How to pitch an idea that your client cannot say no to

My speech at the BrightonSEO spring conference covered how to convince your boss or client to give your communications idea the green light. For those of you who couldn’t make it, here’s a redaction of what I said…

I’ve been in the PR and digital industry for twenty years now and seen a lot of what my colleagues and I thought were great ideas get rejected by clients.

Too edgy. Not really us.

You get the picture. I read in a recent post that only one in 16 creative ideas get used. Although this stat came from the ad sector, I imagine a similar ratio stands for PR ideas.

In PR, in particular, we have number of safe plays: the survey, the round-table, the user focus group, the thought leadership … But how do we get a more engaging, more risky and potentially impactful campaign idea off the ground?

It’s not about the idea

The first thing I think many of us get wrong is to focus too much on the idea itself and its overall wow factor. The biggest hurdle is not the idea, after all, we have tons of those. We can find ideas no problem.

No, the biggest hurdle is often the client themselves.

PRs, SEOs, other creatives all have to show empathy for the client. What does the client want from this campaign?

• They must justify spend
• They must prove positive business impact
• They need to look good…both internally and externally

Not only do we need to understand the client’s need at this point of their career and this point of their company’s growth cycle, we also need to know exactly who their audience is and why should they care at all about the brand and our idea.

I’ve often found that, while the PR manager may be on-side with the idea, it’s the CMO or CEO – the ultimate decision maker – who is most resistant. Often – and especially when it comes to digital campaigns – it can be because they’re from a pre-digital era and may not like to be out of their comfort zone.

That’s why building internal advocacy client side – ‘soft power’ upward pressure – is so important.

The art of persuasion

At the key of understanding both the client and the brand’s audience is empathy. We need to put ourselves in their shoes and do the research into their pain points and who influences them.

Then we can engage the Aristotelian ‘art of persuasion’, which comprises of three parts:

• Ethos: People relate to people “like them”. This is the most effective form of persuasion. Our campaigns must reflect our audience.
• Pathos: Feeling. We must generate emotion. Ambivalence is the enemy.
• Logos: Data, while critical to planning, is not effective when trying to persuade audiences. You can tell people all you like that they’re living in the best time in history – statistically – but if they don’t feel it, then the data falls flat

In short, our campaigns need mirror audience personas, generate an emotional response and be grounded in fact.

Now we can turn our thoughts to the big idea.

Formulating the ‘big idea’

We understand our client’s fundamental needs. We understand the brand’s audiences and challenges. We understand their buying cycles and purchasing decisions. Now we need to create a campaign that ticks the boxes journalists are looking for by using the time-honoured ‘TRUTH’ formula:

T – Timely, Topical

R – Relevant

U – Unusual

T – Trouble

H – Human interest

Once you’ve created the big idea, run it by a neutral pair of eyes – someone that’s not been involved. Be sure to ask yourself:

• Does the big idea meet the brief?
• Is the company the right brand to tackle a particular issue?
• Does the data back up your suggestion?
• Will it scale?
• Is it emotive?
• What does success look like?

Get ready to pitch!

When you go to the client with your idea, be sure to prove your pedigree – examples of previous great campaigns you’ve executed, either as an agency or individual experience if you’re a new agency without your own case studies yet.

What does the pitch team look like? Does it reflect the client’s demographic and that of its audience? Can you prove that your idea supports the clients’ audience in their decision journey?

Be sure to articulate the idea in video format. If you want to showcase your creativity then video is the way to rubberstamp it, so that your client can visualise for themselves what the big idea will look like in execution.

Go in with confidence and conviction. If you don’t believe in your idea, then your client certainly won’t!

Finally, even if the client rejects your idea, don’t reject it yourself. Keep it in the locker for the next similar brand opportunity that comes along.

Check out the deck for key takeaways and do please let me know your own tips over on Twitter.