How a marketing client evolves over time will directly impact the effectiveness of the strategies its agency partners develop. If agencies don’t keep up with how clients are changing, the campaigns they create can end up being outdated and less effective, leading to lower client satisfaction levels and poor results. Consequently, an agency may lose business if competitors adapt more quickly and demonstrate a better understanding of evolving client requirements, industry trends and market dynamics.
Understanding not only who their clients are, but also how they have changed allows agencies to adjust their strategies accordingly and maintain strong alignment with clients’ ever-evolving needs. Below, members of Forbes Agency Council share reasons why it’s so critical for agencies to remain up-to-date and informed about any changes or developments in their clients’ businesses, objectives and markets.
1. To Emphasize A Client’s Forward-Thinking Nature
In the B2B world, knowing how clients have evolved their business models, and why, is essential. With digital transformation, many B2B companies have shifted their business models and are looking at how to incorporate artificial intelligence. Subscription-based services and software as a service models continue to evolve. Public relations strategies need to help emphasize a client’s forward-thinking nature and how it benefits customers. – Kathleen Lucente, Red Fan Communications
2. To Learn How External Changes May Impact Other Clients
Understanding how our clients evolve is critical to the success of their marketing. Some of this evolution is a direct result of our marketing. But externally driven evolutions are just as critical, especially if we are seeing trends across clients. As a client experiences challenges, the marketing strategy and goals can change dramatically. It is essential to act quickly and decisively. – Pat McKenna, DMi Partners
3. To Ensure Authentic Generational Brand Transformations
Revolutionary ideas are born from studying a brand’s evolution. That’s where strategy and authenticity intersect. Understanding how a brand evolved will carry the next generational transformation forward in a genuine way that both customers and employees will embrace. Authenticity inspires belief, and that is crucial for any brand in any industry. – Stephen Rosa, (add)ventures
4. To Position The ‘Business Of The Future’ Via Past Success
Understanding who clients are and honoring the legacy of their business helps clients (and employees) not only feel like they are a part of the success and future of the business, but also see future changes through that positive lens. The success of the past can be used to position the “business of the future”—for example, through messaging such as, “Drawing on our history of innovation in the Y industry, X company announces new products and services.” – Megan Devine, cat[&]
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5. To Confirm Clients’ Objectives Align With Their Values
Businesses evolve, but their core values should endure. By understanding a client’s journey, agencies can quickly determine any misalignment or inconsistencies with their stated objectives, future aspirations and actual trajectory. This helps ensure authenticity and resonance in a dynamic market landscape. – Louise Mezzina, Mojo Group
6. To Help Clients Embrace Change And Fortify Partnerships
When you apply cognitive empathy to understand how your clients have evolved, you discover not only what your clients think, but also how they feel. As a result, the strategies you develop are much more compelling. You can do more than just meet clients’ business needs. You can help them feel confident about change and build a more enduring partnership. – Howard Breindel, DeSantis Breindel
7. To Avoid Repeating Past Mistakes
To state the obvious, understanding a client’s evolution ensures past mistakes aren’t repeated. Those could be internal to the client or due to previous agency failures, but deep knowledge of that landscape builds a solid foundation for mutual trust, forward thinking and strategic growth. It’s also important that the historical context bridges both qualitative and quantitative perspectives. – Seth Hargrave, Media Two
8. To Anticipate Outcomes And Adapt Accordingly
It’s critical for agencies to understand how their clients evolved and became who they are today because it allows them to develop more successful marketing strategies. Understanding how and why companies have pivoted over the years helps the agency to anticipate outcomes and adapt accordingly. – Marilyn Cowley, PREM – PR & Social
9. To Align Strategies With Clients’ Changing Needs
Understanding how clients have evolved allows agencies to align strategies with clients’ changing needs and objectives, fostering stronger, more trusting relationships. Agencies can then anticipate market trends, customize offerings and ensure that communication strategies are effectively targeted. Grasping a client’s evolution enables an agency to act as a strategic partner, committed to mutual growth in a constantly changing market. – PJ Haarsma, Redbear Films
10. To Develop An Authentic Narrative With Unique Angles
It’s part of the story! You can only develop an authentic narrative if you know the origin story. How a brand or client has evolved over the years gives you crucial details about their values, their relevance and learnings they’ve come across on their journey. All of this not only informs you on their current state of mind, but can also provide unique angles for your narrative. – Nhu Khue Ngo, OSK New York Inc.
11. To Understand How A Client Might Change In The Future
The evolution of a client not only explains why a client is where they are today, it also provides pointers on how that client might change in the future. If you don’t know the client’s story, you’ve got no context for today’s activities and are simply guessing about the future. That’s not going to help you generate results today, nor can you advise the client on their journey into the future. – Mike Maynard, Napier Partnership Limited
12. To Learn How Clients Are Addressing New Challenges
No one can rest on their laurels. The marketing communications landscape is always changing, and your clients must adapt. If you are not aware of how they are addressing new challenges, how can you drive marketing success? Don’t get left behind. – Christine Barney, rbb Communications
13. To Know What’s Inspiring A Brand To Drive Into The Future
This is the perfect reflection of, “What got you here won’t get you there.” What drove a brand to begin in the first place is not what drove it to evolve into what it is today—nor what drives it toward what it wants to become. Values, client bases and future outlooks change—and agencies must be willing to look under the hood and understand what is inspiring the brand to drive into the future. – Bernard May, National Positions
14. To Learn What Has (And Hasn’t) Worked For Clients
Every brand is very different, and something that works for one may not work for another. If you pinpoint a client’s best demographic to target for a return on investment, build on that and strategize around speaking to that demographic in innovative ways, it will only help elevate your efforts, but it takes time and effort to truly understand each of your clients and their wins. – Jessica Kopach, The JKO Agency, LLC.
15. To Understand The ‘Why’ Behind What Clients Are Doing
Most companies and their agency partners focus on what the products are, how they work and how they measure performance, which evokes rational responses from the rest of us. But the “why” gets at the emotional aspect—“I developed this game to entertain my daughter who has cancer”—and this is much more powerful. – Tim Johnson, UPRAISE Marketing + Public Relations, Inc.