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4 ways to deal with a client overload
As the economy starts to rebound, creative agencies and technology
vendors are welcoming scores of new clients. At Buddy Media, we are
adding new clients at a rapid pace while carefully growing our team.
We have worked hard to build a culture that works efficiently -- on
time and within budget -- and delivers unique social campaigns that
not only excite our clients, but also engage our clients' consumers.
Our system for handling an emergent client list is based around four
basic principles. Maybe some of these will work for your company as
well.
Listen
When working with a new client, avoid multiple rounds of iteration and
guesswork by asking questions and listening early. At Buddy Media, we
are immersed in the world of Facebook pages, Twitter management, app-
vertisements, widgets, and mobile applications, and we have a deep
understanding of the social marketing tools that have worked well for
other brands.
When we meet with a prospective client, we immediately begin thinking
of innovative ways to launch the brand in the social marketing realm.
However, each client is different, and all of our knowledge and
expertise won't matter if we don't listen carefully to their marketing
objectives. If we run with our initial ideas without truly listening
-- not only to what is explicitly said about the objectives, but the
unspoken wants as well -- our plan would be inadequate and only half-
baked. Instead of spending valuable time pursuing what we think will
work, success for us is about listening to the client's objectives and
using that, along with our expertise (from listening to social
networkers and observing their behavior), to best meet their needs.
Understanding your client's audience and voice is critical. We have a
standard set of questions we review with all new clients -- questions
we've developed over time and continue to add to. Those questions have
one simple goal of truly learning a client's brand and message. Learn
to think like they do and understand their objectives from the inside.
As we've grown, we have continued to refine our listening process. For
example, we discovered that we were spending time designing sites and
apps for clients, but just weren't hitting the mark every time.
Learning the unspoken wants of our clients was a challenge. Our
solution, however, proved to be quite simple.
In meetings with new clients, we now ask them to provide us with an
extensive list of sites and apps they like and don't like. With this
simple process, we've been able to focus much more clearly on a
client's and brand's aesthetic. Ultimately, that saves us valuable
time in the design process so that we're not spending our energy
proposing and designing campaigns too far afield of the brand.
Summary: By listening early on, you can streamline the process by
cutting down on multiple iterations.
Focus
Most agencies know this already, but good products are elegant.
Feature bloat is a recipe for disaster, as well as wasted time and
effort. Cramming too many features into one product, campaign, or app
ultimately leads to a weak, muddled final product. With every added
feature, more time is spent making all the parts work together when
the primary focus should be quality and functionality.
If you are a brand or marketer, what is the ultimate goal for any
website or application? To engage an audience of users. Yet with every
added feature, you're creating a distraction for the audience. If you
want your customers and/or potential customers to have one central
experience, keep it simple. Less is more.
This is usually easier said than done. There can be multiple,
competing desires from a client. You may have to marshal all your
diplomatic skills and argue your point-of-view. In the end, simplicity
wins.
A great example of this is the Food Fight! page we launched for the
"Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" movie promotion. We defined one
simple goal for the page: We wanted users to virtually throw food via
the virtual gift module. We focused on that one goal in our design,
and 80 percent of the users who came to the page threw some virtual
food. That audience participation number is much higher then we see on
typical pages.
Summary: Cut down on features to save time and build more effective
products. If feature requests or suggestions don't directly contribute
to the goal of the product, don't implement for launch.
Avoid useless meetings at all costs
Most companies strive to operate efficiently, or at least they say
they do. Here's the simple truth: Internal meetings are typically a
waste of time. When you're working hard and working smart, meetings
usually add little value. In an organization that doesn't have time to
waste, you need to trim the fat, and meetings should be the first
place to cut.
However, we have found that one internal meeting per week to get every
member of the team together face-to-face is a must. This meeting
allows you to reiterate your primary goals and action items, and keeps
everyone focused on what needs to be done.
Use technology to stay organized and focused as well. Basecamp, a
program we use for project management, allows our team to focus on
deliverables and keep projects moving forward while streamlining team
organization and communication. Whatever project management tools you
decide to employ, be sure to use them. They help cut down on
unnecessary meetings and keep the work moving forward.
Summary: Cut out meetings to operate more efficient internally, but
never eliminate client meetings.
Launch and iterate to meet tight timelines
In digital marketing, clients make decisions, and they want to see the
work done yesterday. Remember, when you need to launch a product in a
week, it needs to be simple. If you're focused on only launching a
complex product, app, or digital marketing campaign, you may see
clients headed for the exits. Most clients, marketers, and brands
today want to see results fast. Given the need for speed, your team
should consider a product's or site's ultimate features and offerings
and then ask, "What are the most important features that it will take
to launch this by the end of the week?"
Concentrate on the foundation, and then launch it.
Once that foundation is in place and you see how the audience is using
the application or how they are engaging with a profile page, you can
start adding additional features. You may even get additional ideas
for features from observing audience engagement. Receiving real-time
feedback from users is much more effective than guessing what they
want. If you listen to those users and optimize your product
accordingly, it's a win-win for the users and the brand.
We've used this approach for many of our movie studio clients. They
get the idea for an application or game to promote a film, and they
need it launched quickly. After the launch we can add additional
features, or, as we sometimes find, the basic feature set may suffice
in building viral interest.
Summary: When you need to get products out fast on tight deadlines for
several clients, don't get bogged down with unnecessary bells and
whistles. Launch a scaled-down version first and iterate on the fly.
By codifying and following these basic principles, Buddy Media has
been able to grow its client list while continuing to deliver branded
apps and campaigns for its clients.
