In 2022 I made the shift from in-house to agency. While there are certain learning curves that come with that change, I also brought with me an invaluable point of view that helps me understand client needs from an “insider” perspective.
Make It Easy to Execute
We’re valued for our ability to come up with big ideas that wow and excite. More often than not, these ideas capture the imaginations of our clients but end up being too difficult for them to execute. Which is why it’s so important for us to keep those pesky logistical details in mind when concepting and presenting ideas. When I was on the client side, I was often in the position of having to scale back ideas I loved in order to get approval. If we can do the editing and scaling back on the agency side before presenting ideas to the client, we can set them up for success, delivering impressively simple ideas that still wow and amaze while being easy to execute.
Provide a Range
Just as it’s important to make sure that our big ideas can be easily brought to life by clients, we also need to provide them with a range of options, from smaller partnerships and programming to larger package and activation ideas. Giving them scalable choices means they can implement a bite-sized version of a large concept if their resources are currently stretched thin. It’s still important to present those grand ideas, as sometimes they can lead us down a creative path to a more feasible outcome, and on the client side I always appreciated those bigger concepts for that reason. Now that I’m on the agency side, I realize that providing a range of everything from “dream big” to “let’s dream, but let’s do” is a win-win for client and agency.
Keep Their Budget in Mind
We come across many opportunities in our day to day, and it can be easy to get so caught up in how amazing an opportunity is that we overlook the financial cost to the client. It’s important to still share these opportunities – even when we think they might get turned down – but we can also change the way we approach the idea by seeing the offer from their point of view. Pitching from this perspective enables us to better communicate the benefits and deliverables while lightening the pressure of the ask. For a hotel client, four top-tier influencers with 10 million combined international followers asking for complimentary stays in exchange for coverage is fantastic; however, if the hotel is in New York, and the request is for December, it’s easy to understand that the client will more than likely pass or try to push for a month with lower occupancy demands. In cases like these, we can pre-negotiate a different month in order to present a more financially feasible option to the client.
