SOURCE: METRIC THEORY

Most agency mar­keters have expe­ri­enced a wide vari­ety of client con­tacts through­out their career, with vary­ing degrees of direct expe­ri­ence in paid dig­i­tal media. Tak­ing that into con­sid­er­a­tion can be the dif­fer­ence between hav­ing a real­ly pro­duc­tive con­ver­sa­tion, and one that goes nowhere because everyone’s just talk­ing past each oth­er. Here are some ways that we tai­lor our com­mu­ni­ca­tion to this audi­ence to build rela­tion­ships regard­less of back­ground, and as we’ve found, dri­ve bet­ter client results.

1. Get To The Point

As dig­i­tal mar­keters, it’s easy to get caught up in the nit­ty grit­ty details of every­thing that’s hap­pen­ing in the account (we’re all a bunch of mar­ket­ing nerds after all). While it’s our job to care about all of these details, it’s easy to lose your audi­ence div­ing into them. And while they may not care about the nuts and bolts, they def­i­nite­ly care how paid efforts are impact­ing their busi­ness. Whether you’re meet­ing their goals or not, it’s impor­tant to dis­cuss the sta­tus in get­ting there. We’ll always explain why we are or aren’t meet­ing goals, and most impor­tant­ly what we can do about it if we aren’t. This leads me to my next tip…

Get To The Point

2. Simplify Your Language

Yes, it’s impor­tant to pro­vide select details to show a client. Keep­ing in mind cas­es where your audi­ence isn’t as famil­iar with the ins and outs of Google Ads, mak­ing small adjust­ments to your lan­guage can make it a lot eas­i­er for them to be able to relay updates to oth­er stake­hold­ers at their com­pa­ny. For exam­ple, let’s say we launched a new ad copy vari­a­tion that has a low­er CTR than the lega­cy ads. Instead of lead­ing with the met­rics, explain what’s hap­pen­ing in expe­ri­en­tial terms: that the new copy isn’t as entic­ing as the lega­cy vari­a­tion, so few­er peo­ple are click­ing on it, but now that we know that, we can move in anoth­er direc­tion! We can always dive into the specifics of CTR and sta­tis­ti­cal sig­nif­i­cance when nec­es­sary or requested.

3. Give Space for Questions

Espe­cial­ly at the begin­ning of a rela­tion­ship with a new client who’s new to paid dig­i­tal media, there’s obvi­ous­ly going to be a lot of new infor­ma­tion for them to absorb. Give the chance to ask ques­tions, espe­cial­ly in a crit­i­cal dis­cus­sion like a per­for­mance overview or explain­ing a new oppor­tu­ni­ty. This leads to more team deci­sions, which result in the best client out­comes. We also like to ask spe­cif­ic ques­tions rather than repeat­ed­ly stop­ping to ask if there are any. Is there any­thing about how this mes­sage per­formed that sur­pris­es you? Any thoughts about our audi­ence options on LinkedIn? These pro­vide a plat­form to start a con­ver­sa­tion and a small chance for a client to pick up more of the dig­i­tal dri­ving their business.

4. Remember, Everyone’s an Expert in Their Own Right

It’s everyone’s goal to do the best work pos­si­ble for clients and to earn their trust. Clients want this, too, but their bot­tom line is their busi­ness. When they’re new to cer­tain kinds of dig­i­tal media, they’ll like­ly have a ton of ques­tions. That’s a good thing!  It’s nat­ur­al to get a lit­tle caught off-guard with real­ly direct ques­tions, but if we’re empathiz­ing appro­pri­ate­ly in that moment, all they’re look­ing to do is com­plete the pic­ture for themselves.

As we say at Met­ric The­o­ry, we’re experts in dig­i­tal adver­tis­ing, but clients are experts in their busi­ness – every­one has an impor­tant per­spec­tive to bring to the equa­tion. Tak­ing this approach both draws the client into the con­ver­sa­tion, and it allows us to show­case con­fi­dence so that the client, in turn, builds con­fi­dence about the rela­tion­ship and the results we will dri­ve for them.

Fol­low­ing these sim­ple steps will help set you up for suc­cess with clients who are at the begin­ning of their dig­i­tal media jour­ney. Con­tact our team if you’re inter­est­ed in learn­ing more about client com­mu­ni­ca­tion strate­gies for success.