Everyone who has ever worked in a marketing agency knows how sensitive could be the cooperation with clients. There are various types of personalities we work with, some of them are very demanding, others think they know better than us, some of them let us lead the project and some of them are questioning the strategy a few times before accepting it. Over time, and based on our vast experience, we created 5 types of clients marketing agencies cooperate with.
In the world of fast communication, when we are available 24/7 on all platforms, the way we communicate with our clients is more and more important. As a full-service marketing agency, we offer different kinds of services to our clients, cooperate with different niches, startups, entrepreneurs, and very often with colleagues from marketing departments of other companies.
In short, we communicate with a wide range of people on a daily basis, some of them are marketing experts, while others have basic marketing knowledge, and some of them are quite familiar with marketing but they strive to learn more. All of them are equally important to us. But even more important to us is to understand them well and accept their needs.
Regardless of the priorities, brand strategy, clients’ taste, budget, we tailor our approach according to their needs as we wish to successfully launch each project. Due to our experience, we can classify clients into one of these 5 categories.
Tag yourself – what type corresponds to you the most?
1. Client with unrealistic expectations
“This is going to be so huge and revolutionary! We are going to rock it. But we have to work fast, and everything has to be ready in a month.” We like clients with big, revolutionary ideas, as they always bring innovations, push us to step forward, and pull creativity out of us. But we often disagree with this type of client when it comes to expectations. In their visions, they see things that sound great but are hard to achieve, because the budget, timeframe for getting results cannot follow their ideas. How to get to a win-win situation for both sides? The solution is in setting a clear project timeline, set the project phases, and clearly define each task for each phase. Expectations must be set on a real basis.
2. Micromanager
“Hey, I just want to check how the things are going (choose as you wish – design, programming, copywriting…) Yesterday, I emailed you, nobody responded so I thought to try again.”
The job of an agency, in cooperation with the client, is to deal with the part of the job (marketing) the company either doesn’t have the capacity for or time to cope with it itself. Micromanagers usually don’t understand that so they constantly require constant reports on the progress and want to know every detail.
How to get to a win-win situation for both sides? Clear rules and limits should be set during the initial meeting. Cooperation with professionals implies that the client, with a good reason, wants to work with experts, who are well-versed in their job, and both of the parties (agency and the client) should do what they are best at. The focus should be set on the things everyone knows the best, so we can altogether create a great story.
3. “Yes, maybe, I don’t know” type of client
“I think this is good, yes, definitely it is. But I’ve got a feeling something is missing, hmm, I am not quite sure. What do you think?”
Specific for this type of client is a problem in making decisions. They are never 100% sure of any solution. Very often they rely on other people’s opinions and ask for the second, third, fifth opinion, which leads to losing the vision and dragging the project. Focus is one of the problems too, so it often happens they don’t send their opinion about a completed project phase in time. It results in dragging the project.
How to get to a win-win situation for both sides? A client who is never sure which direction to choose needs encouragement, but also the understanding for all doubts and dilemmas. It is important to write down all the conclusions after each meeting, to avoid losing any crucial decisions, and unwanted last-minute changes.
4. “Everything is urgent” type of client
“Can we deal with this ASAP? We have to finish it by the end of the week, as I have a deadline I cannot break.”
Yes, we can cope with some tasks promptly, but…not with all of them. For this reason, if the client asks for urgent action even if there is no real need for that, this could create problems for the team as their additional time has to be spent on finishing such tasks. We will all agree nobody likes to work overtime unless it is absolutely necessary.
How to get to a win-win situation for both sides? A fair relationship between the client and the agency has to be on both sides. It is important to set priorities, decide if something is really urgent or not. Sometimes, when people deal with things fast could bring not so brilliant results, so if not necessary, a project should be done without any rush.
5. Loves the trends type of client
“It looks amazing but what about doing the same as…(a famous brand)?”
Clients who love following trends often dedicate too much of their time to following others so at one point they lose the focus and forget about the essence of their own brand, needs, and needs of their own buyers. Not all trends match each brand so we are there to clarify and suggest when and if something can be used or not.
How to get to a win-win situation for both sides? The key is in the trust that our team perfectly understands trends, where to apply them or not. Talking about trends and exchanging opinions is always a good choice to get to some new ideas.
Titan is always there for you and your brand
We hope you will find this blog post valuable and that all of us can learn about finding the same language for communication between the agencies and the clients, which can bring a good basis for successful cooperation. Titan team is always ready to improve your online presence on social media, make your webshop even more developed, or write a copy on your website that will attract many new leads. If you liked this post, feel free to share it with your friends, and subscribe so you can receive our newsletters, and read about many interesting topics from our agency.
