated on the progress of the project and to get feedback about what they think of the work done so far.
Automate reporting
If you find that reporting feels like a necessary evil, consider using robots to do the heavy lifting for you. There are great tools to help you do this.
Mention can automatically generate reports on social media and web conversation activity to send to clients on a regular basis. Mention sends updates to any email address you choose on a weekly, fortnightly, or monthly basis.
5. Deliver On Your Promises
We’ve all heard the catchphrase: “under-promise and over-deliver.” It’s all well and good, but the real goal should be: “set clear expectations and consistently achieve them.”
You won’t be able to keep a good relationship with your agency if you don’t do what you said you would. Saying that is the quickest way to push valuable clients out the door.
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