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Strong marketing agency/client relationships: Partners, not accounts

12 February 2014

Daniel Henderson is the Client Service Director for innovative creative Digital Production and Marketing agency Here & Now. He has a decade working with blue chips clients to create innovative and multi-channel digital solutions.

How often do we ever take a step back and think about the relationship from the clients perspective? Probably not often enough.

It is easy to get caught up in agency life, where the client can unfortunately play the role of scapegoat for our daily frustrations.

But they too have pressures. Deadlines. Targets. And internal power struggles. For a good portion of my early career, as a Digital Project Manager, I certainly didn’t consider enough why the clients relationships weren’t better. But over the past 6 years I've spent more time with them. Consulting on solutions. And more importantly listening.

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What they actually want is trust and support. Trust that we will deliver and support in our approach. And it is the job of the agency to provide that.

Based on my experience here are some thoughts on how a positive client relationship can be achieved.

Using Expectation Management to demonstrate expertise:

Marketing agencies, by their nature, are used for direction and delivery. Clients rarely have the time or expert channel knowledge to know what the best route is and how much it costs. So it shouldn’t be a surprise if they have high expectations for their budget. This isn't them challenging a marketing agency's proposal or ability. But an invitation to be guided.

Choosing to accept a clients "unreasonable" request, usually of time / budget / scope, will likely lead to delivery of an unacceptable solution. This wont help the relationship. Explaining this and finding a compromise will give them confidence and trust.

If not then you need to ask yourself if they are a healthy client for your business.

Avoiding “Death by Documentation”:

I've presented and been at the receiving end of long presentations and documents. And like most clients I don't live to stay at work late to read them.

Yes certain depth is needed but adding to a clients workload makes an agency MI report or pitch a dreaded experience.

Be realistic in what they expect and time they have to receive it. Punchy facts. Richer images or video content. Executives summaries. They all help.

If you are good and they trust you, then more often than not this is all they will need.

Co-creating ownership of an idea:

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Creatives within an agency can be very protective of an idea. But clients often want to co-create.

They know their market and product better than us. But many also have good ideas or at least enjoy that creative process.

Find a way to get them involved in the brainstorming (subject to their availability). Expose them to the agencies creative team.

We all know that the best way to sell a solution in is let the client feel like they are part of its birth.

Co-creation is part of human nature. A variety of examples can be seen here in how brands Crowdsource within the digital space.

Understanding personal motivations:

Getting a good brief could be seen as a good day in agency land. But there is always something missing.

And that's the personal desires of the clients stakeholders.

If you are trying to form a good client relationship then think beyond the brief. A 'client' is actually a number of individuals not just a business objective. Getting to know the key people will give you insights into what they actually want. And this will help sign-off of an idea.

This could be proposing an innovative approach to keep them interested and excited about their job, or a solution that creates a great PR story to bring them internal kudos.

Not every solution has to have an ROI. So explore what options you have.

Building this trust and providing support for me are the foundation to build positive client relationships. They will see the value in this over an agency being cheap and always accommodating their requests.

You may want to consider the ownership of client relations across your marketing agency and also how you can communicate more positively with clients. I have included my thoughts on these and more in the full blog post found here.

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Danielle Stagg

Written by Danielle Stagg