How Our Client Onboarding Process Works
Hi everyone, welcome to
the Ad Hacks podcast.
I'm your host Rod Bland, and
in this podcast, I talk about
how to get better results from
your Instagram and Facebook
marketing and the many lessons
that I've learned from being
in the e-commerce business
for the last 20 years.
If you've just started working
with an advertising agency
and literally just signed the
agreement, it can be a little
bit nervewracking, not knowing
what's going to come next.
So this video is gonna be
all about how we onboard
new clients up to the
point where we are ready
to start putting together
the advertising strategy.
So this is for people
who might be considering
working with us.
This is also for other
agency owners who are perhaps
new or finding that their
onboarding process takes
a long time, and there's
a lot of back and forth.
We've rationalized
our onboarding process
over time, so that it
is pretty streamlined.
So I'm gonna take you through
all the different steps
that we go through whenever
we take on a new client.
Now, step number one is
pretty straightforward
and that is getting the
service agreement signed.
Now we don't have any
contracts in our agency.
As in you just work with us
on a month to month basis,
we don't lock you in for any
particular period of time.
Having said that I always
stress to people that it's
better for all of us, if you
are in it for the long haul.
Because despite what anyone
else may promise you,
especially if you're a new
advertiser, or you've got a
new business, building the
necessary infrastructure
for your Facebook business
manager, your ad account,
putting together audiences,
fixing any site speed issues
that you might have, adding
in automated email marketing.
There's a lot of things
that need to be done to
make sure that the money
that you spend on your
advertising, you're gonna
get the best possible return
from it from the get go.
Then once you start
advertising, there's
this iterative process
of improvement that
we'll go through while
we're figuring out what
creative and what copy is
resonating with people,
which audiences are working
well, which ones aren't.
Sometimes it can take a while
before you get to the point
where you're actually breaking
even, and once again, that's
particularly true if you're
a brand new advertiser or
you've got a new business.
So that all takes considerable
time and investment from
our part and it takes
time and energy and
investment from our clients.
So there's really not a lot
of value in us having a go
at something for a month.
It's better for us to work
with you for a period of
three to four months to
allow all of that process
to start to bear some fruit.
That's why I set that
expectation right from the
beginning, and we end up
working with clients for
much longer, we have much
happier clients and it's
generally just a much more fun
business relationship to have.
That's number one to get the
service agreement signed,
and it's really just to
explain in detail, what
are the services that we
are gonna provide to you?
We use a package called
Proposify and that
just details all the
different services that
we offer for our clients.
It's not particularly long,
we try to make it so that
it's easy to understand, and
it's just, so there's a lot
of clarity around what we
are gonna be doing for you.
Number two is to get the
first invoice paid and to set
up a payment subscription.
That really saves a
whole bunch of time
with following up.
I'm sure that a lot of people
end up spending a lot of time
chasing up accounts with their
accounts department, with
their finance department.
It's just so much easier
if there is a credit card
agreement that's put in
place with automated billing.
Then in step number
three, we go through
a onboarding survey.
So the survey contains
all the next steps that
somebody would need to take
before we are ready to start
actually putting together the
advertising strategy for them.
We use Google
forms to do that.
I just send the client a link
to the Google form and all
they have to do is just go
through and fill out the form.
So this is what part
of the form looks like.
And then as far as what's
on the form goes, I'll
break that down for you now.
So firstly there's systems
access, so that's setting
up access to the backend
of their Shopify or their
Magento or their Maropost
e-commerce, aka Neto store,
so that we can install any
pixels that are needed.
So typically that's gonna
be the Facebook pixel.
It might also be the
LinkedIn pixel, could
be the TikTok pixel.
The pixel may
already be installed.
We might just need to
check to make sure that
it's installed okay.
For example, with Shopify
stores, we're gonna want to
have a look at the Facebook
plugin, if it's already
been enabled and make sure
that the detail is turned on
which enables the facebook
conversions API to work.
Next we'll be requesting
access to your email service
provider, which is typically
gonna be Klaviyo or MailChimp
or one of those so that we can
make sure that the integration
between Facebook and the
service provider is set up.
That's often used when we're
creating lookalike audiences
so that we can automatically
update the custom audiences
that the lookalike
audience is based on.
In part D this is where we get
all of the Facebook business
manager side of things set up.
So if somebody doesn't already
have a Facebook business
manager, then we have a video
that walks them through what
they need to do to set that
up and create the ad account
and apply the payment method
and put in all of their
business details so that
they've got a business manager
and and account ready to go.
Then we walk them through
how they then provide us with
access to all of those assets
so that we've got everything
that we need to start
creating the initial facebook
ads campaign structure.
Next this is where
we need access to all
of the brand assets.
So that's gonna include
things like the brand logo,
preferably in an SVG format.
SVG is great, especially
because we use Canva a lot
for producing creative.
It means that we can then
apply any of the brand colors
to that SVG, or we can make it
black or we can make it white,
we can make it transparent.
That's really useful.
If the client doesn't have
SVGs, then we want them
to upload PNGs or JPGs,
whatever they happen to have.
Then we can usually work
with that and create
the format that we need.
This is where we'd also
get any style guides that
the client already has.
Their colors, their fonts
that they like to use,
any particular layout
requirements, that can help us
make sure that we are creating
ads and copy and creative
that is always on brand.
Now the next section of the
onboarding survey, which is
arguably the most important
one is where we put together
a lot of information about
our clients' ideal customer.
So we're gonna ask
questions like who is
their ideal customer?
How old are they?
Where do they live?
What's their income?
What do they believe?
What do they not believe?
What's their ideal situation,
what sort of situation are
they likely to be in now?
What sort of pain points
do they have at the moment?
We've got around 20, 25
questions in that part of
the survey, and it just
helps us put together a good
picture of what the client's
ideal customer looks like,
and it helps guide us in
the kind of creative and
copy that is likely to work
in the very first ads that
we start to run for them.
The final part of the
onboarding process
is in relation to
ongoing communication.
So we communicate with our
clients using Slack for
day to day communication.
If you're not familiar with
Slack, that's a really great
tool for conversing in real
time or asynchronously,
via chat, you can send
back and forth videos.
You can can upload images,
documents, whatever.
It allows everyone in my
team to see what's going on
with a particular client.
We make a private channel
for each client and it also
allows everyone on the client
side to see everything that's
been going on and go back
and see the history, and it's
just a really efficient way
to manage communication and
works much better than email.
The last part of that
particular piece is setting
up the automated email
that goes out to all of our
clients to invite them to
book in a zoom meeting which
is currently with me at the
beginning of each month,
so we can talk about the
results from the month before.
We can talk about the
strategy going forward.
We can talk about what sort
of problems or what sort of
ambitions the client has.
This is a really great way
to build an ongoing rapport
with clients, but it's also
a way to understand what
sort of business issues
the client has, because
oftentimes you may have
skills that can actually help
clients solve their problems.
They didn't know you had
the skills, you didn't
know they had the problems.
So you've gotta have this
regular communication, at
least on a monthly basis
I'd say, just to keep
those communication lines
open and you'll find that
you'll have much happier
clients by doing it that
way, and it's certainly
been my experience as well.
That's it for this video.
Hopefully you've
found this useful to
understand how our client
onboarding process works.
What comes next is how
we actually put together
the advertising strategy,
and I'll make that the
subject of another video.
And if you are looking for
assistance with improving the
results that you have from
your Facebook and Instagram
marketing, or you're wanting
to improve your conversion
rates, your automated email
marketing, and you'd like
to have a chat with somebody
about that, then there
will be a link in the video
description where you can
book in a time to chat with
myself or one of my team.
And we can talk about, what
you wanna do in your business,
how things work from our
side, what the pricing is
like, all that kind of thing.
And who knows, we may
end up working together.
Thank you so much for
watching or listening.
If you found this episode
useful, here's two ways
I can help you grow
your business for free.
Firstly, subscribe to my
YouTube channel at rodsyt.com
or just subscribe to this
podcast, which I'll be doing
in video format from now on.
And secondly, you can join my
free group at rodsgroup.com.
And finally leave me a
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I can reach some amazing
people that I can bring
on as guests on the show.
I'll catch you in
the next episode.
