An agency owner recently asked me, “How much client education should we do?”
His new salesperson was wasting time explaining the benefits of marketing automation to clients who weren’t already convinced.
How much client education?
You need to do as much client education as is necessary. Remember, most of your clients don’t buy digital marketing services every day. This is something they do a few times a year… or maybe every few years.
It’s about empathy. But be efficient in your empathy.
Too many agencies do client education “one-on-one”—directly with each client or sales prospect. That has a place for unique situations, but not for your most-asked questions.
Shortcut: Use a “one-to-many” strategy
Do your core client education on a “one-to-many” basis. Explain your most common answers in:
- a blog post,
- an eBook,
- a video,
- a monthly webinar,
- a FAQs page
- an auto-responder email series, or
- another mass format.
When people keep asking you the same question, it’s a sign that you need to create a client education piece on that topic. It’s a core tenet of content marketing—your answers to FAQs become some of your best “evergreen” content.
That’s what this post is—people often ask me about doing client education at their agency, and now I have an article I can link them to. To get meta, this post is a client education article about client education. 🙂
To be clear, “one-to-many” doesn’t mean you should switch from listening to talking. Keep listening, but be strategic about how you answer.
Shift weak leads to your marketing automation system for client education
Don’t waste sales time on prospects who don’t see the need for your agency’s services. It’s not your job—or your salesperson’s job—to convince them they need help.
But do get those not-yet-qualified leads into your marketing automation system. Lead nurturing lets you stay connected with weak prospects, without requiring expensive one-on-one sales time yet.
Remember, focus on “one-to-many” client education until people are ready!
Question: What’s the next thing you’ll add to your “one-to-many” client education lineup?
