5 Legal Mistakes Your Agency is Making in the Pursuit of New Business (And How to Fix Them)

New business is simultaneously exciting and stressful for agencies.

While your team is focused on the thrill of a profitable win, they're also stressed about meeting deadlines, impressing the prospect, and maintaining current client relationships. It can all be a lot to handle -- and there's no room for legal mistakes.

You didn't go into marketing to deal with legal issues. But while you're navigating agency new business at warp speed, it's easy to make an oversight or misstep that could cause negative legal consequences or financial loss for the agency.

To reduce your risk of running into legal trouble, it's important to be aware of the most common legal mistakes agencies make during their new business efforts, and how to fix (or avoid) them.

5 Common Legal Mistakes Agencies Make

1) You don't protect your agency's intellectual property during a pitch or discovery session, or in your proposal.

How to fix it: Sometimes it's a valid business decision to allow the client to own IP in pitch materials, spec creative or proposals -- either because the agency negotiated payment for it, or because it’s a required "ticket" to participate in the opportunity. But make it an intentional decision.

Unless you've agreed with a prospective client that it will own the agency's pre-engagement IP, consider a Nondisclosure Agreement that protects the agency's ownership position. Absent that, at a minimum include IP ownership clauses in your proposal and pitch assets, and use copyright ownership notices on these materials and any spec creative produced.

2) You accept the client's services contract without a legal review, or without pushing back on terms that are unattractive for the agency.

How to fix it: A proposed contract form is a suggestion, not a requirement. First, make sure you fully review the client's contract (and related documents, like a Nondisclosure Agreement) and, if needed, have it vetted by legal counsel.

Second, be aware of the legally "unattractive" provisions that are most likely to be in the client’s form and -- of course -- drafted in favor of the client, such as: immediate IP ownership, restrictive covenants on the agency, extended work acceptance processes, or unreasonable invoicing timelines.

You can -- and should -- push back on the provisions that are unfair or don't work for your Agency; You'll never have better leverage than at the beginning of the engagement. You can also learn a lot about the client by the way they respond to your concerns.

3) Your agency recreates the legal paper trail every time it engages a new client.

How to fix it: The main reason many agencies create a "fire drill-style” experience every time they sign a new client and need to legally document the relationship is a lack of process -- either having no consistent forms or language to use, or the absence of a lead person or department to handle the contract issues.

Avoid having inconsistent client service contracts, legal terms and conditions, nondisclosure agreements, IP ownership legends, and the like, by having a standard set of agency-approved contract documents and, where possible, a central person, department or procedure dedicated to the process. Then use those documents, and follow that process consistently.

4) Your agency transfers its intellectual property rights in the work to the client too soon, or gives away too much of its intellectual property to the client.

How to fix it: In many situations, everyone agrees that the client will own intellectual property in the agency’s work at some point -- the question is when.

The common point of difference is that the client will want to own it immediately upon creation, while it's in the agency's best interest not to transfer those rights until it has been paid

Additionally, the agency may have pre-existing assets (creative, technology, process) that end up incorporated into the client’s work, but to which the Agency intends to retain ownership and only license to the client. The place to resolve these issues is in the Client’s Agency Services Contract or Legal Terms and Conditions (see Mistake #3).

5) You're insufficiently protected from contingencies like late payments, non-payment, or legal liability for claims such as false advertising, IP infringement, or ad regulation compliance.

How to fix it: If the Agency is operating without Errors & Omissions insurance coverage, reconsider. The enhanced liability protection is easy to underrate until you have an issue or claim.

Additionally, give careful thought to the liability and indemnification language in your contracts to make sure that the agency's liability is limited to the things actually within its control (for example, not for a product feature or claim provided by the Client).

Finally, review the payment terms in your contracts, making sure they properly incentivize the client to pay in a reasonable amount of time. Remedies like late fees, interest, and attorney fee or collection cost recovery will not be available to you unless they are in a written agreement signed by both parties.

New business is challenging enough for agencies without having to worry about the potential legal pitfalls that it creates. Sharon Toerek will be speaking on this topic at INBOUND 2016. Learn more about INBOUND.

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/2f6vCom

You are definitely not alone in being worn out by this election

3 Quick Wins to Improve Your Nonprofit's Website

Not every marketing success comes from a big campaign. When you're a nonprofit operating under budget constraints, big campaigns aren't always even an option. Sometimes, it's the little tweaks that can yield a boost in results. In some cases, the tweaks correct an issue that's been holding your website back.

We're going to dive into three areas where you can make some quick changes that can kick off strong change. 

1) Maximizing Your SEO Strategy

You have a clear SEO strategy based on your research of your prospects most pressing questions and concerns. You've identified what words and phrases they're using to search for information online. But is it being executed as completely as it could? Each page on your website and each blog post should be optimized around a single keyword or phrase that your ideal constituent is searching for on Google. More keywords than that can dilute the organic power of your main keyword.

If your organization isn't blogging yet, get going ASAP. A blog is the constant stream of fresh, SEO-focused content that search engines will use to drive traffic to your organization's online presence. 

For a quick overview of blogging for nonprofits, check out this free ebook >> 

Take a look at some pages and posts that aren't attracting as much traffic as anticipated. Review them to make sure they're focused on a current, high performing keyword. If they are focused on a single keyword, this is a good time to re-assess if that keyword should still be a part of your SEO strategy.

You can also optimize your high traffic pages and posts. Have you optimized each element on the page? Many people overlook optimizing their images for SEO. Look at everything from the image's filename to its alt text and title text to its loading time.

If you've seen an overall drop in organic traffic or your place in search results, it's probably time for a more comprehensive review of your keyword strategy.

• Have you done your SEO research based on what your prospects want to know, or only what you want to tell them? Inbound works because of an "educate first – ask later" approach.
• Perhaps your current keywords have gotten stale. Are they focused on what constituents and prospects are concerned about now? Prospects interests and pain points may have changed since you last created your keyword list.

2) Creating More Opportunities to Convert Visitors

Inbound marketing is a journey, just like the one your future constituents take. If your only calls-to-action (CTAs) on your website are calls to join, donate, or get involved – you're ignoring a lot of conversion opportunities.

Most of your website visitors aren't ready to make any sort of commitment to your organization just yet. That doesn't mean you can't get them into your database. 

Pick one of your high-value, free resources and make it gated content. This could be a report on how use different credit union resources to rebuild poor credit or a 10-year outlook forecast on the direction of your cause. 

Whatever the topic, it should be of sufficient interest and value to prospects that they'll happily give over their email address to get it. It's the starting point of an active relationship between your organization and a prospect that enables you both to learn more about each other, which ideally ends with the prospect joining your organization.

Placing CTAs to your gated content throughout your website and blog provides a low stress entry point for people who are still just looking for information and aren't quite yet ready to commit.

3) Treating Mobile as Mobile

Your mobile site can't just be smaller version of your primary website. Part real estate, part use case, the ways visitors interact with a mobile site are very different than a desktop site. Slightly more than half of all digital media is consumed via mobile, so optimizing your organization's mobile experience is critical to capturing and converting mobile traffic.

Let's start with real estate. Do use responsive design so your website design works on mobile screens. Since mobile visitors will see less with a first view than on your desktop site, make sure that first impression clearly communicates who your organization is and why the visitor wants to explore more.

When you visit your mobile site, do you see a lot of text? Consuming blocks of text is difficult and off-putting for mobile visitors. Break up monotonous text with bullets, color, or an image.

Your phone number should be click-to-call, for people who want to reach you immediately on their mobile device. Yet many people visiting your mobile site don't want to call you.  They want information. So make sure your mobile CTAs reflect mobile usability — you’re your requests simple — ask only for an email address. A CTA to apply for membership or donate now should make it clear they'll get a link they can use to apply online that they can complete later from anywhere.

Last, Google constantly changes how it optimizes its mobile search results and user experience. Its latest approach is cracking down on annoying mobile pop-ups. If you have liberal use of pop-ups on your mobile site, or use big pop-ups that block out the content behind it, you'll want to get rid of them. 

Staying Ahead of the Curve

It's easy to lose track of the little things when producing a lot of content, especially when the best practices of digital marketing change so quickly. Optimization is a never-ending process. But that just means you can always find ways to get some quick wins off your website when you're in-between running larger campaigns.

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/2dEYZ00

The Marketer's Guide to Mobile [Free Kit]

As marketers, we know that the term "mobile optimization" can sometimes seem like just another hot button term these days. And the actual process of optimizing your brand's site can be somewhat intimidating.

In hopes of making the whole process a little less daunting, we teamed up with Localytics to bring you The Marketer's Guide to Mobile.

This five-part kit will walk you through the best practices of mobile marketing, help you decide whether or not your brand should have an app, and bring you up to speed on how mobile has evolved over the past couple years.

More specifically, you'll learn:

• The state of mobile marketing today and the importance of getting your marketing completely mobile optimized.
• How to optimize your website and the most important factors to keep in mind when working with your web team or freelancers.
• Best practices for mobile marketing and ensuring your efforts are passing the test.
• How to tap into the app ecosystem and why that matters for your business.
• What's next in mobile: How to keep on top of mobile trends so your business continues to rank on search engines and bring in leads and customers.
• *Bonus* Flowchart: Should you build an app or not?

Download your copy of The Marketer's Guide to Mobile now.

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/2eqrekK

6 Client Onboarding Mistakes That Ruin Relationships Before They Start

You nailed the pitch, closed the account, and now it's time to roll up your sleeves and get to work. Everyone on your team is ready to dive in, and the client couldn't be happier to have an agency bringing fresh ideas and new energy to the table.

What could possibly go wrong?

As you probably already know, quite a lot. The client onboarding process might seem cut-and-dried, but there are a lot of moving parts to manage to ensure the relationship gets off to a solid start. The groundwork you and your team lay in the first 90 days with a new client will either support a profitable long-term relationship, or lead to frustration and flopped projects.

To help you avoid the financial and psychological pain of a botched relationship down the line, we've put together a list of common client onboarding missteps to avoid at all costs. Read on to make sure your agency is doing everything possible to prevent the new relationship from going sour before it even has the chance to get off the ground.

6 Client Onboarding Mistakes to Avoid

1) You don't set realistic expectations or goals.

Right from the start, agencies need to manage expectations with their clients -- even (or perhaps especially) when it feels uncomfortable. Remember: It's always better to under-promise than to over-promise.

Setting reasonable expectations begins with discussing what your client wants to achieve, and comparing it to what your agency is actually able to deliver. Think of it like a venn diagram: In one circle, you have your client's dream website, and in the other circle, you have your agency's area of expertise. During the kickoff, it's up to your team to find the overlap between the two circles, and set goals around that.

If you don't set reasonable, attainable goals from the get-go, your clients will fill in the blanks themselves -- and you'll find yourself being held accountable for achieving too much in too little time. It's better to explain from the beginning that it isn't realistic to build a fully-functional lead-generating powerhouse website in 2 weeks, rather than explain why your team couldn't deliver later down the line.

2) You aren't transparent about your team's process.

During the kickoff meeting, it's typical for agencies to provide a estimated timeline of the project -- usually explaining the different phases or components that the team will be working on. This gives the client a good idea of what to expect during the process, but it might leave some critical information gaps.

To make sure the client fully understands all the work that goes into the project, it's beneficial to give them some basic information about your team structure, and go more in-depth on how your team actually functions.

It might seem unnecessary at first to get into these nitty gritty details, but full transparency about your team's process and work schedule will make the client more understanding if anything goes wrong -- such as a deadline being pushed back or a request taking longer than expected to be addressed.

Transparency also means telling the client upfront how your team handles uncomfortable issues like out-of-scope work and billing, so it isn't a surprise to them if these issues arise in the future. It's always better to address these details as early as possible to avoid potentially relationship-killing drama in the future.

3) You don't build rapport with the client's team.

Amidst all the housekeeping, scheduling, and project management that goes into onboarding a new client, it can be easy to forget that your new clients are just people -- and people like to converse and connect.

The key to establishing good rapport is to keep momentum going after the initial meeting or call. Starting with the kickoff, make a conscious effort to establish common ground by asking open-ended questions and learning as much as you can about your new client. Once you have a feel for how your client likes to communicate, focus on keeping that positive energy going through subsequent meetings and check-ins.

Developing a positive rapport doesn't just make meetings less awkward, it also helps foster an early sense of trust and understanding between your team and your new client. If you stick solely to the technical details of a project and fail to relate on a social, human level, you could be setting the relationship up for avoidable tension or stress.

Any project setbacks or other potential issues that arise in the future will be much easier to diffuse if you've already put in the work to cultivate an authentic connection from the beginning.

4) You under-communicate in the first few weeks.

Over-communication is better than under-communication -- especially in the critical first weeks of a new client relationship. If you under-communicate or lag in your responses early on, you're basically saying that the project isn't a priority for your team.

During the kickoff meeting, establish how your client prefers to be contacted (Phone? Email? Carrier pigeon?) and who your main point of contact will be. It's important to decide on a clear communication framework right off the bat, so there's no confusion about who will be contacting who, and when/how the check-ins will take place.

In the early stages of the project, keep your new client consistently in the loop -- even on decisions that seem minor to your team. This shows the client that you're fully committed to providing clear, actionable information throughout the project.

Worst case scenario? The client asks you to update them a little less frequently. At least they know now the project is meaningful to you, and you're taking it very seriously.

5) You don't ask useful questions.

You probably already learned a lot about your new client during the pitching process -- whether through research or directly interviewing them -- but once the deal is closed, there's still a lot more to learn.

Now that you're essentially part of the client's team, you might be privy to more sensitive information about their business -- information that can help you better understand and accommodate their needs and goals. The key is asking the questions that get you the relevant information you need.

Start by asking questions to assess the client's existing marketing assets, e.g.: What marketing tactics have you found success with in the past? How do you currently generate leads? If you're working on a website redesign project, check out these 90 questions to ask before getting started.

If you don't use the onboarding period to ask insightful questions, you could encounter information gaps further into the project. Ask your questions upfront to get a clear picture of your client's business and marketing program before diving into the project.

6) You don't provide immediate value.

Never underestimate the positive impact a well-executed quick win project can have in the early stages of a new client relationship. As you probably know from experience, real marketing results can take a long (long) time to see, and all the time spent waiting for numbers to rise can make clients restless -- particularly when they're fresh off the exciting promises of your agency's winning pitch.

A quick win project in the first few weeks of the relationship can demonstrate your agency's capacity to provide value, and validate the client's decision to pick you. It can also help clients feel more comfortable when bigger projects take a longer to produce tangible results, since they've already seen your team succeed before.

A quick win project doesn't have to be a big strain on your agency's time and resources. Consider developing a content offer or auditing the client's existing marketing assets to identify new opportunities. For more advice on creating a quick win project early on, check out this article.

What client onboarding mistakes has your agency made in the past, and what did you learn from them? Share with us in the comments.

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/2e6iPgU

Facebook renews efforts to fight bullying with Safety Center relaunch

How to Defeat Your Most Dangerous Writing Habit: 7 Ways to Lift 'The Curse of Knowledge'

When I was eight, I became stuck on a particularly tough Where’s Waldo scene. It was so difficult that I became convinced that Waldo -- the character I needed to find -- wasn’t in it at all. I began thinking the whole thing was a joke, full of red herrings.

And then I found him. And after that, I could never un-see him. And, strangely, whenever I saw a classmate struggling with that same difficult scene, I’d become frustrated, even angry.

“I can’t believe you’re not finding him,” I’d say. “It’s so easy!”

Little did I know, my unreasonable behavior was the product of a dangerous cognitive bias, one we’re all susceptible to: The Curse of Knowledge.

The Curse afflicts kids and teachers, content marketers and salespeople, corporate executives, cab drivers, and presidents.

Here’s how it could be hurting you ...

What is “The Curse of Knowledge?”

If you’re “Cursed,” then you are unable to imagine what it’s like not to know or understand something -- a topic, discipline, craft, what have you -- which, in turn, makes it hard to communicate that knowledge to less-informed people.

In their book, Made to Stick, the Heath Brothers provide a typical example:

Think of a lawyer who can’t give you a straight, comprehensible answer to a legal question. His vast knowledge and experience renders him unable to fathom how little you know. So when he talks to you, he talks in abstractions that you can’t follow. And we’re all like the lawyer in our own domain of expertise.”

That said, let’s set the anecdotal evidence aside and focus on the science:

The Stanford Tapping Experiment

In 1990, Elizabeth Newton, a Stanford graduate student in psychology, demonstrated the Curse of Knowledge using an exercise that asked one group of students to tap the rhythm of a popular song (e.g., Happy Birthday) on a table to another group of students who were listening. The listeners were then asked to guess the song.

Over the course of the experiment, more than 100 songs were tapped out. When the “tappers” we're asked to predict how many of their “listeners” would guess the song correctly, they landed on 50%. The actual percentage of listeners who could figure out which song the rhythm belonged to a mere 2.5%.

This huge discrepancy occurred because the tappers couldn’t un-hear (or un-know) the song’s actual melody, which played in their head as they tapped. This caused them to overestimate their ability. The listeners, of course, didn't hear a melody but, rather, a dull, monotonous knocking. This caused them to almost always misidentify the song.

In this experiment, the tappers’ knowledge grossly distorted the reality of the situation and, in effect, created a communication breakdown as well as a major expectations mismatch.

Can your writing be cursed?

The Curse of Knowledge is a documented cognitive bias. It affects us all, especially when we write. It’s particularly dangerous on paper because, unlike being face-to-face, readers (i.e., listeners) can’t ask questions and writers (i.e., tappers) can’t gauge reactions.

The Curse can sneak its way into an email, a landing page, a web page, or a blog post, which is why anyone who writes should be perking up right now ...

Here’s everything you need to know to protect yourself:

7 Ways to Lift the Curse of Knowledge

Ironically, the more you know about the Curse of Knowledge, the less likely you are to fall victim to it.

Moving forward, try these best practices whenever you sit down to explain something in writing.

1) Know your audience’s base subject knowledge.

How well your audience understands your subject should shape the way you approach it.

So, do your research. If their base subject knowledge is high, feel free to skip the fundamentals. If their base knowledge is low, or nonexistent, start from the beginning -- start at thirty thousand feet and parachute down, slowly, gradually.

To figure out your audience’s base knowledge, try creating a detailed target persona. It’s not that hard and it’ll give you the background you need to write in a way people understand and appreciate.

2) Tone down your vocabulary.

Peppering your writing with idioms, jargon, and big, fancy words is like saying: If you don’t understand this, maybe you shouldn’t be reading it. Stop while you’re ahead. Thanks for playing.

That's a nasty vibe, if you ask me. Plus, if people can’t understand you, they’ll inevitably tune out and turn off. And then what will you do? For example, this is:

• Bad: “Let’s open the Kimono, take a peek at the email CTR, and break down scalable successes.”
• Better: “Let’s look at the data, evaluate the email clickthrough rate, and capitalize on what’s working.”
• Best: “Let’s see how many people opened our emails and do more of what works.”

3) Tell a story.

Before writing existed, people used stories to keep history. For thousands of years, stories helped us spread information. Today, stories remain just as psychologically impactful as they did back then. As Jonathan Gottschall explains in his book, The Storytelling Animal, human beings are natural storytellers. Stories are a fundamental piece of our genome.

We love stories because they help us see the world through different lenses. We love stories so much, in fact, that we naturally inject ourselves into their narratives, hijacking characters’ circumstances, emotions, and learnings.

Of course, stories also maintain an order. They have a beginning, a middle, and an end, which makes it hard for the Curse to sneak its way in, leaving people out of context and confused.

4) Ditch the abstractions.

Leaders often speak in abstractions because their experience helps them visualize broad concepts. For example, we can all imagine a Chief Customer Officer saying something like:

Our mission is to provide callers with the best customer service they’ve ever experienced.”

That’s great and all, but what does it mean? And how does a statement like that differentiate you from the competition? It doesn't. These days, differentiating yourself in a crowded space means getting specific, like this:

Our mission is to answer every phone call to the customer service department within three rings and to resolve non-emergency calls within 6 minutes.”

Be concrete. It's comforting to people.

5) Provide examples.

Unlike abstractions, examples put concepts into perspective.

An example could take the form of a metaphor or a simile. As long as it paints a picture, it's doing its job. In any case, examples make sense of things, using information we already understand to forge connections.

For instance, when my grandma Sofia didn’t understand what a blog was, I explained it to her in terms I knew she’d be familiar with: “It’s like a journal or a magazine,” I said, “but you can only read the articles on the internet.”

6) Use visuals.

About 65% of people are visual learners, meaning they absorb information better and faster when images are used to explain it.

Hence: PowerPoint presentations, infographics, and those quirky, mesmerizing whiteboard videos you’ve seen. These are all examples of compelling visual content being used to engage and educate people from the boardroom to the web page. Incorporating these and other visual components into your messaging is a potent way to appeal to nearly a third of your audience.

7) Get an outside point-of-view.

You write. You edit. You reread, rearrange, reformat. You repeat.

That's writing -- and it can be an intense process, which, sometimes, leaves your message over-processed. In other words, it’s possible to overthink something, twisting it up until you’re the only person who gets it.

A good editor will alert you to this issue. Don’t know any editors? That’s okay. Ask a friend to give your writing a once over. They may not be your target audience but they can still serve as a barometer for comprehension.

You could also try this old copywriting trick.

Final thought.

The Curse of Knowledge is rooted in the fact that you were once in your reader’s shoes, void of the vast knowledge you now possess.

My advice: When you write about your area of expertise, try to channel that less-informed version of yourself. It will make you sympathetic to the challenges your readers are facing because, once upon a time, you were there, too.

Ultimately, if you want to be understood and help people grow, don't tap your song, sing it! Sing it loudly, so that everyone can hear the notes. The above techniques will help you do that.

What tips do you have for overcoming The Curse of Knowledge? Share them in the comments.

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/2exC9J8