info@daynightprint.co.ukIf you are a marketing pro, you are probably always looking for new ways to get new clients, whether you are a seasoned agency veteran or a new freelancer. This is why we are sharing some of the best industry insights from our 2022 Mailchimp & Co Benchmark Report, a valuable resource that reveals the opinions of over 2,000 freelancers and agencies from 63 countries.
You can improve your craft and increase your chances of landing your next big project by following these a few pointers. However, before this, you have to note down the barriers, which will hamper the success of your business.
Obstacles to success in business
It is helpful to examine a few obstacles that marketing professionals identified in their responses to our survey before we get into strategies for winning new business. When we asked respondents what was holding them back from signing up new customers, the majority of their responses pointed to two main obstacles: money and time.
More specifically, 40% of respondents stated that they did not devote enough time to developing new business, and nearly half stated that client budgets were insufficient to warrant further investigation.
The Benchmark Report for this year contains a few suggested actions that can
assist you in overcoming those business challenges.
The tight budget:
-Do not treat your budget as a money issue. Instead, consider it a value or affordability issue.
-It is possible that your customer cannot afford you. You might want to reevaluate your pricing or your customers.
-Examine your value proposition carefully, and if necessary, modify or reaffirm it. You need to make it clear to potential customers why and how they should keep
working with you.
The crunch of time:
– If time is your only constraint, rejoice! It might be time to expand your business or hire help from outside sources. You can free yourself up to pursue new business in a few ways:
-Hire a new you or two so that you can concentrate on acquiring new customers.
-While you work on your business, hire a vetted expert to help.
– You should appoint a specialist in new business to lead your pitching process.
The bottleneck:
Decision-making bottlenecks from customers can slow down everything before you even start. Here are some quick fixes: Learn about the buyer journey. If you know what the procurement obstacles are, you might be able to assist your potential clients in overcoming them.
Take action. Do not wait for the customer to take the lead. Identify areas of discomfort and remove them yourself. Be original. Assume the role of a teacher and instruct the client, keeping the lesson plan always centered on their requirements rather than your services.
As previously stated, persuading new customers of your value is an important part of winning them over, and we are confident that members of our community possess the necessary skills.
Whether you want to get more one-time projects or set up retainers for ongoing work, the following three strategies can help you turn 2022 into the year you supercharge your business.
Perfectly pitched strategies
You probably have used an elevator pitch on potential clients, as many agencies and freelancers do. An elevator pitch is a concise and convincing message about your business that you can convey in the time it takes to ride an elevator.
However, what happens when your potential customer wants to take things to the next level and the sliding doors open? A pitch deck is the response. Your pitch deck ought to resemble a more polished sales pitch that gives potential customers a taste of your company.
However, pitching is fraught with dangers, and consistently maintaining a full pipeline is an
art. Still, you can increase your chances of winning your next big project and expand your business network by preparing and delivering a compelling pitch. Professionals in marketing use two kinds of pitch decks:
Pitch online:
Before setting up a full on meeting with you, some potential customers might ask to see your digital pitch deck in a time-constrained world. Make sure that your slides talk about your services and how you use them, how you stand out from your rivals, and why working with you is worth their time and money. We suggest keeping the number of slides under 20.
Face-to-face pitch:
You have the opportunity to go deeper than with a digital pitch when you present it in person; just make sure that it looks good. Avoid filling your slides with huge text blocks; instead, provide enough information to keep potential customers interested but not bogged down. Also, make sure to leave time for questions at the end of your pitch.
Referrals from other people
You can rely on peer-to-peer referrals as one of the best methods for acquiring new customers even in our digital environments, which can be noisy at times. This year’s report shows that 48% of freelancers polled said that referrals from previous clients were one of the best ways to get new work.
Want to know how to request client recommendations? It could be as simple as a quick phone call or email if you intend to request one from a recent client. It may feel forced to ask them to recommend you to others if you have not talked to them recently.
As a result, even after the project is finished, it is a good idea to keep in touch with your customers. This way, when you contact them to ask for a referral, it will feel natural and not pushy or opportunistic. A straightforward method for keeping customers in reach? Utilize your social media platforms to communicate with them.
We also suggest using one or two referral guidelines that can help you improve you are messaging and get your next lead. Fortunately, for you, we have created a useful referral template that you can access after joining our community from our resources center.
Groups for professionals
While respondents indicated that client referrals generate the most leads, networking with others in your industry can also significantly increase your prospect pool. It can be a cost-effective way to market yourself to host a networking event. Additionally, it may assist you in making a significant impact without costing too much.
By exploring networking channels like our partner Slack, an exclusive workspace for agencies and freelancers to gather, exchange leads, and collaborate on projects with other Mailchimp members, Mailchimp partners can increase their chances of winning new business.
To join our partner Slack channel, join Mailchimp & Co and upgrade to collaborate status. You will be able to participate in exclusive Ask Me Anything (AMA) sessions that are led by leaders from all over Mailchimp.
Find out the answers to your most pressing inquiries regarding brand-new product features and a variety of other topics, including how to win new business. Your agency’s future depends on upselling and cross selling to existing clients and pitching for new accounts.
Even though using the same pitch deck every time and having the same people in the room may come as second nature, this strategy is likely to quickly become stale and uninspiring. In fact, it will do little to achieve the ultimate objective of acquiring new business or maintaining existing accounts. Here are seven suggestions for refreshing and modernizing your pitching strategy for that crucial client.
Demonstrate your credentials online:
In light of the fact that global advertising spending in the digital space is expected to exceed $300 billion in 2019, your digital credentials are extremely important to your new client. You could be pitching for work that is exclusively digital or for a project that involves both digital and traditional channels.
In either case, your clients will place a high value on your capacity to implement digital cross-channel strategies. Do not just focus on the companies you work for when it comes to your credentials. Your most recent campaigns, the outcomes you achieved, and how this has affected those businesses are all things your potential new client will want to see.
Most importantly, they will want to see digital innovation from you to make sure they are working with the right partner.
Give everything to the meeting
There is a gap between the product teams and the new business arm at larger agencies. As a result, the product team frequently does not know why they are pitching the client. There may be a client conflict with an existing account in some cases.
In either case, if a team is presenting to the client in the room, you simply need to provide everything to the meeting. Things change, and this meeting could result in the acquisition of a crucial client for your company.
It is likely to come across as disinterested if a team is not completely committed to winning the company. Additionally, the team will undoubtedly be unprepared. That is not a winning strategy.
The first step is to find out who is attending from the client’s perspective and assign roles to each member of your team for that meeting. This makes sure that your team is on board and knows how to make your client’s experience valuable and worthwhile.
Next, spend some time getting to know the client’s business, market, and customer. As a result, you will be able to tailor your pitch to meet their specific needs.
Completely investigate the company
This follows from giving it everything. You must demonstrate to the potential client before the meeting that you are fully aware of their business. You will also need to show that you know what the problems are in that particular market right now.
If you read industry research to prepare, make sure you can confidently cite it, showing how it can be applied to your solution and how it supports it. The client wants to work with a company that knows how much they care about their business and can give them strategic direction based on in-depth information.
In an initial pitch, stats and data cited with confidence will build client confidence and make a lasting impression.
Make sure your solution is tailored to the client’s requirements:
The easiest way for businesses to pitch for new business is to just say what services they offer. However, because many brands want to move their marketing in-house, they will only want to work with an agency that can provide strategic support and solutions that are specific to their business.
It just will not work if you always use the same generic pitch. Read everything the client has provided in its entirety. Because briefs take time to put together, it is important to show that you paid full attention to every detail.
In a similar vein, if the brief is insufficiently detailed and you have additional questions, contact them in advance. This already demonstrates that your agency is committed to attempting to comprehend their requirements.
You will be able to pitch the appropriate solution once you have a clear understanding of the difficulties they face. Examples of solutions include Geotargeting to engage users on a local level, Dynamic creative to ensure that the appropriate message is served at the appropriate time, and In-feed ads to combat the issue of inventory that is constantly changing.
Everyone in the room will pay attention to a pitch tailored specifically to that brand.
Show them exactly how the campaign’s creative will look when it is live:
When you are pitching for your client’s ads and suggesting digital display activation as a cost-effective, efficient, and high-performing end-to-end solution, you should show them exactly how those ads would look when they are live.
Demonstrate how well they will represent their brand and how important it is to use multi-shape and multi-click ads to engage your audience on their devices and websites and to improve the customer experience. Having creativity right in front of the client’s eyes is a much more powerful proposition than relying on your team to describe it.
What happens when someone looks at a copy or creative first draft? It goes through the revision rounds, and if you show your client something that does not work for them during the meeting, you can get improvements and tweaks.
Regardless, if you are talking about creative tweaks, it could mean that your client has committed to working with your agency and moving forward, which is a big buying signal.
Display your team:
When it comes to your pitch, it is too tempting to just go all out. Your potential client will want to see the people who will be working on their account, in addition to learning about the agency’s expertise and knowledge.
Similar to step two above, a client will spot a pitch team that is either unprepared or simply employing the same tactic each time. It is tempting to exclude junior members or have them silently present.
A junior team member who is enthusiastic, lively, and knowledgeable is actually much more likely to impress a potential client than an older head who is simply going through the motions.
Take into account how you present as well as your physical setup:
Poor lighting, crowded seating, and temperatures that are too high or too low can cause an audience that is not engaged. Think about how the seating is set up and how bright the room is.
Recollect as an entrepreneur your office and workers is an impression of you, so ensuring you are content with what the two representatives and the workplace truly do convey about you is essential.
The positioning of a long table with the client at one end and the agency at the other is not the best way to start a collaborative approach because it encourages an "us and them" mindset.
When it comes to a competitive pitch process, the smallest details matter the most. It is also tempting to use too many slides and create a long deck with the same format every time.
Instead of just going over your client’s credentials, think about keeping the deck to a minimum and starting strong by engaging the client right away.
Again, if you take your time with these new approaches, you will start building a structure and format that meets the client’s needs. Fluid Ads collaborates with a variety of media agencies to guarantee that they can provide clients with products and services that will always make a difference to their own businesses and aid in the expansion of new ones.
Contact us right away to begin your journey toward becoming a digital partner for your customers.
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