I’m really good at keeping clients around for awhile. While I’ve watched other social media professionals burn through clients every year, I’m able to retain my clients for years.
Do I have some great secret to how I retain my clients? Not really. Most of it is just following through on what I say I am going to do. But there are a few points here and there that can make a client devoted to keeping you on the payroll. Let’s talk about a few of those.
Make your client’s life easier
When I’m online doing research for my clients, other items of note pop up. Do they always necessarily affect social media? No. But they affect my client is someway. Instead of acting like I’m in a silo, I send that information onto my client.
I also constantly comb my client’s website. I make sure my client’s social media works with their website instead of on its own. And because of this, I catch a lot of things, such as typos or old information. It’s not something that’s technically on my plate to catch all of this. But still, I send this corrections onto my client.
What does all of this have in common? I make my client’s life easier. And it’s mostly on items that I don’t have to go out of my way to do. So why wouldn’t I do it? And this willingness to help is one of the reasons why I retain my clients. A client contact remembers the people who make their life easier and will fight to keep them on the payroll. And in my case, it takes very little effort to be remembered.
Teach your clients
Unlike the previous section, this takes effort. When it comes to what I do on social media, there’s a learning curve for a number of my clients. I do my best to teach them bits and pieces as we go along. The clients who don’t pay attention to those bits and pieces are the ones I don’t retain. The ones who ask questions and engage with the information I share are the ones who stay around for years.
Why is that?
It’s simple. If you don’t arm your clients with why what you do is important, then you are asking to only be with them for a short time. This understanding helps them advocate you when budget time comes along.
It also allows you to do more complicated content, because they understand they whys behind everything and you don’t have to waste time teaching them about it all over and over again. So once again, you make your client contact look good.
A client who is armed with solid information who also looks good is super easy to retain. They know if you go away that some things could slip out of their reach simply because they don’t have the time to do it all. So they will do whatever it takes to fight for you.
Stay on top of news and trends
I remember when a client contact was in the middle of telling her boss that I was a social media news junkie. At that moment, I happened to also send an email to my contact as well as her boss. It included an article announcing a new tool, as well as an idea for how my client could easily use that tool to forward their business objectives. My client contact said that there had never been a better timed email.
Staying on top of news and trends will constantly keep you one step ahead of your client, which is important. If they’re constantly bringing the news and trends to you, then they will eventually wonder what your role truly is.
If you can bring these news and trends to them with a spin that accomplishes business goals, you then become invaluable. Anybody can simply stay on top of that information. Only the best realize that just reproducing a trend will put them a crowd, but adding a spin will elevate their client above that crowd. And that kind of person is the kind that a client contact will fight to retain.
Listen to your clients
Your client contact is most likely being leaned on by their superiors to make magic happen. This is particularly true when it comes to nonprofits where every dollar is being stretched. So they are probably also hearing lots of supposed priorities that don’t necessarily align with the social media strategy.
You have two choices when they bring you these “priorities” from their boss: You can dismiss them outright and point to the strategy as to why it won’t happen. Or you can figure out a way to work with it that will keep everyone happy. Guess which one is more likely to retain your position.
Look, I don’t like going off strategy either. But sometimes it’s necessary to keep stakeholders and others happy. If you are creative enough, you can figure it out so that it won’t tank your other posts. And if it’s just not possible, showing that you did try to work with it and the reasons why it became problematic can go a long way towards keeping your relationship with the organization strong.
In the end, there is no perfect formula to getting your client to retain you. But if you are consistently listening to them and trying to work with them, there is a good chance they will keep you.
What have you done to get your clients to retain you?