Attracting new clients and retaining them are the goals of most businesses but this is especially true in digital marketing. Clients can be attracted by a new method of attaining new followers on social media although the tactics of their new company might be less than ethical. The best thing that a digital marketing company can do is give their current clients no reason to shop around for a new marketing company.
There are specific things that can be done in order to do this and they are as follows.
Hit Your Deadlines
The worst thing that you can do when handling a marketing campaign for a new client is miss a deadline. While this can be pushed back in some cases in others when there is little to no communication that a project might be late, this reflects poorly on your point of contact. There is nothing worse than being reprimanded by superiors at work so the odds are that your point of contact will be looking at other vendors to avoid this issue in the future.
For new clients allow a week or two added to the turnaround time of a project. This allows for growing pains in the communication process and helps establish clear expectations.
Communicate In Milestones
For design or content projects it is important to check in at milestones. For example, a design project can be tweaked at certain stopping points to make sure the designer and client are on the same page. This saves time in the long run as major edits can not only cost the client but also your company.
In the cases of content projects, deliver 10 articles of a 100 to make sure the tone and content is up to par. This helps avoid having to pay writers for work that did not profit the company at all.
Most clients will be very appreciative of clear communication as many will have a multitude of projects going on at one time.
Meet In Person Regularly To Discuss Results
Digital marketers often times love the fact that they do not have to meet with their clients in person at all if they are doing a good enough job.
There are those industries that will want to meet in person as it is simply the way that they do business. Make sure to meet in person when in a client’s city or schedule a quarterly or annual trip to meet to discuss future campaigns. This personal rapport can make it much more difficult for a client to look around for a new marketing company. Great personal rapport can also help in cases of struggle like missing a deadline or a goal on a campaign.
Referral Program
The Money Alert notes that referral programs can vastly decrease the cost of landing a new client. Your current clients singing your praises can do quite a lot for business as everyone has started talking about SEO and social media as the best forms of marketing.
Starting a referral program where a client gets a discount for their next month’s order can be enough to lead the company to order again as the discount could be too good to pass up. Personal compensation can be given as there is a chance that a point of contact moves companies and would like to continue the business relationship at their new company.
Testimonials/LinkedIn Recommendations
Testimonials can help attract new clients but most of the time they are put on the website and can look solicited. LinkedIn recommendations on the other hand are public for others in a professional network to see. A high ranking person recommending a digital marketing company can be seen throughout their personal network. The company could receive leads from this especially if your client dominated the search engine rankings during your most recent campaign.
Understanding where marketing is going is tough but it is sure to start including voice search more than ever. These types of insights can lead to glowing recommendations as it will give a client a leg up on the competition.
Conclusion
Attracting and retaining clients in digital marketing will take detail oriented work that hits a deadline with clear analysis on how the company helped its client. After this much of client retention will handle itself and it is time to go out and find that next business changing client!