The paradigm of each client-agency relationship can vary greatly. Certain elements, however, are necessary to help both sides of the partnership communicate and collaborate effectively and efficiently.
Typically, necessary elements include:
- Transparency
- Relationship-building
- Streamlined approval process
- Reacting effectively to media opportunities
- Collaborative communication
In the time before tools like GAIN, a client-agency relationship that met the five elements above would demand a lot of effort. Both sides would notoriously waste hours sifting through email chains, digital documents, and organizing calls or meetings to maintain a level of transparency that would lead to quality campaign results.
These processes waste a ton of time and energy in order to fulfill even the simplest tasks. Thankfully, GAIN is revolutionizing how agencies and their clients work together, helping both sides complete the day-to-day and long-term projects with much more efficiency.
So just how exactly does GAIN optimize the client-agency workflow? Here are just a few of the ways.
#1 Streamlining The Content Approval Process
One of the largest areas of discussion in the client-agency relationship revolves around getting content approved. Before GAIN, these discussions would unfurl in email chains with attachments to projects galore. Additionally, these emails commonly included CC’ing everyone related to the project to keep everyone updated on the status.
For example, if your agency needed approval on ad copy, you’d probably first send it to the client’s in-house copy editor for approval. Your emails might also CC any other heads of departments who will ultimately need to approve the content and the schedule. Then the messy email chains would begin as each head of a department began weighing in and the edits are emailed back and forth until finalized. While offering transparency through email is great, it can be very distracting for many team members who are no longer involved in a particular stage of the project.
The inefficiencies caused by email communication tend to outweigh the benefits of the transparency that it offers. Luckily, GAIN provides a better solution for content approvals. GAIN works like your very own content manager, notifying the right people at the right time, gathering feedback from clients and stakeholders, and moving the process along for you until everything is approved.
#2 Archiving All Feedback, Edits & Approvals
All actions, such as client requests for content revisions or approvals of content, are archived in GAIN for any of your team members to review. Thus, the right team members can check the status of a project whenever they need to without being notified through email or bugging others to collect all of the feedback.
GAIN permanently records all changes made to every piece of content, reducing the many distractions caused by receiving emails about phases that don’t directly concern a certain person or colleague. Additionally, team members can add their input directly on each post when it’s their turn, removing all confusion about whose feedback is needed and at what time.
This also applies to the client-agency workflow. With massive chain emails no longer necessary, the workflow between internal teams and the external clients or approvers is also significantly streamlined. This allows agencies to communicate with their clients via email only when it’s vital, and spend more time concentrating on other aspects of their campaigns, such as audience engagement and analysis. It also opens the doors for clients to become more involved in other areas of a campaign, such as brainstorming, rather than simply acting as final approvers.
#3 Visually Pleasing Editorial Content Calendars
For complete transparency, GAIN offers clients access to their editorial calendars and lists all of the content that has been approved, scheduled, published, or is in the revision process for the coming days, weeks, or months.
GAIN’s easy-to-use, drag-and-drop editorial content calendar also helps agencies and their clients eliminate the chances for human error in their published content. Only collaborators with the appropriate access can work on a specific channel, add posts, or change post dates to ensure the best possible messaging is achieved.
#4 Everyone Can View Pixel-Perfect Post Previews
Before GAIN, agencies typically requested content approvals from their clients in Excel or Word docs without the ability to preview the actual layout of the published post as it would appear on each social network. This process tended to result in requiring additional approval after publishing to ensure the client was happy with the final look of the post.
GAIN offers pixel-perfect previews that show both content creators and clients exactly how posts will look when published — on desktop, mobile, and as a right column ad in case the post will be promoted. This is extremely helpful as it cancels an extra phase of communication between the agency and the client to review the final result. The ability to preview posts also greatly eliminates the possibility of human mistakes.
GAIN Improves the Client-Agency Relationship
The client-agency relationship is said to be one of the most complex in the business environment, requiring a substantial level of collaboration to be effective. In the end, not all content collaboration platforms bring equal benefits, but we’re on a mission to improve the client-agency relationship and offer teams better transparency, communication, and collaboration on both sides.
In the future, we’re certain to see clients become more involved in their campaigns thanks to technologies like GAIN that help automate the marketing workflow. If you’re ready to get started, request a free demo of GAIN or start a free trial!
