Are agencies selling the drill or the painting?

A big part of the Agency Account Manager's job is to have a conversation with the client at the beginning of a project to establish metrics of success.

This isn't necessarily about predicting project results in advance, it's about agreeing how you'll assess what's been achieved by the end of the project.

Some agencies are comfortable predicting outcomes in advance so it's not impossible but depends largely on the type of project, agency discipline and data availability.

For example some performance marketing agencies are comfortable committing to reaching certain sales goals once they've carried out a full analysis of the client's current website performance e.g. web traffic/conversion rates etc.

Why agree metrics of success?

For the agency

Agencies want to determine project success metrics because achieving an outcome for their client leads to impactful case studies and client testimonials. It also drives repeat purchase which leads to greater account retention and growth.

Successful outcomes for clients also increase the likelihood of getting referrals which leads to higher client lifetime value. It also impacts the agency's ability to firm up the forecast which helps to make investing/hiring decisions easier.

And overall it's a more profitable way to grow the agency's business.

For the client

Clients buy outcomes not inputs. They'll rarely want to part with any money if it won't bring about some kind of result that impacts their business on some level.

As well as the business outcome, on a personal level achieving successful project outcomes helps the client tell a success story to their senior management.

This can also help them reach their own performance goals and KPIs which might lead to an elevated role/position in their company (or help them explain what they've achieved at an interview for their next job :-).

For the account manager

Account managers who discuss metrics of success elevate themselves from 'order taker' to 'adviser' in the eyes of the client.

Incorporating "let's discuss and agree how we are going to measure the success of this project" is a solid way to demonstrate your commercial context.

Turning this into a 'future-scenario' question takes it to the next level e.g. "it's going to be my job at the end of this project to ask you how you think we did. For you to tell me this has been a huge success, has impacted the business and you're really pleased with the results, what needs to have happened?".

This allows the client to paint a picture of how they see a successful outcome. How clients answer this question is often very telling e.g. they'll show where they place your value.

Talking about outcomes and ways to evaluate project success also leads to a richer discussion with the client and often uncovers the real business problem the client is experiencing.

For example one of my account managers on my Account Accelerator programme was called by her client who said he wanted customer testimonial videos.

He had come 'self-diagnosed' i.e. he had determined that visitors to his website weren't buying because he didn't have customer testimonial videos on the front page.

The account manager could have said 'yes, we can do that for you, here are some examples of what we can do and how quickly we can do it'.

But she didn't.

She asked very good questions about what outcome the client was looking to achieve with these testimonial videos. She determined that the client's sales had dipped for the second quarter and he was under pressure from his boss to fix the problem.

She first offered to run analytics on his website and discovered that his traffic was high to one of his pages and was dropping off at a certain point. It had nothing to do with adding videos. So the account manager discussed site navigation solutions.

So this brief changed as a result of the account manager opening up a discussion about project metrics of success and outcomes the client wanted to achieve.

How do you determine metrics of success?

I like the acronym BAT (Behavioural, Attitudinal and Transactional) as a way to remember the types of success metrics that can be measured. Here are a few examples:

Behavioural: Enquiries, repeat purchase, purchase frequency, click through rate, registrations, site visitors, search volume etc

Attitudinal: Brand awareness/preference, brand understanding, purchase intent etc

Transactional: Cost per lead, number of new customers, sales, volume growth, cost per sale, market share, stock price etc.

BAT also reminds me of the cricket idiom 'straight off the bat' which is also a nice way to remember that you want to agree the metrics of success 'straight away' at the beginning.

Another way to determine the metrics of success is by following the Corporate Visions Pte Ltd "Triple Metric" explained by the brilliant Tim Riesterer on the Creative Agency Account Manager podcast.

What are the project metrics of success? How will those results 'ladder up' to the anticipated department results? How will the department results impact the company results?

An example of the 'triple metric'

As you can see in the image above there's a specific example of an agency who works with Universities. Their project was a "countdown to campus" event they were running for the Admissions Department of the University.

The agency and client can agree the measure of success:

Project level: Attendance rate, post-event survey responses, CTR & social media group engagement

Admissions dept level: Early enrolment deposits, enquiries & follow-ups, yield rate, cost per enrolment, NPS

University level: Enrolment growth, press coverage, revenue from new enrolments, diversity metrics

This is an excellent model to follow when thinking about your own client projects.

The future of agency value

With Generative AI making 'process' quicker. Agency account managers need to focus conversations on project outcomes and value.

Harvard Business School's marketing professor Theodore Levitt said "People don't want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!".

You can also think further about the impact of the "hole in the wall" to the customer i.e. they can finally hang their beautiful painting and sit on their sofa and enjoy it (and all their friends will comment on it admiringly which increases their social status).

This is another useful way of thinking about how to change the focus of your client conversations which is to ask yourself 'am I talking about the drill, the hole in the wall or the painting?' - because ultimate clients want the painting:

Drill: Inputs/services e.g. timelines, paid search, paid social, SEO services

Hole: Outcomes e.g. click throughs, conversions

Painting: Impact e.g. market share, reputation/promotion

How do you establish metrics of success at the beginning of your projects?

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