😕 The Inevitability of Disappointingly Vague Feedback
Imagine you’re part of a B2B marketing agency (if you’re reading this then you probably are, so it wouldn’t be that hard for you to imagine it really… not that we’re assuming your profession or anything, it’s just, well, this is a rather niche, specific website…) and you’ve just created a really bloody great video edit for one of your clients’ ad campaigns. You’re so proud of it, in fact, that you show it to your boss, and even they’re like, ‘you’ve smashed this one, mate’.
So, with all your pumped-up adrenaline, you open up your emails, attach it and send it over to them. The minute you hit that ‘send’ button, however, you enter a sort of professional purgatory, and that confidence surging through your body? It’s now transformed itself into heavily breathing anxiety, swirling around your chest, dreading the response.
When they do reply finally at the end of the day (it’s always at the end of the day), they weren’t quite as positive as you were hoping. They’re perfectly nice about it, but there are a few things they want you to change. This is fine, it’s disappointing for sure, but it’s expected nonetheless; the client’s needs must always take priority.
There’s just one problem though: their critiques are a little vague. ‘This part just doesn’t feel right’, they say. ‘I feel like this section needs more umph. The brand needs to be a bit more front and centre.’
Instinctually, you roll your eyes and say to yourself, ‘The fuck does that even mean?’
But this reaction, natural as it may be, is actually quite a toxic and unhelpful one.
🤔 The DBA’s ‘What Clients Think’ Report
If you’re in the B2B marketing world, you probably read that scenario and thought to yourself ‘yup, been there’.
The Design Business Association (DBA) recently published its ninth annual ‘What Clients Think’ report. Based on 650 interviews, here are some of the highlights of what clients think and want from their marketers:
- 63% of clients would rather be presented with 1 creative route option than 3
- 75% of clients admit to finding design effectiveness difficult to quantify
- 61% of clients think their agency could understand more about their business
- Only 12% of clients described their creative agency as the ‘best’ partner/supplier they work with
To be honest, when The Drum wrote about these in their article, they said they were surprising figures, but… I don’t know if that’s the right adjective. Your clients have hired you for a very specific reason: the services that you are fluent and proficient in. Is it really that much of a surprise to learn that your client might not know how to explain or quantify what’s wrong with your work?
🤯 Be Grateful for the Opportunity!
Your clients don’t know everything (and sometimes they don’t know anything) about what they’ve hired you for, otherwise they wouldn’t have hired you in the first place, and they would have done it all themselves.
Rupert Rixon of Perspective Pictures summed this up really well in a LinkedIn post he made, take a look:
Sam Hollis is a Writer for Fame, SaaS Marketer, as well as his own fictional short stories. He lives and works in Birmingham with his three cats and his dog (way too many pets, if you ask us)