One of the biggest challenges facing agencies, particularly the small to medium agencies is how to master and promote technical & highly specialized clients with very niche and complex products & services efficiently, without it being cumbersome or ineffective.
Although it might seem daunting at the onset when you break it down to simple pieces, it becomes much easier and the prospects of doing it become challenging filled with many opportunities to do something on the long run that can be treasured and continually taken pride and learnings from. So now let us break it down into aspects & portions that make it easier to master the industrial and technical aspects of challenging clients & niche sectors.
1) Devoting Time To Understand Respective Products & Services
It is very easy to rush into things and start deliberating and discussing how to market and promote the product or services to a respective target audience. However, it is paramount you devote enough time beforehand towards appreciating the nuances of the industry or client that is crucial which might seem too complex at the beginning.
Although you don't have to get into the vast complexities and investigate the crux of every element which might be irrelevant to the target audience, it is necessary to have a base-level understanding of what the product is, what it helps with, how is it different, what makes it special, what are the factors that sets it apart, what are the elements that goes into it that makes it what it is, and what are the needs or wants it fulfils etc.
In the end, the most important aspect is when you start communicating to the audience with the content that you have created, it signifies both expertise & understanding without confusion; speaking the language of the consumer yet putting across the most attractive aspect of the company or brand in the most effective and direct manner possible.
2) Organizing The Information & Learnings In A Structured Manner
This point is all about breaking down all the information that you have gathered in a simplified and prioritized structure. Although it might sound easy, it is one of the most crucial aspects of our endeavor to come up with the most result oriented, engaging content & marketing communiqué we can.
After having devoted the time you have, if you are not able to systemically use the date that you have collated fruitfully, it might all seem like a redundant exercise. During the course of your study, a voluminous amount of data might have been collected, and if they are not organized in a prudent way, it will be difficult for you or your team-mates to make the appropriate use of it.
You have to ensure that all the important portion of the client/industry that you have garnered are arranged in such a way that it will assist you in shaping a communication approach that is content-rich, value added, interesting & tangible that furthers and ultimately realises the aim that you have set yourself, in keeping with the brief you have received and deliverables you are committed to.
3) Choosing the Right Media, Creating Content That Engages & Stimulates Audiences
Now that you have understood the content & broken it down into usable data, it is time to chose the right media (to be decided by the agency or client beforehand), as per the respective target audience you want to reach out to, the budget allocated for the campaign, and the medium which promises to have the greatest direct impact on the client… wherein creating the aptest content or marketing material that will help you in realizing the goal that you have primed yourself for.
This is the juncture that the time you have devoted to understanding the industry, the client, the product and services depending on the respective niche, and then organizing it into data that makes immediate sense will come to the fore.
Yet, the job is still not done. If your artistic expression and content creation don't utilize the learning there is to be had, we might still fall short. So make sure to use all the valuable wealth of data you have at hand and fashion a communication strategy that best guarantees impact. Thus you are all set to achieve and perhaps surpass what you have set out to.
Your content, in the end, needs to be a balancing act of direct effective communication & creative stimuli that best allows the audience to interact and act upon. So focus on creating content that the audience can understand & relate to, that can be consumed readily without diverting their attention.
4) Making Sure The Content Reaches Its Audience & Its Performance Is Measured
Just because you have chosen the right media and created the best content you can, it won't necessarily result in optimal performance. You still got to ensure that the content or the communiqué reaches the people you want it to. There are many things that could hinder the effectiveness of your efforts, ranging from error of judgement to unforeseen circumstances or under-performance of the media at hand.
Nonetheless, there are some measures that will aid in minimizing unproductive initiatives. First of all, make sure you do a small survey of your content with a small sample group that best typifies your TG. Gauge, remedy, and implement the data from the sample to ensure that your content is failproof.
Also, ensure that the media you have selected has the right data-backed credentials to best cater to and deliver the results you want it to. Never go by hearsay unless backed up by credible, coherent & substantial evidence that supports its claim to being the best for your efforts.
Next, do not just be over reliant on assumptions, approximations, and estimates while measuring the success of your advertising. Ensure you all the metrics tracked utilizing the most relevant and trusted analytical solution for all the elements that best reflects the efficacy of the campaign. If it worked then wonderful, if it didn’t, then more so, it is pivotal to track, analyse and improve every element of the learning vis-a-vis how many your content reached, why the content worked with some group and didn’t work with others, what are the barriers to communication that impacted its potency.
Even if you have done a brilliant job, verify it with the data you have to analyze what worked best and what would be worked upon that would be wondrous if it can be replicated over the course of time. So analysis on every data supplied, only helps to improve ourselves.
Just to finish on a caveat, although the points stated above provides a gist or guidelines to best tackle a difficult client, there is never one way to success. These are the steps or measures that have helped me in realizing the aligned aims of ShyBuzz and partner-clients I have been fortunate enough to be associated with.
I sincerely hope the points mentioned in the article helps you better deliver the best for the clients you are working with, even the ones you think sounds a bit tricky. I am also sure the article will in some way help you cater to newer and varying spectrum of clients and crack the code for any industry you come across… at least to some extent, and could well be the base on which you script your own success story.
I look forward to also hearing from you as to what has worked for you and hopefully sharing your experience with others too. Do reach out to me if you desire any more details or need any clarification.
About the Author:
Shybu Khan is the founder of ShyBuzz, having founded the company at the age of 25. Having majored in Journalism, he is a writing professional and a business consultant with a keen eye on corporate brand building, business organization, entrepreneurship, geopolitical affairs, and the world economy as a whole. Shybu has contributed articles to a variety of reputed media organizations on a variety of subject matters. He has been part of the U.S. financial scene as an editor with a U.S. Company based in Mumbai. Apart from being an avid blogger, he is a freewheeling social and business commentator, who believes that concerted action, informed research, and social activism are the main architects for true change.
You can reach Shybu at Shybu@ShyBuzz.com
