Below the Line

Agency/Client Relationships: an interview with George Bounacos, Silver Beacon Marketing

The Friday interview series continues with George Bounacos from Silver Beacon Marketing who says that "few understand the intersection of art and science and why agency fees run at the level they do"...

Q1 Name

George Bounacos

Q2 Location

Chantilly, Virginia

Q3 Website

Silver Beacon Marketing

Q4 Bio

Online professional since the mid 1980s, specializing in startups and small businesses. Past successes include early stage exec at Carfax.com, lead generation services and Silver Beacon Marketing.

Q5 Do you work on the agency side or client side?

Both.

Q6 What makes a good agency/client relationship?

There must be trust and a compensation structure that equally involves both parties in risk and reward.

Q7 What’s your best tip for building a good agency/client relationship?

The small business segment in which we specialize requires considerable relationship building which eventually builds trust to the necessary level for both to succeed. This isn't a tactic, but must be a way of life for your agency. We've found that hunters for new business and farmers for successful retention are absolute musts.

Q8 Have you ever been in a difficult agency/client relationship? If so, were you able to improve the situation? How?

While running a lead gen business, a client called to cancel because their site and campaigns had been neglected over time. The client quickly made multiple legal and financial threats, and the relationship was teetering on the brink of costing us both too much money. After almost daily calls and hours of working together, I took personal charge of the account and changed their business within two months. They eventually grew too big -- and asked us to slow down because they decided they had grown just big enough. The sweetest part was when they offered a written testimonial for our site and trade show booth as well as offering to be a referral to others in the same market or category.

Q9 What do you wish clients understood about agencies? What do you wish agencies understood about clients?

From the agency side, knowing that clients understood that the best agencies don't throw campaigns against the wall in the hopes something will stick would be wonderful. Any time any agency starts talking about creative, everyone else in the room becomes an expert, but few understand the intersection of art and science and why agency fees run at the level they do.

As for agencies, we are always conscious of our client's cash flow. Working with small businesses, we make a commitment to fund future growth from our efforts in generating profit, not clicks or calls or even revenue. But every client we work with has at least one story about an agency that burned them financially and almost took the business down. Agencies must understand that we are on the brink of being hailed as heroes or vilified as the sleaziest businesspeople ever -- and the choice is ours based on our actions.

Q10 How can agencies add value for clients?

Most clients in our small business space are great at doing one thing: offering a product or service. By helping them understand concepts like product development, segmentation and sometimes even finance, we can help them bridge the gap of living month-to-month to signing long-term retainers.

Q11 How can clients get the best out of their agencies?

Clients should be up-front with their expectations for agencies and then insist upon written metrics that are configured to the client's specifications and deal with profit. For either business, everything but profit is secondary.

Q12 Have you noticed any recent trends in agency/client relationships?

As search engines become more ubiquitous in every facet of a client's typical workday, the familiarity seems to lead clients to believe they understand more about the search world than they really do. The proliferation of free tools coupled with that knowledge is a very dangerous thing. More clients are also asking about metrics that are defined by the free tools or analytics packages, rather than the metrics that change their business.

Q13 Which past agency or client was the best to work with? (Past relationships only, please.)

StopPoliticalCalls.org was generating an amazing amount of media attention during the 2008 presidential primaries, but their potentials sometimes got lost when finding the site. We helped brand the site (developing the domain name) and ran geo-targeted campaigns throughout key primary states as robocalls invaded consumer homes. Working with the organization was great because they were active in social media and knew traditional marketing, but also laid out a budget and told us to jump into PPC. To work in such a dynamic environment where one candidate suddenly changes and targets a new city and getting that intelligence from the client was a fun challenge to solve. And since the client understood marketing, but wanted to focus on other efforts, we were able to quickly communicate results without having to educate or explain. That made both organizations more nimble and effective.

Related Posts:
Adversarial Agency/Client Relationships
Partnership Agency/Client Relationships
Confused Agency/Client Relationships
Integrated Agency/Client Relationships
Imbalanced Agency/Client Relationships

Trend spotting: Spotify

Last night I went to a Digital Lounge event with Spotify's UK Sales Director Jon Mitchell. Spotify is a streaming music service which was founded in Sweden in 2006 and has attracted one million users. The free service is also available in Norway, Finland, the UK, France and Spain. It's premium service is available elsewhere for £9.99 per month.

According to Mitchell, Spotify offers a "legal alternative to piracy". In fact, Mitchell boldly stated that their only real competition is music pirates, although The Independent has stated that they have "declared war in iTunes".

Spotify launched in the UK in October 2008; the UK has quickly become their biggest market with 10,000 people per day signing up for a free account. Unlike many "next big things", they have found that people who download Spotify use the service on an ongoing basis, with average user sessions of 60 minutes.

As a Spotify user and huge fan, I can say that main attractions for me are:

1. It's easy to set up and easy to use. The download is quick, especially as compared with the iTunes download which requires frequent updating and annoying prompts to download their preferred browser Safari. My view on new technology, as I've stated before on this blog, is that it must either be so simple that anyone can learn to do it, or so essential that everyone must learn to do it. Spotify is simple.
2. I can add as many tracks as I want, without hogging massive memory on my computer. Plus, there's no chance I'll lose the files.
3. People can easily share playlists on Spotify. With a few clicks via third party site ShareMyPlaylists, I added Rolling Stone's 500 greatest songs of all time. 
4. They have a great selection of music, having signed deals with all four major music labels.
5. I don't have to deal with iPods, which are not built to last and contribute to electronic landfill. 
6. The service is "smart" enough to not serve ads while you are working on PowerPoint or other documents.

They are the first streaming service to strike deals with all the majors, which took a major shift in the labels' attitudes. Mitchell said their initial response when asked if they'd provide their music for free was "F--- Off". It took two-and-a-half years to get them to change their minds. Spotify has also signed deals with CD Baby and independent music aggregator Merlin.

Freemium
Mitchell said the free model is not going away, as with some other services who are ending their free love. Instead, they will entice users to join their Premium service with unique offerings, such as access to U2's latest album one week before it was released. "We want users to have access to the free version so they can test it and see that it's easy to use and have the music they love," explained Mitchell.

Because of the ad-funded model for the free service, they "don't need 80% of their users to pay for the Premium service." However, Mitchell admitted that take-up of the Premium offering is currently low, but he expects it to improve as they educate people about upcoming features.

Demographics
Mitchell didn't go into too much detail about their demographics, but he did reveal that 20% of their audience is 45+. They can target ads based on age, gender and post code. This makes advertising on Spotify much more 1-to-1 than on traditional radio.

What's next for Spotify?

• Spotify announced this morning that the service will be available on the Google Android mobile. [Watch their video announcement.] Expect more mobile phone partnerships.
• They are doing some deals with radio stations so they can recommend playlists (and share in revenue). 
• Their web site states they are looking to work with "ISPs or mobile operators wanting to stand out in the crowd by adding a very comprehensive, legal all-you-can-eat music service to their current voice, TV and broadband services."
• Look for them to launch in other countries, with invite-only access or exclusively through tie-ups with telecomms companies. 

I'll be interested to see what else develops. I think there are opportunities for brands to use Spotify in unique ways, perhaps through mashups. Their founder also started affilliate marketing company TradeDoubler, so he certainly knows how to work with brands. Mitchell said he "can't wait to see what happens when brands and bigger companies get involved." I guess as the sales director, he has more than one reason to be excited about that.

I don't know if I've ever written such a glowing blog post about one company. I hope someone from Spotify sends me a t-shirt.

Can your web site damage your brand?

Is it possible for a web site to be so bad, it damages the brand? I asked around for some examples of brand-damaging web sites...

Nobody home: Don't start publicizing your web site if you don't even have a holding page up. One woman told me she went to a bridal show and received a promotional pen from one of the exhibitors. Although the pen featured their web site, it was still not up six months later!

No content hierarchy: Judy Pokras, the founder of Raw Foods News Magazine offered her own web site as an example of a brand-damaging site. There is no organization to the content, so the user doesn't even know where to start. In fact, I don't even know where to start to help this one! My best advice would be to employ an information architect and start from scratch. 

User unfriendly: Another person said she was frustrated by a volunteer web site "people go there to find volunteer opportunities yet trying to find where to find them isn’t that obvious and then when you look, there aren't many searchable parameters and those that they do have don’t seem to work well so in the end, you really don’t find what you are looking for and are too frustrated to bother."

Outsourcing gone wrong: Hari Karam Singh said Carry On Clothing's web site damages an otherwise fine brand. "They have fantastic macs of the utmost style and quality, but the most tacky web site I’ve ever seen. Including a ridiculous introduction with script and animations that could only be the result of an excessive budget combined with third-world outsourcing."

Too flashy: A pretty well-known "don't" when it comes to SEO is to build a site in Flash. But one person I asked thinks that "any 100% Flash-built site, especially those with an 'intro' and music that I'm forced to sit through" can damage the brand. "Don't you dare use your 'back' button on a Flash site or the whole darn thing will start over. Flash is what I call 'animation masturbation' because all it does is satisfy the ego of the animator. It does nothing to help visitors get to what they want quickly and easily. Worse yet, Flash is a beast for Google because their spiders cannot read and catalogue the content. So there you have it. A terrible user experience ... and a terrible Google rank. What a disaster for any business."

If you recognize your web site in any of these scenarios, do yourself a favor -- take down your web site until you have the budget to do it properly. Put up a well-designed holding page in the meantime.

Agency/Client Relationships: an interview with Ondina Chiru, Vodafone Romania

This week, I've interviewed Ondina Chiru of Vodafone Romania for the Friday series on agency/client relationships. She thinks that it's the agency's responsibility to keep a good agency/client relationship. Do you agree?

Q1 Name

Ondina Chiru

Q2 Location

Bucharest, Romania

Q3 Website

LinkedIn

Q4 Do you work on the agency side or client side?

 Client side

Q5 What makes a good agency/client relationship?

A pitch proposal makes a good start – the agency simply falls in love with their client. The beginnings of the relationship are marked by love and hate – excellent creativity, tight deadlines, the inevitable spelling mistake that had to be solved while printing... then slowly accommodating with each other, the relationship evolves into a dangerously "agreement phase". The client understands that constant work under pressure cannot guarantee the best creativity, the agency starts to measure proposals in ROI and other indicators... to keep a good relationship it's mostly on the agency side - and I'm saying it from a client position  – there will always be deadlines, and budgets, and sales objectives, and indicators... The agency needs to find the right balance between creativity and fresh ideas, and the requirements of the other party. On client's side, all that it needs is a common sense, open minded and decision ready marketeer.

Q6 What’s your best tip for building a good agency/client relationship?

 If you're the client - don't conclude long term contracts - the shorter the contract the higher the creative input; if you're the agency - there is always a way to make your proposals happen.

Q7 What do you wish agencies understood about clients?

The agency is commonly exposed only to the bright side of the company - people who understand their thinking and can talk the common language. They should start learning the other languages a company uses - in order to build the best alliances with their counterparts at the client, to sell their proposals.

Q8 How can agencies add value for clients?

A good agency is a source of wealth for the client. They can keep you informed on what the competition does, on where the market goes, what are the trends on different other markets and if they have access to information, they can be of real help in seeing things from a different perspective, sometimes, a client perspective even.

Q9 How can clients get the best out of their agencies?

Involve them - let them think, ask them to think for you, when they got it wrong let them go back and re-think, when they got it right - ask them to re-think again. and when you, the client, have "the big idea", still ask them to think of their own.

Q10 Have you noticed any recent trends in agency/client relationships?

The most recent trend, since the beginning of 2009, is that an agency is supposed "to please" the client. I personally, would prefer an agency that is annoyingly challenging ideas so that the best outcome may result.

Related Posts:
Adversarial Agency/Client Relationships
Partnership Agency/Client Relationships
Confused Agency/Client Relationships
Integrated Agency/Client Relationships
Imbalanced Agency/Client Relationships

Crunch hunches about digital marketing agencies in London

The credit crunch is having an effect on most industries - digital agencies in London are no exception. The past five years have been fantastic for our industry, but during that time many agencies experienced high turnover and, as digital business grew, so too did the skills gap. Salaries for digital talent were on the rise as those in senior levels who stuck it out past the dot-com bust were in high demand. Here are a few hunches about how the crunch will impact digital marketing agencies in London:

Less job hopping: turnover in the past few years has been exceptionally high at many London agencies. There were more jobs than people and recruiters were making a good living by moving people around. One year in a role was considered adequate before jumping ship. Often freelancers would be at an agency longer than "permanent" staff. Unfortunately, this was a disservice to clients who lost out on the knowledge each individual accumulated, and had to suffer through the learning curves of many new people.

A slowdown of salary creep: there's been a definite shift to a buyer's market, so it will be harder for people to move around and make a big salary leap.

A new skills gap: After the dot com bust, a lot of people at the junior or mid-manager level pursued other career options. So during the recent boom, there was a gap between junior talent with just a few years' experience and senior talent with over 10 years' experience. Many of those junior people were able to move up in their organizations quickly, but I think many agencies struggled to get their staffing levels correct. For instance, I know of at least two agencies who didn't employ anyone below AD level. One was by design, the other by default. Either way, it's not great when clients are paying Account Director rates for Account Executive-level work. It's not too much fun for the AD, either! The difference this time around, is that the entire market is struggling, not just online industries. However, I think London agencies will be reticent to bring on permanent staff. They'll be more likely to use risk-free freelance talent who they can let go easily if their clients cut back on marketing spend. I see agencies hiring a freelance Account Manager before hiring a more junior permanent Account Executive. This means that in a few years' time, there will be another skills gap for experienced AMs.

What are your crunch hunches for agencies in your city?

Sidenote on UK Account Management titles:
I know titles differ in the UK and the US, so here's a quick hierarchy of agency titles for American readers:
Client Services Director
Group Account Director
Account Director
Account Manager
Account Executive

Related Posts:
Account Management Basics

Agency/Client Relationships: an interview with Sean Cheyney, AccuQuote

I'm continuing my Friday series on agency/client relationships with an interview with Sean Cheyney from AccuQuote. One tip that he mentions is that clients should share their data with their agency. This can really help your agency adapt their thinking, present new ideas and ultimately get better results for the client.

Q1 Name

Sean Cheyney

Q2 Location

Wheeling, Illinois

Q3 Website

www.accuquote.com

Q4 Bio

Sean Cheyney is the vice president of marketing and business development for AccuQuote. He is responsible for spearheading the overall growth and direction of the company's marketing initiatives, brand strategy, strategic partnerships, and customer acquisition through both online and offline advertising.

Q5 Do you work on the agency side or client side?

Client side

Q6 What makes a good agency/client relationship?

A good client / agency relationship starts from an alignment of philosophies. It’s important from the beginning that everyone involved is speaking the same language and focused on the same objectives. 

Q7 What’s your best tip for building a good agency/client relationship?

-    Set expectations from the beginning
-    Be open and honest in all communications
-    Share data with your agency. If they don’t take the data and help you optimize, then you have a problem.

Q8 Have you ever been in a difficult agency/client relationship? If so, were you able to improve the situation? How?

We had an SEO/SEM agency several years ago that couldn’t figure out a way to speak our language. We are always focused on closely managed ROI goals, but the agency wanted to focus on the brand building aspects of SEM. They couldn’t understand why we were upset when large budget allocations were being spent on keywords that performed poorly. They felt that the reach into the target audience made the keyword spend a great strategic move, which was completely out of line from our business objectives. Ultimately, we found another SEO/SEM agency that spoke our language and consistently manages toward our goals. 

Q9 What do you wish agencies understood about clients?

Agencies need to understand that clients have objectives that don’t always translate into making the most amount of money for their agencies. 

Q10 How can agencies add value for clients?

The biggest value agencies can offer is to listen to their clients and to be proactive with opportunities for helping their clients reach their goals.  

Q11 How can clients get the best out of their agencies?

As a client, you need to clearly communicate your goals, campaign objectives, business philosophies, and your team culture. In addition, frequent communication is necessary to transform your agency into a true extension of your team.

Q12 Have you noticed any recent trends in agency/client relationships?

I’ve been noticing a trend of agencies trying to be everything for everyone. The end result is that the agencies end up losing focus on their core, which ultimately suffers. 

Q13 Which past agency was the best to work with? (Past relationships only, please.)

Underscore Marketing

Related Posts:
Adversarial Agency/Client Relationships
Partnership Agency/Client Relationships
Confused Agency/Client Relationships
Integrated Agency/Client Relationships
Imbalanced Agency/Client Relationships

Your brand abroad

Global brands often struggle with how to roll out a global campaign. I was reminded of this on a recent trip to Budapest, Hungary when I came across this ad for BlackBerry in Business Hungary, the magazine from the American Chamber of Commerce in Hungary. Surely no native English-speaking creative team would hyphenate "al-ready" and "busi-nessmen".

Although they use a photo of a business woman and the somewhat cumbersome "he/she" pronoun, they state that "the device appeals mostly to businessmen".

(click to enlarge)

It looks to me like BlackBerry probably decentralized their advertising and let the regions do their own things, for their own markets. This isn't a bad strategy, but usually that means the markets are doing the creative in their own language in a way that appeals to local audiences. In this case, they've gotten it all wrong by (I'm guessing) writing copy for an American brand in Hungarian, then translating it into English. Surely they could have just adapted a U.S. or UK ad?

Related post:
Rolling out a global campaign

Agency/Client Relationships: an interview with Tricia Ryan, The Marketing Chefs

I've interviewed Tricia Ryan for my series on agency/client relationships. I agree that digital has caused some confusion as to who does what - particularly among larger clients who work with multiple agencies. What do you think?

Q1 Name

Tricia Ryan

Q2 Location

Toronto, Canada

Q3 Website

www.themarketingchefs.com

Q4 Bio

Tricia is a registered dietician with an MBA, which probably explains her love of healthy cooking and marketing. She has spent much of her career building brands for online and offline businesses in the food, beverage, OTC drug, financial and hospitality industries. Tricia is renowned for her research and problem-solving skills, and she parlayed this strength to launch a variety of products for Berry Health, Boots Healthcare and Wrigley Canada, as well for a number of not-for-profit organizations.

Q5 Do you work on the agency side or client side? 

Agency side, although I have worked both.

Q6 What makes a good agency/client relationship?

Trust, knowledge, understanding, communication, organizational skills

Q7 What’s your best tip for building a good agency/client relationship?

Like a marriage there is a romantic stage, power struggle and then real love and flow.

Q8 Have you ever been in a difficult agency/client relationship? If so, were you able to improve the situation? How?

Client does not like the creative expression – stuck. Go outside for new ideas and redo the work.

Q9 What do you wish clients understood about agencies?

How much time and effort and planning is really part of the business particularly online.

Q10 How can agencies add value for clients?

Be an extension of their team and marketing departments; understand the business better than the client.

Q11 How can clients get the best out of their agencies?

Acknowledge, include and compensate.

Q12 Have you noticed any recent trends in agency/client relationships?

Digital has caused clients to be confused who does what. Clients also have no understanding of online tools (traffic generation and traffic conversion) they think it is display ads and social networking. 

Young staff with no strategic skills making decisions.

Q13 Which past agency or client was the best to work with? (Past relationships only, please.)

Wrigley Canada and US.

Related Posts:
Adversarial Agency/Client Relationships
Partnership Agency/Client Relationships
Confused Agency/Client Relationships
Integrated Agency/Client Relationships
Imbalanced Agency/Client Relationships

Agency/Client Relationships: an interview with Ian Anderson, greenlight brand agents

I interviewed Ian Anderson for my series on agency/client relationships. He believes the traditional business model of agencies is antiquated. It will be interesting to see how things evolve during and after the recession.

Q1 Name

Ian Andersen

Q2 Location

North Carolina

Q3 Website

LinkedIn

Q4 Bio

Seasoned Director of Account Management and Strategic Planner with Fortune 50 and 500 successes. Some Brands served: Volvo, Lowe's Home Improvement, Whirlpool, Duke University, Bank of America.

Q5 Do you work on the agency side or client side?

Agency

Q6 What makes a good agency/client relationship?

TRUST and clear communication.

Q7 What’s your best tip for building a good agency/client relationship?

Find clients/agencies whose values and objectives match yours. Don't force the fit. It's like dating - if the first date is a disaster, imagine how the marriage would be!

Q8 Have you ever been in a difficult agency/client relationship? If so, were you able to improve the situation? How?

Of course! Succinct and clear communication mixed with a healthy amount of documentation often keeps people honest (and improves the professional attitudes of others).

Q9 What do you wish clients understood about agencies?

I wish more clients understood the creative process, and that the reason they hire agencies is to find the silver bullet. We don't do well when art directed and force-fed strategy.

Q10 How can agencies add value for clients?

Deliver on what they really need vs. what they're asking for.

Q11 How can clients get the best out of their agencies?

Trust them, and hire ones that have the capacity to do great work...don't just look for 101 case studies of great work done in the past, look for the spark to create great work now.

Q12 Have you noticed any recent trends in agency/client relationships?

Trust is declining. Agencies are fighting to retain the traditional business model that's clearly antiquated.

Related Posts:
Adversarial Agency/Client Relationships
Partnership Agency/Client Relationships
Confused Agency/Client Relationships
Integrated Agency/Client Relationships
Imbalanced Agency/Client Relationships