- Rule #1 - Project work is the name of the game. Most clients don’t want or feel they need an Agency of Record (AOR) relationship.
- Rule #2 - In today’s world of fragmented media and extreme audience segmentation, you must own a niche, or even a niche within a niche to differentiate your agency.
- Rule #3 - Creative expertise is yesterday’s discriminator. It’s still important, but ROI is the most desirable characteristic today.
In today's post, the focus is on how to strengthen your sales story. Two things are important to keep in mind. The first is that most client's don't really trust agencies. It's our own fault, really. For years, we spent a lot of time recommending they beef up their ad budgets so that we could make more commission. Our recommendations were all about us, not them. And that brings us to the second thing to keep in mind. If you don't add value to the client's business, you will soon be replaced. Adding value can come in many forms, but it starts with truly looking for ways to help your client, not your agency. You must believe that in the long run you will win.
As an account manager, I was able to build a trust relationship with my clients because they knew that I was passionate about their business. I have ridden on a bread truck at 3 a.m., made store checks at all hours of the day and night, made pizza with the founder of the company, flipped hamburgers, toured chicken processing plants, and a bunch of other things I never thought I would do in order to understand the client’s business better. I would subscribe to all trade journals, and always be on the look out for articles of interest that I could send to them. I would call the client every day to make sure they knew I was thinking about their business all the time. Because I was.
Here are some new rules you can follow to give prospects "permission to believe" that you can help them grow their business.
4. Agencies need to build a strong ROI story into every case study.
A good case study has always been an effective way to give a client prospect “permission to believe” that the agency can help them grow their business. But agencies need to re-evaluate their approach to writing case studies. In the past, case studies were too often simply a device to show off their creativity or versatility. Today, a good case study should highlight the business problem, the strategic as well as the creative solution, and the results. If your client can’t or won’t offer specific results of a program, be general but give them something to indicate its success. You must give the client prospect a logical reason to transfer its credibility to their specific need.
One tool that is often overlooked is a client testimonial statement touting the effectiveness of the solution or the quality of the agency’s effort for their brand. A prominently placed affirmation from the client can lend credibility and power to your case study.
5. Your website is the “front door to your brand”. Make sure it is tells a powerful brand story or prospects won’t even bother to knock.
A colleague recently described the website as your brand’s front door, and his description is right on target. Your website speaks for you, and it is the first place that client prospects will go to begin the conversation. So it had better be good.
Every agency will promote the value of an effective web presence to their clients, but too many don’t practice what they preach. We have all heard the story of the cobbler’s children. That the cobbler was too busy to make shoes for his own family. An agency can have an effective new business program without expensive 4-color brochures or fancy three-dimensional mailers, but without a well-designed website they are toast.
The key phrase here is “well-designed” site. Agencies must be careful to avoid the temptation to be so creative in the site design and content that it is difficult to navigate or confusing in its message. Too many agencies think that an out-of-the-box approach to creativity that is loved and admired by the agency creative community is the way to build their web site. That may work for some clients, but for most, they want to view your site to learn your values, your brand focus, your work process and your successes . . . not your off-beat sense of creativity.
6. Give them a new insight on their business that will grow their sales and profits.
Now, more than ever, clients are looking for help. Many are confused about how to build and maintain customer loyalty. They are unsure of how to use all of the new digital marketing tools available to them and many are simply overwhelmed by the enormity of the marketing task. CMO’s know they have a limited life span, so they are desperate for an agency that can do something to help them grow their business and make them a hero to their management. And the best way to do that is with new ideas and new insights that can grow their business.
In a recent study published by Reardon Smith Whittaker titled "A Client's Perspective on Agencies", 81% of respondents cited "understanding of your market" as a critical factor in their agency selection. As noted earlier, the quality of the creative product is still important (69% said so in the RSW study), but if you don't understand the client's business, then the greatest creative in the world won't win the account. Here is a link to that study: http://rswus.com/documents/Final2008AgencyClientSurvey_000.pdf.
A few years ago, I spoke with Stan Richards, founder of The Richards Group, on what he considered the key ingredient in a new business pitch. Without hesitation, he replied that the ability to give the prospective client a new insight on their company or category was the key factor in winning new business. His business development team worked hard to find that insight, and then spent the majority of their presentation supporting that insight and its potential to grow the client's business.
In today's challenging marketplace, I would add the ability to help a client expand their marketing efforts into new digital media is also a key factor in choosing one agency over another. Clients are not saying to their agencies, "How can you help us make ads or a new web site," they're saying, "how much do you understand about our business in order to help us build a bridge between our brand and our customers."
New business prospecting is about building a relationship with the prospect before you get the business, not during the pitch. If you can create an expectation of the value you will add to their company, you've just shot up the ladder and moved closer to an assignment.
Stay tuned for more!
