As an agency owner, consultant, or free-lance designer, time is money. Your goal is to offer clients the most value possible within their project or monthly budget.
Most agency owners, designers and consultants are passionate about what they do. It often doesn’t seem like work so getting off task becomes easy. What starts out as a nice project that fits within the client budget can easily grow into a monster of a project that leaves them with little to no margin or time to continue to grow their business.
Providing Facebook services to clients presents much the same challenge. It’s easy to get caught up in the moment of a new and exciting Facebook project and later find it’s over sold and massively under budget.
Below are 5 mistakes agencies make when offering Facebook services. Avoid these and you can keep customers happy, margins in the green and even get your weekends back!
Top 5 Mistakes Agencies Make When Providing Facebook Marketing Services
1. Not fully understanding customer skill set
Many times a customer may commit to working on a specific part of the project. It could be they offer to provide the art, code for an opt-in form or other needed element for success. However, as the project starts you soon learn they don’t have the skills within their team. This usually slows down the project and/or puts the pressure on you to make up for the slack even though it’s not in the budget.
Tip: Confirm they have the proper skill set to execute needed tasks. Ask for the name of the specific person. Look them up on LinkedIn and other platforms to get to know them and fully understand their background and how you can best work with them.
2. Not understanding customer goals
This includes not understanding their business, marketing and project goals. Often times your expertise and sharing can get a customer really excited and they dream bigger and bigger, and their goal turns into goals plural, and the focus is unclear as to how this piece fits into the overall marketing strategy.
Tip: At the beginning of the project take the time to understand the customer business, marketing and Facebook project goals. If they do not know these, ask them to provide them. To be successful you must come to agreement on at minimum what the project goals and outcomes are.
3. Not setting proper expectations
Often times because you don’t understand their goals or objectives you don’t set proper expectations. This could include too aggressive of timelines, delivery dates and massive scope creep. There may even be confusion as to who is doing what. Who is writing content? Who is doing design? Who is integrating the opt-in form? Where exactly does this project start and stop?
Tip: Use the goals and objectives as a foundation to properly scope the project and set solid expectations with the client. Make it clear what is included and what is not. Let them know ahead of time what the cost will be if additional features are added in or if more hours on project are required.
4. Not communicating with the client
Often times if you find yourself in a pickle it may seem easier just to avoid the client and try to get the project done as quick as you can. This is the worst possible thing you could do as you now have a project that is likely over scoped, improper expectations set with client and you have questions you are not getting answered.
Tip: Communication is key in all aspects of business. Get on the phone with the client and get the project back on track. Be honest if there are challenges. If scope creep has set in, let them know. Go back to the original contract and figure out a plan to bring the project back within scope.
5. The maintenance phase is not accounted for
Not including the cost and time for the sustaining of the Facebook page or tab is easy to do.
You were likely excited to get the deal when the project started. Then as you get going you find yourself over extended, under budget and scope creep has consumed your weekend life. What margin you thought you had to maintain the page for a quarter or two has now disappeared.
Tip: Include the maintenance and sustaining phase in the original contract. Think through what it will take AFTER the initial launch is done and include this.
Bottom line you must take control of the project from day one. Knowing your customer, setting objectives and expectations will get you off to a good start. Keep communication flowing the entire project to minimize any confusion and scope creep.
Facebook page marketing services are a great agency offering if done right. Building tabs, adding email sign-up tabs that perform, running contests, and more can be a great way for social media consultants and marketing agencies to increase revenues. As well, they can serve as a door opener to more design, strategy and marketing business. The key is in avoiding these 5 mistakes!
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5 very accurate issues agencies face! This list could easily be made a checklist and added as part of client intake processes and revisited at set intervals during the business relationship.
Each and every one of these items can be an issue for the internet marketing/digital strategy/social media outreach teams within a company too.
Here’s an idea for #6: Know the culture.
Taking on a project and based on known goals and skills and resources of the client/department if the medium or style doesn’t fit the culture, social media efforts will stall.
TIP: We’re passionate about what we’re doing, and know many possible paths to take, we choose what we think is best. If an unexpected response because of the client’s company culture arises, take a step back and check in for more detail on points 2, 3 or 4. We must adapt to meet the need, and our objectivity and adaptiveness will help keep the relationship strong.
Nice @jessica_dewell:disqus! I like it! Culture of the client is so important. If it was just something the president said to do and the motivation and value is not held by the rest of the company, delays and issues are going to come for sure. Great thought and thanks for adding value here!
LOVE IT and got it just in time 🙂
Agree Mike, Especially #5 I see so many SMMarketers offering their services at super cheap prices and think to myself that they must be doing common posting on all their clients Pages or paying themselves bare minimum wages if they are providing a quality service – Know your clients WHY and start with the end in mind I say 🙂
Mike,
All of the 5 items on your list are realistic and must be considered.
I think the key is communication – as you say – but also educating the customer on what you’ll be doing through each phase. That would also fit hand-in-hand with scheduling weekly check-ins, which could help avoid a few on the list.
Every customer is different, and every project is different, so I also agree that understanding the customer goals is essential.
~Keri
Great to hear!
Thanks @Keri! Yes, every client is unique.
Yes, quality trumps cheapness over the long haul!
Super post!