Client Postcard
I inserted a photo of the Postcard I designed for my client as part of this week’s assignment. Additionally, I have added a link to the PDF which has interactive links to each of his profiles!
Client Meeting and Feedback
I had an opportunity to meet with my client in person this week and present my final client project. We spent an extensive amount of time reviewing the suggestions moving forward.
Overall, I feel very pleased with the results of my meeting with the client. I feel this was one of the very few times this semester he was able to see the “bigger picture” of the strategy I laid out for him.
He had many questions regarding the suggested mock-up campaign. This gave us an opportunity to discuss how to fine-tune his advertising to get his message in front of those who will be receptive to it. He had expressed to me that he had previously run an ad campaign on Facebook but with no specific parameters and did not get the results he was looking for.
I showed him how I came up with the parameters based on his current analytics. I further explained how the marketing could be bullseye focused by refining it further based on the content strategy and by including and excluding activities and other criteria. I could tell it all really clicked for him.
I emphasized to him the importance of continuing to grow his organic reach and explained how it was better to develop a loyal following rather than just having friends and family like your page since the algorithms will consider how many people actually engage in your content. I gave him examples of how one person who regularly likes and engages with his content is a greater asset than having a few random people like his page.
We discussed the whole “mindset” of taking things one step at a time. I emphasized that he has the opportunity to become well known for his music and develop a tribe of loyal fans who will allow him to continue to develop his talents if he follows the strategies I have laid out for him.
This discussion progressed into the importance of SEO, keywords and hashtags. I presented him with the following scenario for an opportunity to gain more exposure.
If my client knows there is a music festival coming to town sponsored by a local radio station, he could implement the following strategy. I suggested he take a hit song from one of the featured artists and record a 30-second cover. When he posts the video to his social media accounts, he should then use the artist, the name of the festival as well as the radio station in either tags or hashtags. This would allow anyone searching for that same criteria to discover his content.
We discussed how I felt he should consider developing a “stage name” that is more easily recognizable, and he took it under advisement.
The final element we discussed was how I felt a blog could benefit him. I showed him my blog and explained how he could use it as a way for his fans to get to know him better, and therefore, create a tribe who know and love him as a person.
We discussed how links to the blog could be posted to LinkedIn and other sites like Twitter as content. He seemed to be very interested in the idea of pursuing this.
I felt after my presentation and answering all of his questions, he had a significantly better understanding and mindset than when we first began the project.
What I learned from the Client
I discovered that just because I understood the relevance of my strategy, I didn’t always do a good job at explaining the reasons why in a way that my client understood.
I feel this was because I was learning and didn’t always get the overall big picture yet myself. I also believe that working with a family member was a disadvantage because there were times when we both did not have the same patience and decorum than if working with a stranger.
Moving forward, I feel it is important to designate at the beginning what responsibilities each party will undertake as well as an overall understanding of the tasks that will be completed. This contract will be good for any client, but especially with a family member.
One thing I wish is that I would have achieved is the opportunity to implement my strategy sooner. We saw some great results in the short time it was in place. I would have liked to have had time to refine this content and show some real change to the client.
Since my client was difficult to work with and did not always allow me the lead way to make the changes desired, I learned to be diligent.
This was a good lesson for the future, when working with a client who is resistant to change. It taught me a valuable lesson in persistence. I also learned the importance of examining the issues from a different perspective and learning how to present them in a way that helps the client understand my tactics.
Some of the best accomplishments in both mine and the client’s opinion were the changes to the universal appearance on all networks.
My client especially loved the background image and tagline I created for him. He spoke of having this printed on business cards.
Another area I feel proud of is my content strategy. I believe posting content on the specific days with the targeted content would greatly increase my client’s brand awareness as well as engagement.
There were many positives about working with someone who had lots of areas for improvement as it gave me more opportunity to “build” his content, image, etc. almost from scratch.
I do feel that working with an established client would have made my workload much lighter, however, I may have not had the opportunity to create as much as I did.
Other than the few setbacks listed above, I feel that it was a successful start for my client and a great learning experience for me.