Freelance copywriting and the client perspective

The dynamics of client relationships have always fascinated me.  Apart from the usual inter-personal and ‘personal chemistry’ aspects (which are part of life in general outside the business world!), for freelance copywriters – and anyone else who provides business services – this is overlaid with another all-important perspective.

The simplest way of putting it is to say that the work of clients involves many aspects of a single business.  For a copywriter (etc), their work is about a single aspect (providing copywriting/PR/etc) of many businesses. 

We then have a situation  where client and copywriter are calling up questions which basically focus on ‘respect’.  How many times have you heard the question (inferred or actual): ‘Does this guy really understand my business?’

And from the copywriting/supplier side, we hear: ‘These people don’t understand what’s involved in (preparing a brief/valuing my services/working out a sensible fee/etc)’. 

The best grounding for the best relationships is for both client and copywriter to have experience of working on the other side of the fence – although the likelihood of this happening isn’t great.  Some clients have worked in ad agencies or the marketing departments of other companies.  Likewise, some copywriters have worked in ‘proper’ jobs too!

Given that this blend of experience on either side is a rarity, it’s all down to understanding (and respecting) the scope of the other person’s skills and job demands.

It just so happens that before becoming a copywriter, I worked in several other fields outside of advertising and journalism.  Add to this a background in academic marketing and you have the ingredients for potentially harmonious client relationships. 

Clients who’ve always worked ‘client side’ will inevitably be sceptical about the business know-how of ad agency types who’ve never been exposed to market pricing, workforce issues or working within a departmental budget – to name just three elephant traps!

I raise these points because I feel there’s no magic wand that can solve client-copywriter-agency relationships.  It’s more a case of thinking out loud and counting to ten before criticising the other side.

Trying to understand the differing demands that exist on both sides of the fence is a good starting point.  The intellectual demands are probably similar in extent in that both clients and agency people have to juggle with numerous challenges – and, dare I say it, clients often need to bring as much problem-solving ‘creativity’ to the table as the self-designated creatives in the agency world.

If anything, any lack of understanding probably rests with creatives.  Clients have the the multiple demands of focusing not simply on marketing issues, but also on how they fit in with every other department in a company.  This calls for skills which go way beyond the inter-personal.