Managing Client Expectation in Search

100% guaranteed results! Sound familiar? That’s because if you put “seo” into Google, you will see a multitude of companies guaranteeing results!

What is the problem with this? Simply put, this does not manage client expectation, how can it? If I went to Google and found a company that guaranteed me results within 4 weeks, I would expect success too? But there are a few crucial points to consider…

Do these companies take into consideration what constitutes a successful campaign to each individual company? It does not appear so. It is so important that when any agency starts work on a client in any capacity, they map out a clear direction of where they expect to be in the short, medium and long term.

Resource

“If we spend more, will our results improve further?” I hear this a lot. The answer is yes, the more resource you spend on a client the more you can expect, there is no doubt that there tends to be a natural correlation with an increase in traffic supported by an increase in leads/sales/downloads. However the reality is that SEO & PPC are very different animals. SEO takes time; you may put money in today and not see the benefits for 3-6 months. Whereas PPC can be instantaneous, results can be achieved overnight.

Case Study

A good example of this is a client we won 6 months ago. Cut a long story short, their existing Search Agency (no names) had got complacent and had not done anything on the account for at least 3 months. When we were handed the account, all their organic rankings were heading in the wrong direction. As you can imagine this was a major problem and not the best way to start on a new client, but the reality is that we had done nothing to the account as we had only just started.

This is quite a predicament for us as an Agency to be in because they have appointed a new Search Agency and they expect results to improve, not to deteriorate. I spoke to the MD and Sales Director on a number of occasions, and whist being very careful not to criticise their former agency (it’s the easy way out), all I asked is that they give us 3 months to show our worth and 6 months to get some tangible results. Luckily in our first Setup meeting I explained that we expect to show progress on any new account after 3 months. Thankfully I am glad to say that their 2 core keyword targets are now up to position 2 & 3 in Google, the highest they have ever been and there is more to come.

Summary

From my past experience I believe that being honest with a client and managing their expectations from the outset will produce a long lasting trusted relationship. I believe this is the core reason behind the success of 4Ps Marketing and we are lucky enough to have great bonds with the vast majority our clients.

Chris was asked to write a Guest post for Social Collective. Original article can be found here:
http://www.social-collective.com/2010/07/12/guest-post-managing-client-expectation-in-search/

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