‘Account management, do we need that?’ a question we often, unfortunately, and frustratingly come across quite a bit.
If you’re working with a full service agency, or any agency actually, I can completely understand how ‘account management’ is the murky part of a quotation. It’s unquantifiable, unmeasurable, and you don’t actually ‘get’ anything back from it.
So why pay for it?
Don’t get me wrong, sometimes I question this myself. What do we actually do? I feel slightly depressed when I think about what I bring to the table in comparison to my talented colleagues. Am I a PPC whiz? No. Can I use InDesign? No. Can I optimise a website, can I code an e-shot or can I write a press release? The answer is no, to the lot. So when I cry ‘what actually IS my talent?!’ you can understand my disappointment when the replies I get are usually ‘Umm… You’re really organised?’
But in truth, that IS my thing. An account manager is the organiser, the lead, the fusspot who is slightly obsessive and also a perfectionist. And my guess is that any account manager who loves and is good at their job is exactly the same.
If you’re a client though, aren’t these exactly the skills you want applied to your project? You’re parting with tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds so surely you’d like to know your money is being managed efficiently with whatever the output is, delivered on time, on budget and to perfection… and obviously, with a smile!
Can you imagine briefing a social media manager, a creative, a PPC manager, an SEO specialist AND a media planner on your project? The list goes on and that’s either going to result in several separate meetings or one, very big very long meeting.
Do you have the time to then keep on top all of these people chasing and collating their input and ideas, whilst making sure they’re all working to budget? Briefing your account manager is far easier, and they’ll do the running around for you. Bonus. What about ensuring all of the project elements are working together – the creative with the media which is working with the PPC? And you definitely don’t want to be bogged down with a timing plan and scheduling (an account manager’s mecca) yet you want the project delivered on time. What about liaising with production and getting your head around print specs? Not to mention proofing every last letter of a document and taking full responsibility for every niggly typo that might go out of the door.
These are all jobs of an account manager and this, on top of anything else that the client wants, is exactly what we do.
Maybe the reluctance to pay for account management is a matter of visibility? Afterall, much of the work an account manager does is behind the scenes – you give us a brief and you get exactly what you want back. And behind the scenes is exactly how it should be because I strongly believe that it’s the job of an account manager to make your life easier, and well, just ‘get it done’. Surely, you need that?
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Written by Natalie Pejovic – yes, a Senior Account Manager.