Whether your clients are selling clothes, food or houses… having a tangible product that can be seen or held makes marketing just a little easier. But what about your own marketing? How do you explain to your clients – and especially prospective clients – exactly what services your digital marketing agency offers and why they are so valuable, when what you do doesn’t exist in a ‘real world’ sense?
It can be extremely frustrating as a digital marketing consultant, when you intuitively understand the value of your work, however, your clients don’t understand why they are not “on the first page of Google” with no digital marketing activities.
Selling intangible products and experiences have always been difficult. It is especially difficult to drive home the value of your services when in many cases, your clients don’t understand what you do and how you do it.
It’s a challenge, but not impossible. These 8 tips can help you drive home the value of your business to your clients.
- Craft layman’s explanations
Remember that your clients have no experience in your field and your terminology will mean nothing to them. Spend time working out ways to explain what it is that you do without being too technical. Clients don’t necessarily want to know everything; they just want simple answers.
- Be technical – but with restraint
Sometimes you do need to ‘show off’ your knowledge to win over a client. In a world where everyone has a smartphone and a computer, everyone can also be an expert. Your clients need to know that you do have better skills and knowledge of online marketing that their 20-year-old grandson.
- Put together case studies
Examples of real campaigns that you have implemented and their results are one of the best tools that you can use to drive home the benefits of working with a digital marketing agency. When clients can see that your work has had successful results, they will begin to have more trust in the process.
- Show them simplified data
When presenting case studies, make sure that you simplify the data so that it can be easily understood at a glance. Consider using only one aspect of an existing client’s marketing as an example, such as social media marketing results for just one campaign. This is less overwhelming for a client who is unfamiliar with analyzing data.
- Compare with competitors
When you put together an online marketing proposal, an in-depth comparison with competitors is essential. Do a mini comparison to explain to a potential client that you are aware of who the competition is. If you can show what digital marketing techniques competitors are using to gain a foothold in the market, potential clients will better understand the value of your services. This is also a good time to approach website design and suggest edits to client’s websites based on trends among competitors.
- Imagine where they could be
Do a little research and give clients an estimate of what level of success they could expect by using your services, based on their unique business’s marketing needs. Give them something tangible to imagine, for example, “an investment of approximately x per month in digital marketing campaigns is likely to give you a page 1 Google ranking after a period of x months”.
- Project the bottom line
Money always talks, so projecting the return on investment as a result of online marketing campaigns will make people sit up and listen. This is especially successful when you are pitching to promote an online store. Make sure your research accurately and under rather than over estimate potential earnings.
- Be clear about expectations
Above all, you need to be 100% clear to your clients that the services provided by your digital marketing agency are not an exact science and that case studies and projections are never precise, but rather an estimate of what could happen under ideal conditions.
For help and advice with your digital marketing activities, including website design and website hosting, contact us today.