Back To Blog
For all the talk of innovation in the industry, digital marketing can end up a bit cookie-cutter. Ask any seasoned digital marketer and they’ll corroborate that sometimes – be it bandwidth limits, risk aversion, working in a culture of fear – clients can all end up with the same broad strategy and the same tactical mix. Paid search, remarketing and display on GDN; same on Facebook Ads. Job done.
Now there’s plenty of room for nuance within that structure, so I’m not decrying it entirely. What I am saying is that it’s a shame. As digital marketing evolves and fractures – as an ecosystem, and even within those tried-and-tested platforms – the need to diversify the mix is ever greater. It will mitigate risk, tap into new opportunities for clients and keep your team inspired and innovative.
Make Space for Discovery
I’ve worked with a few digital marketing teams and one of the key things that separated a high-performing team from a middling team, was whether they were given the breathing room for discovery and invention. Staying on top of platform developments, staying on top of the emergence of new platforms, and then trying to think of creative ways to leverage opportunities to achieve client goals. It all takes time. The difficulty, inevitably, is where does your team track that time? Against a client? The thinking is rarely that linear, inspiration can take you all over the place and the cross-pollination of ideas means charging one client for an idea that might benefit your whole book seems unfair. The reality is that it’s the agency that benefits, so give your team that time – even if that means sourcing digital marketing insights tools to find it. Call it an investment.
Establish Your Intentions and Build Trust
The ultimate gatekeeper for new campaigns getting launched is the client. There have been a great many times, in my experience, where opportunities for expansion are just mothballed because an account manager doesn’t fancy the battle with a client to sell in new ideas. And I get it. If you’re working in a risk averse environment, new ideas will always fall down to “can you guarantee I’ll get a return.” I advocate transparency. Tell clients that you want to get them to a place where they trust you implicitly enough to just go ahead and try new things. That ongoing you will keep presenting new ideas and opportunities. And set about building trust. By that I don’t mean, guarantee results. I mean be honest about the opportunity, fail fast, and be honest about the results.
Incentivise Innovation
There’s nothing like a bit of friendly competition. In my last agency role I used to challenge my team to be the first to introduce a new product type into the market across the agency. Obviously there won’t always be an obvious alignment between a client’s target demographic/strategy and the opportunity offered by new products, but if anything it got the team thinking more creatively about how to leverage platforms and not fall back on the same tired tactics.
Don’t Be Scared
There’s a theme that runs through each of the previous points: you need to be brave. Have faith that time for innovation is time well spent; that honesty and transparency will deepen your relationships even in the absence of successful experiments; that breaking out of the standard platforms will push you, your team, and your clients to greater heights.