The 7-year Itch
When I first started in PR, I heard it from everyone - if you're good at what you do, plan to keep tech clients for 12-18 months. If you're REALLY good, maybe you can stretch it to 2-3 years. But keeping a client beyond that mythical 3-year mark is the stuff of legend and folklore. Sounds nice but has nothing to do with reality.To that I say hogwash, bunk and hooey. We're on our 7th year representing a publicly traded semiconductor client, who has - while under our watch - made no less than 10 acquisitions, cycled through 3 VPs of Marketing, 3 CFOs, 2 CEOs and 2 Directors of MarComm.
So what does it take to keep a client for 7 years?
Let's call it "luck" ... the kind of luck you make for yourself. Luck that our agency philosophy and the client's corporate culture match. Luck that we've been blessed at Ardell with talented and technical account leads and writers throughout those 7 years. Luck that the client values results above all else.
Luck that we believe in our work and our people enough to admit when we're wrong and then make it right. Luck that we're truly interested in our client's industry and technology, all the speeds and feeds, the interfaces and packaging options. Luck that we've never once taken them for granted.
I suspect it might help that our client has never been bound under a contract that holds them to anything more than a 30-day termination clause. So we know that every month, we have to earn the right to represent them all over again. And here we are, 7 years later, still earning it one "lucky" month at a time.
- KS
posted by The Ardell Group @ 12:39 PM
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