Do These 3 Things and Not These 3 Things with Your Marketing Clients
Take is from us, just from experience, there are certain things you should strongly consider doing with you clients in order to keep them happy and the projects coming your way. Of course, with each practice you should do, there are equal numbers of practices you shouldn’t participate in; let’s take a look:
Do These 3 Things:
1. Sell Solutions, Not Products and Services
If all you have in your sales conversations are products and services, your conversations and the campaigns are missing something — your empathy and recommendations. If every camoaign was as easy as picking a ‘package’, we’d all have the same results; we know that isn’t true. Like any kind of specialist, we know more than the average business person about properly strategizing and running a successful campaign depends on that. A transmission specialist knows more than me about fixing your car’s transmission, and that mechanic is going to understand car repair more than you and I ever will. With every option, we should also be giving a recommendation backed by logic and data.
2. Treat Your Clients As Unique Cases: Don’t Generalize
Each client is different and unique onto themselves. Seems like a no-brainer, but we see agencies treating all their clients and prospects as the same. This sentiment isn’t exactly breaking news, but I’ve seen many account managers treat all clients in the same manner. Be sure to tailor your conversations and deliverables to their exact needs and goals, but make sure you find out from each one of them ‘exactly’ what they need from you should they choose to work with your agency. This way, should you treat them and give them what they need ‘exactly’, there’s little room for them to feel like just another client.
3. Protect Your Work But Be Transparent In Times of Difficulty
Every so often, not on purpose, bu every so often you’ll accidentally ‘drop the ball’. It’s okay, it happens to every agency and every marketer. You’re only human. It’s important to own up to it, be honest, be transparent; however, if the issue is on the side of the client, be sure to defend your work, but don’t get into the habit of perseverating and/or constantly looking for errors with each next step.
Don’t Do These 3 Things:
1a. Avoid ‘promising the world’
At the end of the day, your job is to help the business owner solve a problem; via digital marketing solutions. But, that means you are the expert – don’t agree to everything the business owner says he/she wants. Even when it comes to timelines — if the client is ultra-late on getting you the assets you need for a project, reset the expectations; timelines are delicate, change them according to how ti best fits your production of the project and the eventual successes.
2b. Don’t let the client prioritize themselves against your other clients
The ole ‘I pay you a lot of money and you should be honored to work with me’ excuse to move other clients to the bottom of the list isn’t uncommon. In fact, what you should do, instead, is protect your integrity and explain to the client that your entire roster spends hard-earned money with you and that you treat them all with respect and equal importance.
3c. Don’t let a potential client walk if they don’t have the full budget
First, if you’re a graduate of our program you know you’re equipped to finance the campaigns; however, in some cases that won’t work out. Instead of saying goodbye to your potential client, offer to do a smaller job as proof of concept; more than likely, with good results and a good experience, the client’s wallet will open up and you just might discover the budget was there . all along.
