We’ve seen incredible developments in the field of digital marketing in the past several years. SEO is becoming increasingly intricate and sophisticated in order to keep up with modern trends. With these advances, marketers are also putting in more effort to optimize their rankings in order to make the most out of SEO.
With all of these tools becoming increasingly more needed to manage the global market landscape, one can easily lose track of the more conventional ways to build and maintain a business. Maintaining business relationships can be an especially complex task in this ever-evolving world. For anyone in the SEO marketing department, it is clear that it takes a lot of time and effort to build and maintain relationships with new and old clients alike. On top of that, it takes certain know-how, and in this article, we will go over the key points on how to do exactly that.
Understanding the customer and their brand
It is essential to have a firm understanding of who you are working with. Knowing the client’s brand throughout will always be of great help when trying to come up with a mutual language. It could mean spending time with them and in their office to get to know the managers well. It will be much easier to get a grasp on how they want to advertise their product or service once you harness the power of that information.
They may have a vision of where they want to be within the market in the next few years that might not be apparent at first. Trying to understand your clients, their brand and products is the best way towards a successful marketing campaign. Working together will eventually become second nature!
Trust through simplification and transparency
In today’s turbulent global marketplace, there is so much information going around, it’s easy to lose track of what’s relevant and what’s correct. That enormous amount of information needs to be conveyed properly and as clearly as possible, all the while continuously bringing as much value to the process as possible. Hence the need to look at the process itself from start to finish.
Are there any sub-processes that are not necessary or are hindering the big picture in any way? If you are unable to properly communicate why a certain process is there, it means you do not fully understand it. Remember, every step that you take needs to add value to the final result. Not being able to explain it to your client could result in the work appearing less valuable. Processes need to be kept as simple as possible while not damaging the quality or value added.
Simplicity opens the doors to another aspect that needs to be observed, and that is transparency. In short, being simple and open about what we are doing is the best way to gain trust and build upon relationships between your agency and your clients. A simple example of how to ensure this is relying on business documents templates that you can always use when defining your relationship with every new client that comes on board. Having universal templates such as these will offer transparency and clarity and define expectations for all parties involved in any future endeavors.
Efficiency through a streamlined internal system
No project can exist without a solid base to build upon. What makes a solid foundation is your people, your teams, the bread and butter of any business. All the power that your brand has lies within your teams. Therefore, it is your responsibility to preserve the atmosphere among the people you work with at positive levels. This can be achieved through open, face-to-face communication rather than through a virtual platform or over the phone. Sure, that is not always a possibility, given the globalized nature of the modern work process and the fact that you might have remote teams, too.
Luckily, there is a middle ground that can help you achieve balance. Instead of having discussions on one platform and working in another, it is highly recommendable to utilize a single tool that combines both. Work is best done and discussed in the same place. When the time comes for you to add another party to the conversation, say a client, it can be done in accordance with the previous members.
Information can be immediately, clearly, and fully conveyed to all the parties involved. New employees will also be able to quickly catch on and start making an impact. Such a system also cuts down on time and effort spent on trying to manually explain all the details to interested parties. This form of business optimization will help all employees on all levels of the hierarchy to interact with each other much more fluidly. Project management, brainstorming, and communication, in general, will result in effective teamwork that, to clients, will speak for itself.
Building relationships takes work, time, and knowledge. It is possible to build strong, mutually beneficial and long-term relationships when you invest heavily in those bonds and stay consistent over time. With these basic principles, you can be sure that your clients will know that they are working with someone they can always trust and fully rely on, no matter the challenge that might come your way!
