Be an Educator to Add Value

By David Gould, President

We in the marketing agency world are always looking for ways to add value for clients. But adding value is not always just about the marketing campaign. No doubt clients expect that we, as their marketing agency, will deliver value via a well optimized and executed campaign, but it’s too easy to get myopically focused on only the campaign when looking to add value. There are plenty of opportunities to add value in other ways as well. One of the simplest is to be an educator.

I am reminded of a day, many, many moons ago, when I sold pharmaceuticals. The target audience was doctors. Much like our industry the medical/pharmaceutical industry is one that changes constantly … new drugs, new treatment regimens, new medical studies on treat regimens, etc … With doctors being pinched to see more patients in fewer hours, they struggle to keep up on latest and greatest. Time and again, I heard from doctors that their best pharmaceutical reps were the ones that helped educate them. The reps that presented and summarized pertinent studies about real things that impact the doctor’s practice were appreciated. The ones who simply dropped off samples, brought lunch and jammed a narrow minded article about the reps specific drug in the doctor’s face were useless.

So how does this translate to search marketing? We’re in an industry that is hyper-dynamic. Clients are just as busy as we are and no doubt struggle to keep up with the latest “stuff”. We have the opportunity to be a valuable source of information. Are you funneling pertinent articles to your client? Do you scan the news periodically for articles about your client’s business and industry and pass those articles along? … and it doesn’t necessarily have to be about your specific expertise (in Resolution Media’s case, Search). No doubt it’s a fine line between flooding the client’s inbox and being a useful source of information, but that balance can be achieved. There’s no lack of pertinent content out there and depending on how you use it, it can valuable tool to add value and help you build a deeper relationship with your client.

Are you an educator or are you just “dropping off samples”?