We created the Feel agency less than 12 months ago, and given the short timeframe, we are really proud of the progress we’ve made in terms of the clients we’ve been able to attract. Our business is digital marketing. In basic terms, this means we help businesses grow through their online presence – e.g. their websites, branding, content and marketing activity.
Digital marketing comes in a variety of forms and you’ll have heard of most of them. They include brand promotion, search engine optimisation (SEO), video production, content writing and a ton of other things. The goal with digital marketing is essentially to push a business forward with the specific aim of achieving an objective: more page visits, more Facebook ‘likes,’ more email enquiries, increased brand awareness – and more business.
So why should you care?
There are many digital agencies in Warrington, Manchester, Liverpool, and pretty much everywhere else. Some will be brilliant. Some will be good. And some won’t be.
So why do businesses prefer to work with one agency rather than another? Is it because of their sales pitch, the fancy offices, the size of the team, reputation, recommendations, or is it perhaps just gut instinct?
Some of these things matter a lot to some clients. We understand that, but in our opinion, being able to do the job and do it well – the single most important aspect – is the relationship between us and the client.
We attended a digital event at Prolific North a few weeks ago, and a big digital agency shared the five steps to retaining your clients, all of which focused on measuring, reporting, return on investment, cost per lead, cost per acquisition.
Of course, these things are important, but at the root of it all are people and relationships.
All of us at Feel have previously worked in large agencies and each of us has been left with the same bitter taste: The focus hasn’t been on the client, how they were feeling, whether they were happy in the relationship, happy with the work, whether the agencies were at their side when they really needed help or whether there was anything on their mind that they wished they could be more open and honest about?
The agencies I’ve personally worked for focused more on logging time and sending new invoices for the two hours which exceeded the retainer that month. It was so difficult to build any type of relationship when the focus was constantly on hours and budget rather than the actual work and client’s happiness and satisfaction.
This is the reason we established Feel Digital. For us, It’s all about how we make our clients feel.
We’re not the cheapest, we don’t have the fanciest offices and at some point in our relationship we will probably make a mistake.
However, the one thing that everyone at Feel does have is a genuine passion and excitement to build a relationship based on trust and confidence. We love what we do and sharing this authentic interest in striving to build another’s business is ultimately why we come to work. Yes, there are hundreds of other reasons, but things start to really get interesting and enjoyable when genuine passion is present.
This is no sales pitch: Our business is built upon honesty and authenticity. We work with some of the largest companies in the UK and are lucky enough to work with some local small businesses who aspire to become the largest. Our values stay the same. Our clients have confidence in contacting us when they need help, they have confidence to speak honestly and openly with us and we both have a common goal – to work together to grow their business.
Education is a huge part of a client/agency relationship. We believe in educating our clients in what we are doing and what it means. By doing this, we are able to explain things a lot better when we see positive or negative changes.
All of us at Feel have previously worked at agencies where a monthly report is adapted to just show the best bits of the month, desperately trying to reaffirm that they are doing a great job. There is only one reason that an agency would do this – they are frightened of being honest in case the client dismisses them.
We often sit in front of our clients showing negative data. Traffic dips, conversion rates which are down on previous months. Is the relationship tainted after these meetings? No. Our clients still have the utmost confidence in us and in the work we are doing because we have educated and built trust.
This blog focuses quite heavily on when things go wrong. There are thousands of wins to be celebrated each month with all our clients, but it is the one or two mistakes that create the most drama.
Digital Marketing is and should be a major focus of any business trying to succeed online, and it should be treated as an investment.
Don’t hesitate to contact us.
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