I've been working in online marketing for nearly 10 years now. My
experience has ranged from being both in-house and agency side as well
as running my own freelance company. Today I run an agency (with other
people too) with offices in two countries.
One thing this varied experience has done for me has given me insight
into clients who have budgets from $400 per month all the way up to in
excess of $40,000 per month. You learn a lot about client relations from
both budget spectrums, however, I have found that the smaller the
budget, the higher the proportion of maintenance that the client
requires (from my experience).
Here are some potential issues you may encounter with small budget
clients and solutions for managing expectations from the outset.
For this post, let's assume that "the client" is a new lead that has
come in and has a budget of $500 per month. Let's also assume that the
client is a "one man band" (up to 5 people), is less than 2 years old,
and has no other marketing budget set aside.
1. Expectations of Hours Spent
When I was a freelancer much earlier on in my career I said yes to
pretty much any job that fell in my lap. While this was great at the
beginning, over time I found that I was working too much in proportion
to what my client was paying. As it was early in my career, I was
perfectly willing to work extra hours to ensure client retention. But
eventually there came a point where it was too much.
Solution
Create an hourly rate and stick to it, even before any contract is
signed. Here, the client has $500 to spend each month and you have to
consider any outgoings you may have attached to that budget. An example
would be to charge $75 per hour, giving you 6 hours of work per month
plus $50 to spend.
This expectation may not please your client as that $500 is important
to him/her. Six hours may not sound like a lot, but this has to be fair
on you too. For $500 the client can't expect a "virtual member of
staff" who is on call to answer everything at any point – especially if
your hours are fulfilled. The client has to remember that you will have
many clients just like him/her, and that they too will have their own
expectations.
2. Managing Those Limited Hours Wisely
The term "SEO" is now only part and parcel of a general online
marketing strategy that requires work on various aspects, including
on-site, content, outreach, CRO, analytical research, social media
integration, and reporting. For that $500, you will have to manage this
each month to ensure that they have the best quality work done with
consideration of that budget, noting that month-on-month you will have
to concentrate on different things.
Solution
Each month you will have to set out how much time you want to spend
on each task. You can make it slightly easier using a project management
document to ensure everything is organized for all clients. Luckily I
have created a free project management template for Google Drive which can help you with this.
One thing to note: the client should always be informed of your plans
ahead of time as their priorities may not match your own. Concentrate
more perhaps on converting visitors rather than sacrificing the majority
of your time with outreach.
3. Sacrificing or Simplifying 'Non-Essential' Tasks
Managing those hours may still be tight for you. If you're faced with
a task that could potentially take 2 hours to complete, you should
seriously consider if there is a way to compress it into a one hour task
without loss of quality to the client.
Solution
Create an extremely simple report containing limited data that will,
in effect, reduce the time it takes you to produce it. One tip here
would be to include less commentary or create a streamlined Google
Analytics Dashboard for your client to view that can give them
up-to-date information without you having to produce another section
about analytics in your report.
Something else to consider is logging the work you do. Trello and Toggl
will help you out with this, but having to report on every minute
detail of your work is inefficient and has no real value to anyone when
the general budget is small – there's no need to log every email you
send just for the sake of the client if you're organized enough.
Agree on KPIs
You need to understand the client's business from the outset. The
client is investing a lot in you despite having no guarantees of any ROI
– SEO is something that can't be measured or forecasted with precision
(especially with low budgets), and SEO takes quite a few months to see
real results.
However, you still need to decide on what these key performance
indicators (KPIs) are and you need to ensure that the client understands
that short tail is pretty much impossible unless their short tail
keyword targets is a general long tail.
Solution
Let's say that the client is an accountant. You need to ensure that
you know what their average client makes for them as one client may make
them $2,000 per annum (assuming that the client keeps them
year-on-year).
I would also advise to have an agreement of no less than 6 months so
that the client understands that no work you do will show any real
effect for at least 3 months and that you will need months 4, 5 and 6 to
analyze results and prove you have fulfilled your agreed KPIs.
Try to Increase Budgets over Time
Let's say that 6 months have now passed and you've fulfilled the KPIs
you agreed at the beginning of the contract. The client may insist that
no ROI has been generated, however, you must refer back to your agreed
KPIs – if you fulfilled them, then you did your job correctly. Of
course, KPIs will be connected to ROI, but sometimes the work you do is
only so much.
Using the accountant as a client example again, one KPI would be that
you need to increase conversions where a conversion would be defined as
an email form completion or telephone call. Once that email is sent or
call is placed you have no control as to whether that conversion will
turn from a lead into a client for many reasons – the client may not be
able to service that lead as intended, there may be a seasonal slump, or
the salesman answering the calls and emails may not be good him/herself
at converting leads.
Solution
Translate to the client, and be clear, that fulfilling KPIs and ROI
aren't always the same thing and ROI is something you can't solely
control and therefore can't be held to it to decide on any renewal.
You may also want to suggest (if your first 6 months can prove it)
that their budget needs to be increased to show more significant
results. The client may always say that they intend to increase their budget, but until they actually do it, they simply won't receive what they expect to receive.
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