Author: Roxy Kernaghan
Whether you’re a marketing agency, service provider or product developer, your industry is probably rife with competitors.
The daily struggle of trying to stay one step ahead with your online presence can be overwhelming. You know you need to be visible, but at the same time you don’t want your customers to think you’re presenting yourself as God’s given gift to your industry. If you’re feeling the pressure, it might be time to focus on strategic humble bragging instead!
Here are 5 ways you can leverage your clients as brand champions for what you do best, letting your work speak for itself through your happy customers.
1. Don’t be afraid to name-drop
One of the biggest benefits of mentioning your premium clients in your digital content is that it creates a sense of trust. When potential customers see brands they recognise, they can conclude that if those brands can trust you, so can they. Couple this with a showcase of some of your best work as proof of what can come from that trust.
Award-winning South African marketing agency, Pulling Power Media does this especially well. They have created marketing animations for massive IPs, including Batman, DIRT5, GhostBusters, Men in Black, Transformers and more. They post their artwork to their social channels, talking about the animation process, rather than just the client themselves.
Pulling Power Media also uses this strategy in their blog posts. They recently published a piece about what they learned from their clients over the past two years, citing survival business lessons from the Covid-19 lockdowns. They described what a selection of their clients did to keep their heads above water, and how they learned from these observations - all the while positioning themselves alongside some notable brands.
2. Showcase how you break with tradition
Ogilvy are great at this, with their #AdOfTheDay hashtag. Whenever they have created something they are particularly proud of for its innovation for one of their clients, they post their own version of the ad or campaign to fit in with their style, showing off their innovation on their terms. This advice isn’t for marketers only! Every business has something unique to offer
3. Get your staff involved
Organic content that is authentic is another excellent way to champion your clients. If your staff are excited to be working on a particular product or with a particular brand, encourage them to track their progress so they may post about their work online after launch. Try not to police too much here, letting your team members speak about their experiences and thoughts in their own words for ultimate authenticity. If a client likes what they see, they may repost what an employee has posted, building social trust in their community and helping to leverage your own brand in return.
4. Celebrate your clients’ victories
Show your clients that you have been proud to work with them, sticking by them and supporting them beyond what you were contracted to do. Pulling Power Media presents another excellent example. One of their clients, Ocushield, creates filters for harmful blue light for screens. Ocushield were recently featured on Dragon’s Den, where they received offers from both Dragons, who went head-to-head fighting over their product.
The Pulling Power Media team posted the Dragon’s Den snippet to their own social media account, congratulating their client, sharing this amazing achievement with their followers and other clients, some of whom might now be in the market for an Ocushield blue light blocker themselves!
5. Simply say ‘Thank you’
This is possibly the best way to leverage your clients as brand champions. ‘A thank-you goes a long way’ is the ultimate understatement, and your clients, potential new clients and your followers will more easily trust that you have their best interests at heart. There are loads of ways you can do this.
You could create a showreel at the end of each year, thanking all your clients for making what you have done possible. Maybe you’ve been able to hire more staff or begin to grow a new department. This is another opportunity to thank your clients for the support that made new jobs possible. And sometimes, maybe you just enjoyed a project so much that it just feels right to say thank you for the chance to do work you’re proud of that didn’t just feel like work.