The birthday cake
From time to time, a colleague comes to me with this question: "Hey Manning, our client is concerned because our digital piece didn't perform well. Can you help us figure out why?"
The reason is often that we did exactly what the client asked us to do — but without acting as digital consultants.
Often it's because we didn't think enough about how users look for and consume content.
Or we prioritized visual excitement over accessibility.
Or we focused more on a successful client review than on driving maximum engagement for them.
Or we didn't talk to our client about what makes a digital piece successful. We're the experts! It's our job to guide them.
Which leads me to the birthday cake.
A few real-life scenarios:
"The client wants us to include ten charts in this email."
"The client wants us to include all 200 words from their TV spot in this banner ad."
"The client wants us to design desktop first."
"The client wants the website to use their brand colors for the CTAs; they're fine with it not being ADA compliant."
"The client wants the IVA to have all the content from the website."
I'm sure you've heard plenty of things like this in your career. Let's take a look at a hypothetical situation.
A guy walks into a bakery
The customer says, "I'd like to buy a cake for my daughter's birthday party. Chocolate. Pink frosting. And her favorite foods are chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese, so the cake should have those in/on it."
As the owner of the bakery, what are our options?
The customer is always right
One option is to make the cake as the customer requested it, even though it sounds gross. We get the customer's business, and they walk out with what they wanted.
What is the customer's desired result? Happy party guests, certainly. Do we care that the customer's daughter and her friends are unlikely to enjoy the cake? Is that the customer's fault, or ours?
When the customer doesn't get their desired result, will they think it's their fault? Or ours?
Is it ethical for us to take the customer's business and give them something that we know is unlikely to give them the result they want? Even if it's exactly what they asked for?
Would this cake be a good representation of the work we do? Would we be proud of it? Would we want other potential customers — and our competitors — to see it? Do we care that these other people may think we're not good at making cakes?
We are the cake experts
Our other option is to attempt to guide the customer toward buying something that will get them the result they want.
The customer is here because we are the cake experts. They want a successful result; that's the reason they brought their business to us.
We know from our experience in making thousands of cakes that what the customer is asking for isn't likely to get the result that they want.
We can offer plenty of alternatives that will produce the customer's desired result. We're focused on their success. This is our responsibility.
We understand why the customer requested what they did. They're not aware of all the pitfalls that come with what they're asking for — we are. It's our responsibility to guide them toward making a better choice. They're counting on us to be the experts.
How does this relate to our work?
Hopefully the rest of this is pretty obvious! :)
Frequently, our clients ask us for things that we know are not best practice, and are not likely to produce their desired result.
Sometimes we try to guide our clients toward a better choice. Sometimes we don't. Sometimes we just don't think they'll listen.
Too often, we have a client who is delighted in the creative review but then unhappy once the piece is out in the world. They measure the success of everything we do. We're evaluated based on that. Our success depends on their success.
As digital agency professionals, we must subscribe to good digital philosophies, and we must be equipped and eager to support those philosophies. Our clients count on us for this.
What's the most important trait a digital agency professional can have?
Empathy.
Empathy for users. Focusing on how users engage with content — what they look for, and how they consume it.
Empathy for our clients — understanding their goals and focusing on what will get them there.
This is the starting place for making our work successful.
– Manning
Questions/comments? Feel free to contact me at manning@manningkrull.com. I update these articles pretty frequently — best practices evolve over time as the world of digital quickly changes, and I always welcome insights from others.