Can High-Quality Even Be A Differentiator in Pakistan?

RANT ALERT!

Beware of the warning as you are about to be regaled with my tale of woe - ONE of my tale of woe - to be precise. As I touched upon in my previous article, Maliha and I were coming off international jobs, high on our past performance, confident of our success - but boy were we in for a shock.

Most of the Pakistani leads we generated thought we were too expensive and quoted an XYZ agency as doing the same tasks and more for one-fourth of the price. When we talked about quality and long-term metrics, we were met with a blank stare. What was worse was that ex-pat Pakistanis also turned towards Pakistan, looking for a low-cost option. We have had leads that wanted a full-blown customized WordPress website for $200 to social media retainers for as low as $150 per month.

The main issue, I think lies with the fact that most business owners are unaware of what KPIs to look out for to assess the success or failure of their digital marketing investment. The timeframe that they expect is also not aligned with sustainable white-hat strategies. Companies promising x thousand followers per month to x thousand visitors to your website per month are most definitely not using above-the-board strategies and can get your account shadow-banned or suspended and your website severely penalized by Google.

Speaking of unrealistic KPIs, we let go of a North America based Pakistani client, early on in our business, who insisted on x amount of BOFU (Bottom of the Funnel) leads in 3 months for a B2B SaaS model for a highly competitive industry within North America, with no ad spend and only organic traction. We realized early on that we would be unable to hit their targets and will only be setting ourselves up for failure, hence we refused to sign up for something that could end up destroying our confidence, pride in our work, and eventually market credibility. Yes, organic growth is possible, but not in three months especially in a competitive industry in North America. A year and upward is required to craft, execute and see the results of an organic growth strategy.

After several proposals, negotiations, actual projects, and their aftermath, here is the strategy we have devised. Schedule a free half-hour consultation with every lead, do some prelim research, try to understand their business model, goals, and marketing objectives and promise to follow up with a proposal. Do a quick brand audit using various tools and create a comprehensive proposal based on our recommendations for that particular business along with the pricing. If they agree to all, then move to stage 2, if they decide right off the bat that they just want to skip right to conversions without the initial steps (if any), run in the opposite direction. Does this take too much time - yes - but believe me it's worth the effort. Do we miss out on revenue - sure - but we are not here to make money only, we are in it for the long haul - we want to be known as the disruptors, who came in with their specialized skillset - more like ninjas really - and helped businesses tell their story in their own unique way.

So to conclude, can we get away with being a high-quality differentiator? The answer to that is only 20% of the time only. The rest of the time, we are told that we really liked your proposal but XYZ had a more best-fit budget. To this I say, mental health before anything else, the sense of accomplishment and joy of a job well done over a short-term gain that leaves both us and the customer dissatisfied.

Onward and upward - I say!

Image credits: https://www.brandiprojects.com.au/your-quote-is-high-can-you-do-it-cheaper/