You need to know more than your clients but, otherwise, the bar is quite low. It's more a question of how good a salesman you are and how comfortable you are with making promises it's unlikely you can live up to?
Judging by the number of digital agencies around and what little they actually do, I'd say it must be quite profitable?
If you think I'm just being cynical, I can assure you I am absolutely not.
I must admit I find it slightly offensive when I read something like this....but on the flip side I do kind of understand where you are coming from.
I have been in digital marketing for 10 years, now running a small agency.
Whenever I speak to a new client who is looking at digital marketing....without exception, I always look to gain 2 things from them;
What is your budget
What levels of sales do you need to generate for that budget.
I kid you not, I have seen examples were a client is looking to sell static homes worth £150k - £200k and came with a budget of £25 per month. From an agency perspective, you would be amazed at how quickly a potential client switches off when you give them the harsh reality of budgets and likely conversion rates. This leads to one of two things happening;
1. They get their head around the reality, and talk to us about cost per conversion, and what might be achievable, and how we can work long term to drive an improved conversion rate.
2. They move on to another agency until they find one willing to take their money, and tell them what they want to hear.
From my perspective; I don't like stress, I dont like unhappy customers phoning, and I dont like working to unrealistic targets with unrealistic budgets. I do believe that every single customer we do work for, understands what we are doing for them, understands the targets we are working to, and is kept informed if and when those targets are not being met. We wouldn't work with a client if we didn't think we could help them. If a campaign isnt workable, there is zero point in running it and investing time to build an unhappy customer.
I hear the horror stories, and I often see the end result when a client approaches us after being with a rogue agency. This should be a regulated sector to some extent, which would probably mean inflated costs, but may also stop some business owners wasting money on campaigns which are never gong to work.
