How to sell Digital Marketing services as a freelancer or agency

hello there I know from my experience that winning businesses for a digital marketing agency or a freelancer can be the most difficult part of the job when I say winning businesses I'm talking about convincing new clients to get on board with you or retaining your old business now this whole thing mostly depends on how you present your strategy to the client and what kind of strategy are you presenting and how you are presenting that strategy to a new client which is also called a business pitch now that's why I put together this video where I will discuss about eight points you need to consider while creating a strategy or a business pitch for a new client if you are a digital marketing agency work for a digital marketing agency or you are a digital marketing freelancer now before we start the video These eight points we will discuss are completely based on my experience of last eight years in the industry more than eight years and five years working for advertising agencies to full-time and Consulting for a lot of other digital marketing agencies mostly in GCC so stay tuned and we will talk about these points which can greatly improve your winning rate in whatever business pitches for digital marketing projects you are taking part in now if I have to sum it in one word I mean what we are trying to do is as my ex-boss used to tell me whenever we would go for a new business pitch presentation he would never ask me okay let's Ace it best of luck let's do great he would say let's raise eyebrows which means that when you go for a presentation the first thing you have to make sure is all the people you are presenting to they're always interested in what you are saying so they shouldn't be in a very dull uh mode like just watching you or the presentation during most of your presentation they should be like Curious raising their eyebrows that what you are saying that's what I will try to tell you like what are the eight points in my experience which make clients raise their eyebrows where you are very while you are presenting your business page but before that we before we jump into these eight points I just want to say a big thank you to the sponsor of this video which is up my site using App my site you can easily create an app in few minutes and you don't need to know website coding or app development or spend huge amounts on app development teams I will also put a link in the description below where they will show you on in a YouTube video in 18 minutes how you can transform your website into an app now the eight points we are talking about there are actually eight sections some of them have multiple points so our first point is know your client now this is probably you might already know this I mean the secret one of the secrets of winning a business pitch is to know your client without an unless and until you know your client the one you are presenting to it's very difficult for you to convince them and win that business now the first point in this section is you have to understand their pain points now if they have reached out to you through an RFP and given you a chance to present your strategy or they just agreed to meet you uh for this particular presentation or meeting that means they are somehow interested the interest usually comes from when they are facing a problem their campaigns are not doing great they are looking for much Advanced Partners who can do things in a more efficient way so in any case that it means that they have some kind of pain points which they are looking for partners to get solved so that's the first thing you have to understand if you don't have an RFP from the RFP it should be very clear that what their pain point is or even if it's not there you can always ask them never go for the first meeting and tell them that okay this is what we suggest if it's an RFP send some questions if it's not an RFP before joining the meeting send them a small questionnaire as easy as possible as brief as possible and that will give you an idea what their pain point is and you have to make sure that you somehow address that pain point in your presentation or during the meeting when you are meeting them I will give you an example like one of the big businesses we won with one of the companies I was working with because we understand we understood that reporting was a problem for them they were the marketing managers we were dealing with who were actually one of the decision makers to assign the business to new agency their pain point was they were always hungry for reports the agency they were working with they used to send them Excel sheets they used to send them different reports for each Channel so what we told them is we will give you a reporting dashboard centralized dashboard where you will check reports in real time and also if you are going for a meeting with your CMO what you can do is with one click you can take a snapshot of the report for whatever dates you want and you can be meeting ready in one minute trust me in that case this was one of the factors that we won the business we actually should they asked for a follow-up meeting and they asked us to create a dummy report for them they sent us some data and told us okay can you show us what what you can do so this was one of the things some other clients we had problems we won the client because we before the actual presentation and pitching we understood that their problem was the agency they were working with they were not proactive so in our presentation we highlighted that how we will have a dedicated account manager for them one point of contact and they will kind of uh coordinate between the client and the creative team the website team and the media team so this was only possible when we really understood the pain points of the client so in this section knowing the client the second point we have is understand their business vision and Market overview now this is very important because trust me I mean somebody will only trust with you with their business when they think that you know their Market you know their product you know their business because to give you an example like once we went for I'm just giving you all examples that happened with me so once we met a company which was a fintech company and while we were waiting for people to join usually during the meetings before you actually start the presentation you talk for 10 minutes or 15 minutes you get to know people and somehow we started talking and we started talking about cryptocurrencies now I have been trading in cryptocurrencies for while now maybe three and a half years or maybe four years and I know the financial products I know what is a cfd I know what is leverage I know how different cryptocurrency platforms work how they uh trade how different kind of trading happens in this space so during that meeting when they started this discussion I actively participated and I showed them somehow that I know this product and after the meeting they told us that we are really happy that you guys also know our Market you know cryptocurrencies it's very easy for us to make you understand to make you understand the Persona to make you understand the jargons language so that you can help us with the creative and all those things I mean this was a clear uh clear winner or a brownie point so if you are going for any any kind of meeting you have to understand that industry you have to understand their business you have to understand what's happening in them in the market in their space this is very important and you somehow need to put it across the table while you are in the meeting before the meeting so that they trust me these things matter and this gives a kind of confidence to the client that they can trust you because you know their product you know their industry and a lot of other things so this leads us to our third point in this section which is know the client that understand their audience what I mean by understand their audiences because audience honestly is the central point of any digital marketing strategy it's one of the very important pillars I mean even if you look at my strategy I have this video here where I explain that how you can create a digital marketing strategy for an existing or a new client where I'll tell you that are the second most important or the second step in a strategy is audience understanding audience of a client for any digital marketing project is Central and it's very very important in these days because there are millions of devices so you really need to filter out and save on your budgets and not just spray and pray but what I mean here in terms of knowing Their audience is you have to understand the product the business wherever you're going to pitch and you have to understand their audience who are Their audience who are their Prospect customers clients so you have to understand their audience in a way that you can put them in different avatars by avatars I mean some people call it audience Persona and some call it Avatar so you have to understand what their Persona is who their Avatar is and then you have to understand about that particular Avatar maybe it's simply uh Gen X so you have to just put in a word or two during the meeting that you understand that group age group you understand their behavior on the internet and a lot of other things and before you put actual you put actual strategy which you are presenting to them unless you have have understood Their audience completely I don't believe that you can create a good strategy a convincing strategy without having a good knowledge of Their audience so that's a lot about know the client this leads us to our second point which is auditing skills now I put this as my second point because I have seen how much difference it can make while you are presenting to your client and how much it because when what I mean by auditing skills is in your presentation there has to be a part where you actually ordered their digital marketing assets whether it's their websites whether it's their social media pages in terms of how many followers they have how much engagement they have what kind of ads they are running and uh these kind of things how how is the landing page design is it engaging is there any changes you would need what is the good things about their sem ads what's the bad thing about their sem ads and you have to do it for their competitors as well why I suggest that your strategy has to have an audit section and you have to focus a lot on it is because when you provide a good audit of the client and the computers it kind of tells the client that you have done your homework and when you have done your homework it means that you are serious that's probably the first thing the client will look at and all the clients get interested to know that where they stand what do you think what what's good about what they're doing what's not good about what they're doing and this has to be in the beginning usually but depending on what kind of client you are working with you can make I mean you can have it anywhere but this is something very important and it gives an early interest of client in you and they think that okay they take you more seriously because they think that you have done your homework and also I mean it can be as simple as showing them opportunities they are missing on let's say sem for example this video here I have done a real case study and created a real strategy step by step for a hypothetical client in even if you have watched that video you will see that one of the things I like highlighted there was there was they had a competitor called retina or something so there was no keyword people were searching for retina Alternatives because that was expensive and they were not bidding on this keyword so things like these they really really make a huge difference now the second thing in this part is you have to do audit of their computers as well why because you will have a better understanding of the market and some of their computers you would obviously know when you do research that who are the top computers in this particular space so it will give you an idea about what people are doing and it's a good starting point so you can learn what they are doing already and start your strategy from there and add probably just take some good takeaways from the computers and it will be helpful for you to kind of take it one step ahead and create even a better strategy it can be in terms of creatives in terms of landing page what kind of ads they are using what kind of campaigns they are running what kind of traffic is going to their website now this will help you in multiple ways one is because the client will understand that what I mean you have expertise in tools you believe in tools you can research in efficient way and you take decisions based on these tools and your research which is always a good thing for a client and for example I mean I have this video here where I show you a simple tool which you can use to kind of do an audit to see any computers ads on Facebook and Instagram as well as for certain products so you can see I even tell you in this video how to check that what ads are working for them and what ads are not working for them so these kind of things they give the client confidence in you and they help you to pitch your business more effectively and they take you more seriously now this leads us to our third section which is reporting now I mean I am mentioning some points here from strategies what should strategy cover but trust me I mean these points I'm mentioning here in this strategy these are the things which win your businesses which actually matter to the client and they get more inclined towards offering you that business now in what what I mean by reporting is the first thing when you receive an RFP or you don't receive an RFP or talking to a client and you agreed for a meeting you agreed for presenting your strategy or how you want to work for them the first question you ask them necessarily is you ask them what is their current reporting setup now why I'm telling you this is there is always room for taking the reporting set up to the next level and most of the clients they I have always observed this I mean whatever reporting setup they deserve they always have something lesser than that what I mean by that is when you talk to the client and ask them about their reporting setup if they tell you that they rely on Excel sheets Excel reports tell them that you will give them live dashboards if they say we rely on presentations tell them we'll give you live dashboards if they tell you that we get separate reports for each Channel tell them that we'll give you one view a dashboard with access to all reports from all channels if they tell you we already have a reporting dashboard live reporting dashboard tell them that you will work on an attribution accurate attribution model for them and then you will provide them a dashboard where you will process that data through this attribution model and Pro provide them the reports as per this attribution model as well that was always room to do better in terms of reporting and this is one of the easy and brownie points where you can convince the client to kind of get inclined to work with you I mean I personally have won so many businesses just because of reporting trust me probably this is one of the biggest factors and in a lot of ways probably the other examples I'll give you I think it helped me in one way one client or two clients or three clients but this reporting is probably the one which helped me I think which helped me the most in terms of winning businesses now this leads us to our fourth section which is emphasize on data now data is very important because the world we live in now any efficient digital marketing strategy is driven by data and the crazy world we live in like in last two years a lot what happened Google announced that they will block third party cookies iOS 14 update it messed up all reporting it affected Facebook reporting so in this kind of scenario and uncertainty probably data collection uh when I say data collection is the first party data collection which is actionable executable which you can Target later collecting that not just collecting that enriching that and how you are going to use it in future is probably what every client wants to hear now you have to be your strategy has to be data Centric you have to talk a lot about these things how you will collect enrich and activate this data and because this will help the client to understand that you are thinking a bit ahead of your time and because everybody realizes that in digital marketing how important data collection and activation is so this will kind of help your client to understand that if they work with you they are somehow few future proof in in up to some level now I remember that before even uh this Google Chrome cookie thing and iOS update happened I used to tell clients I used to suggest them to use cdps if they have dmps already and cdps was not a very common thing at that moment of time I'm talking about four years ago and I remember some clients calling me or whenever we meet they're telling me ah we remember you telling about cdps like then and now it's a thing now it has become expensive and I mean they they realize this that this person or this company used to tell us about these things ahead of time and it really really kind of gives you uh an edge and they think I mean with you they are kind of future proof so I would say that this has to be a major part and you have to emphasize a lot on these things how you will collect the data and how you will use it because this is what big clients these days want to hear and they are concerned about now the fifth section I would say which you should emphasize in your presentation by the way these sections doesn't have to be in the same way in your presentation I'm just telling you based on the priority now for example the fifth point is that you have to give them an actionable and real uh timelines that what will you do for them if they work with you now all the clients know that when edgy agencies come to pitch businesses they say everything they want I mean every one says the same thing we will do data driven marketing for you we will optimize based on ad Tech tools we will do keep blabbering so you don't have to blabber in your presentation the first thing that there needs to be a road map an actionable which looks real for example you can tell them that you know what we did at audit probably after the RFP they'll give you an audit they'll let you do an audit or when you onboard them so you have to tell them you know what when we onboard them we will in two months we will fix all your tracking issues in three months we will have all the URLs all the ads URLs click through URLs will be tagged with UTM we will fix all Channel grouping issues on your Google analytics in two months we will fix all your Google tag manager issues in two and a half months we will develop this workflow which we were talking about how we will receive the creative approval and how will we activate the campaigns whatever workflows you suggest because usually you will suggest that we will do this this is the way we suggest to work so you tell them this is the time we will implement this workflow in actionable Timeline now at this stage as well I would suggest that there is for example this video here where I talk about digital maturity Benchmark not a lot of people know about this and not a lot of people saw this video probably this is one of my favorite videos now in this video I show you how for free you can do digital maturity Benchmark for a business which means that it tells you this report tells you how digitally mature they are and it will also give you a rating score in terms of your computers in terms of the industry and then it will tell you opportunities to how to get more digitally mature so you can do this for your client and you can show them it can give you the projects that what all you need to do so you can have these actions listed and tell them these are the timelines will fix you and make you digitally more mature you can watch this video for more details it's a very interesting thing now this leads us to our sixth point which is include at least one creative concept now creative concept is important in a strategy because it speaks a language it tells a story and it kind of complements and completes your strategy whatever you're suggesting without creative whatever creative or whatever strategy you are suggesting it's never complete now creative is very important even if you you you're working on a big RFP a big pitch and it's just media let's say it does not have creative uh you don't have to be as good as a creative Agency for a creative concept but you have to develop something which is in line with your strategy because this is a soft uh it kind of helps them visualize your strategy it helps you in a way and you are able to put your point across and it makes a huge difference when they see that you have put I mean what what you are trying to portray now even if you're working on a small pitch if you're working on a small RFP or you are a freelancer you are working for a client you should always I mean you can work on a direction you can work on an adaptation you can work on showing different formats but show their creative show what you want them to show in in the creative for example this video here I have been talking a lot about this video this is about I actually show how to create a strategy in there as well you if you see I develop for that hypothetical brief for that hypothetical case study and strategy I created a creative a video and some image images and Direction so yeah I mean it really helps because see for example um now I'll give you an example we actually were once working for a client they were huge they started a new vertical now their issue was they were not getting a lot of fans on Instagram so what we did is we wanted to suggest for this particular project for increasing Instagram followers we gave them a media proposal and also we suggested that we should use a creative which says this is our official uh Instagram page follow us for updates news and offers and we actually worked on a very nice uh design of the creative or the ad and they liked it so much this project became so huge and it was one of the most talked about projects and that won an award that project overall as well as we saw a lot of competitors following that uh concept so that's how sometimes things develop but it's always good to at least have one creative concept so it doesn't have to be creative concept it I mean your idea your strategy should revolve around a central concept a big concept where all the strategy uh revolves around it for example I mean we were working with a client which are in Hospitality when kovitz started they still wanted to spend some budgets but they were asking for what so we told them that you know what our concept can be safe in X the client's name I mean we are safe we are following covet protocols okay we don't want you to come now visit us now but we are just just being in touch so that even became a very big project later and that one and award as well so creative is very important because it touches Hearts when you work on Creative you give a concept so it really helps to win businesses in in my opinion now this leads us to the seventh point which is gain Authority now you have to gain Authority with the client this is very important as well some people think that it's too salesy uh to gain Authority with I mean with showing your portfolio and showing your team but trust me like this is very important as well now in this section you have to focus on two things one a new presentation and while you're pitching you have to emphasize on your portfolio the work you have done already if you have and you have to Showcase that in a way that is relevant for them and you have to give them don't make like your portfolio like this client CTR leads views not like that you have to present it in a way that what was that challenge what was things what what did we do differently and why do you like working with them what all did you do I mean something relatable and you have to find something which is in their industry or they have the same objectives as two brands or companies the second thing and very important thing is you have to emphasize that how great your team is now team structure is very important you have to tell them who you will be working with and why do they want to work on this project why do they want to work in this industry why do they want to why are they excited how do they work uh what structure do we follow who you will be working with what have they done in the past trust me these things really matter not just in terms of they you will show them something extraordinary not everyone has some extraordinary team members to show or the portfolio to show but you have to show that you're passionate about it some clients proactively ask about these things but it's always good to emphasize and show this passionately and make this a point that it'll even make you even closer to win that business now this leads us to our last point which is don'ts these are the things actually not to do so these are not the things that you do to win businesses but these are the things you avoid doing the first one is obviously try not to win businesses by showing that because you are cheap you have less agency fees you have less commission so because digital marketing is an industry people want to work with you because they want you to help them to do Marketing in better way and grow their business so it's a revenue generating at the end for them so for I mean if they had to save money they won't even do the marketing so that's not a concern for most of the companies I know so don't portray this because it's not a good thing and don't focus on it and don't try to win businesses obviously if you're working on big rfps there is technical rounds and then there is a separate Financial round and the people who will evaluate you in technical round or presentation they will never see the commercial proposal that's with the procurement team and that's at later stage but in your technical proposal or your presentation never ever tell them that you should give us business because we are cheaper than Market this is a very bad thing in my opinion and the second thing is your presentation does not have to be a PPT version of a cold call I mean as I told you in the beginning like you have to make eyebrows Race So for that your presentation has to be precise it doesn't have to be 120 slides even if it is the thing you present and you talk about has to be very very lesser probably for one hour you will be presenting or two but it has to be precise and then it does not have to be it has to be more engaging as I told you it has to you have to consider all these points which we discussed which it'll make it more interesting for them and at any point I mean you have to understand the audience who will be joining sometimes there are people from procurement sometimes there are operation managers they don't understand marketing you don't have to tell them a lot of jargons that ctrs and blah blah blah so you have to kind of make them interesting for example one of the biggest projects I have ever won was because we understood that the the person we were talking to the authority we were were talking to he didn't want to hear stories and all that stuff he wanted the actual strategy how we will execute this that's how he wanted it he wanted to see what kind of places we will Target what kind of audiences we will Target what kind of platforms we will use how will we Target on platforms he was interested to see the screenshot on Twitter how will you target people uh followers of someone we understood this quite early and it really helped us and he agreed with us that this was something I wanted to see I don't want to hear stories and at the end I'm like what so this is one case maybe somebody doesn't like this way they like something else so you have to understand the audience who will be joining are they marketing managers are they digital marketing managers specifically is it a CMO is it the CEO of the company or a director of the company so you have to understand the audience even if your presentation is ready and you suddenly are put in a room you have to analyze even few minutes that who are the audiences and how they are engaging and you have to take that route this is very important trust me guys so I hope this was in any way helpful to you if you think I missed any point or you think there is something that in your opinion helps when businesses please make sure to leave it in the comments and we can have a discussion there thank you so much I will see you in the next one

Channel: Senator We Run Ads

Views: 21,687

Keywords: Senator We Run Ads, Digital Marketing, Social Media Marketing, ovais ahmad, kashmir, business pitch, digital marketing client, digital marketing agency, kashmiri youtuber, digital marketing in united states, digital marketing in canada, digital marketing in germany, digital marketing in australia, digital marketing in uk

Id: 4WD3KRcv3q4

Length: 30min 48sec (1848 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 02 2022