Overview
When the right agency is paired with the right account, there is some serious magic that can happen within this partnership. The marketing goals could be brand centric or conversion centric, but when they’re crushed as a unified client and agency team it can be extremely rewarding for both sides. A strong Client Partnership should be passionate about your success and overall happiness with the work being produced. Here are seven core values that we believe ensure a fruitful partnership:
- Strategic Planning – Client Partners should be strategically paired during onboarding according to your business goals and experience. Early in the partnership, it’s imperative for the Client Partner to deeply understand your business by conducting discovery sessions, having honest conversations about goals, challenges and successes with an open mind to create a path forward. This foundation from the start allows them to become an extension of your team and proactively guide the focus of the work to best support your business priorities and direction.
- Transparency – This isn’t just important when discussing metrics, but this trait is just as vital in the account relationship. When things change, for good or bad, does your agency partner readily offer those changes up? Or do they leave you to hunt for them? We work closely with you to ensure you are always clear on the happenings within your program, as we see the long-term value in openness and trust versus the perceived short-term gains in looking perfect at all times. We’re proactive with communications to never leave you in the dark on anything. Honesty is another trait you want in your account team, in fact, your entire Client Partner’s organization. And we aren’t talking about ethical-level honesty here, that should be a foregone conclusion. We’re talking about speaking up when your amazing idea might not, in truth, be so amazing.
- Unification – When you make the decision to outsource pieces of your digital marketing to an outside agency rather than execute them in-house, you want a Client Partner who feels like an extension of your internal team. They should be constantly on the lookout for ways to streamline your processes, proactively looking for opportunities to bring value, share best practices, industry trends, save resources, and reduce your time-to-market.
- Timing – Respect for your deadlines and the cool-headed creation of such. Being realistic but also understanding the need to get things done asap so that you’re not sweating whether or not your deliverables and goals are going to be met. Because if your Client Partner can be trusted to meet your deadlines, this is one less thing for you to have to stress about and allows you to focus on other areas of the business.
- Forward-Looking – While still “in the moment” when it comes to current projects, a great Client Partner will always be challenging you with “what next” scenarios and goals. Additionally, when you find yourself with a new product to promote, additional budget, less budget, more market share or any other opportunity or challenge, a true digital agency partner will come prepared with multiple possible pathways to multiple future success goals – not just waiting for you to tell them what you want to achieve. It’s important to not just focus on the current hurdles, but to the final finish line as well.
- A Pleasure to Work With – Digital marketing is dominated by metrics, and there is one metric that can be measured to gauge the success of your Client Partner: your blood pressure. If you’re happy, things are getting done, and your account team walks that balance between informative but not intrusive, out-of-your hair but not hard-to-find, then you can relax, you can refocus and retask on other challenges. Life is good.
- Always Optimizing – Does your agency ask you for feedback? They should. We know things can always improve, so we don’t just optimize our clients campaigns, we optimize our teams too. We send monthly surveys to our clients to check-in and see if they have any feedback we can learn from to better serve their needs, independent of our regularly scheduled meetings.
Conclusion
You should seek and expect this level of involvement, because when all of these come together, a successful Client Partnership is born. Your account team sets the tone for the rest of the agency — when they are invested and engaged they will convey that to their internal teams who are tasked with creating and/or solving whatever it is you’ve both agreed to do.
This relationship is truly a foundational piece. Technology comes and goes. Marketing trends come and go. Relationships too for that matter, but great ones shouldn’t.
Are you looking for a smart, dedicated, nimble, accountable and stress-free client partnership that helps you smash your goals? Come and taste the sweet life with Enilon.
