Avoid Overwhelming Your Marketing Clients

Avoid Overwhelming Your Marketing Clients
By: Marcia Yudkin

Business owners and marketing directors hire marketing consultants, publicists and copywriters either because they dont know how to attract new customers or because they dont have time to do the work. Its essential to keep this in mind in dealing with new clients to avoid getting started on the wrong foot or worse, sabotaging the relationship.

Dont make the following four mistakes, which are unfortunately commonly made by many neophytes (and some veterans) in this field.

1. DONT give a new client a long standard questionnaire to fill out. Of course you need to understand the clients business, but this is the worst way to gain the understanding you need.

For one thing, the long standard questionnaire is impersonal and therefore gives the client the impression that you have a formulaic way of thinking and performing. Second, its insulting to them and a waste of their time when the questionnaire inevitably asks for information that doesnt relate to the clients business. And third, it imposes an undue burden on them when theyve hired you precisely to lift that burden off of them!

Instead of using a standard questionnaire, I request the clients existing marketing materials and/or background information. I study those and create questions that clarify confusing points, supply missing data and provide helpful perspective. Clients love this.

Even if the questions take some time to answer, the clients feel challenged in a positive way by such requests. Because the questions get them thinking and may reveal significant performance gaps, clients feel they are already beginning to get their moneys worth, even at this early stage.

2. DONT expect the client to understand marketing jargon. Unless the client is as marketing-savvy as you are, which would be quite rare if theyre hiring you as their consultant, you cant ask them questions like, Whats your ISP? What are your keywords? What publicity angle are you thinking about? or Who are the stakeholders for this project? Ask any such questions and you deserve the rebuke, Isnt it your job to know that? Instead, be careful to word your questions in terms that any business owner or manager understands, regardless of their familiarity with marketing. For instance, the questions How is your business different from competitors? and Who needs to be consulted before this project can be finalized? are fine.

3. DONT assume the client can analyze their business intelligently. Even when you dont use jargon, beware of asking questions that require marketing sophistication to answer. Just about all the copywriting students I have trained are shocked to learn that the typical business owner cannot rattle off the benefits of their product or service.

I have seen smart business owners totally stumped when asked what advantages their product or service gives users. They just dont think about what they do in that way because theyre in love with the advanced features of their gizmos. However, if you ask them a series of pointed questions, such as Do you save customers time? Money? Hassles? Help them get ahead of their competition? Help them improve relationships?, they can answer.

So I advise you to do the analytical thinking for your client the best you can, share your thinking with them and then ask them to correct you or elaborate on what youve surmised. That way, they catch on without the embarrassment of being asked questions they dont know how to answer.

4. DONT send off an overly complicated contract for the client to sign. For every project over a certain monetary threshold, I get the clients signature on an agreement. But I dont call it a contract (which would make them think they have to show it to their lawyer first which can painfully lengthen the getting-started process). I call it a simple agreement and I keep it as simple as possible, in ordinary language, no longer than a page. No client has ever delayed on it or declined to sign it.

When youve handled all the preliminaries appropriately, youve set the stage for a productive, fast-moving project that makes both sides happy.


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About the Author:
Veteran copywriter and marketing consultant Marcia Yudkin is the author of Persuading on Paper, 6 Steps to Free Publicity and 9 other books. She runs a one-on-one mentoring program that trains copywriters and marketing consultants in 10 weeks. For more information: