Introduction
If you have worked in creative industries, you know how hard it can be to meet the client’s expectations. Endless edicts, revisions, dozens of drafts and sketches — and there is still no assurance you hit the bullseye. Any creative project is the result of a collaboration between the client, who has specific business goals, visions, and expectations, and the creators, who help these visions to take shape. Discover how to make these two pieces of a puzzle fit together with effective hints on interacting with clients in a creative field.
Creative Cooperation: The Flow
The work on any project presupposes several stages, and at each of them the creative team and the client should coordinate their visions and decisions.
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Every creative project is born with a spark of an idea. Whether it is opening a bookshop in Harry Potter style, making paper cups from foliage, or selling postcards with cats, any of these projects need promotion, and it is where a client comes to a creative agency. Ask the clients all possible questions: specify deadlines and budget, define the audience, and clearly articulate what can be done and what is impossible. If the client wants a real dragon to live at the top bookshelf of their bookstore, they deserve to know you can put only a lizard there.
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Now, the creative team comes into play. Dive into research and study the market, competitors, and audience. To present a product in a creative manner, you need to be sure nobody has implemented your brilliant ideas yet. Create a detailed strategy that would demonstrate your fresh and solid vision of the project.
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Brainstorm and develop creative concepts for the project. Outline the approaches to design, content, advertising campaigns, and anything that can promote the product. The more ideas you have — the better.
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Present all the materials you have prepared to the client. Your presentation should be flawless and answer all the questions the clients may have. You should make the client believe their project will be a success. Creativity is not about selling; it’s about making people fall in love with your product.
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Creative cooperation is a two-sided process. Your ideas, no matter how clever and original they are, may fail to fit into the client’s vision and will need to be reviewed and improved. Remember that the client’s criticism isn’t a sign of your unprofessionalism. You have a single goal — to create a project that would hit the market by whatever means necessary.
Main Difficulties of Working with Clients in Creative Industries
Each stage of creative cooperation has its pitfalls, and the quicker you settle them down, the more effective your cooperation with the client will be. Let’s have a look at the most common ones.
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Communication gaps: Sometimes, clients fail to explain what they want clearly. The phrase “I trust your taste and experience” is a road to constant reviews, misunderstandings, and conflicts. Creativity is a tool, but to function correctly and show the expected result, it needs precise instruction.
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Subjective perception: What may look appealing to one person may trigger mixed feelings in the other.
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Budget limitations: Clients often want high-quality work at a low cost.
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Tight deadlines: Many people think that creativity is something people are born with. Consequently, they are expected to create business strategies overnight.
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Constant revisions: Clients may request frequent edits or change the tasks all the time.
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Measuring success: Quantifying the success of a creative project can be difficult. While some clients may want hard numbers or proof of ROI, the success of creative endeavors often lies in intangible factors like brand visibility, recognition, or audience engagement.
Tips for Cooperation with Clients
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Be realistic
Clients often have no idea how much a certain creative solution may cost or how long it takes to implement it. Your task is to make them come down to earth and explain that a 20-meter-high ice cream made of balloons at the opening of their coffee shop cannot cost $20.
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Ask questions
The clearer the task is — the easier it is to solve it. Don’t hesitate to ask the customer the smallest details about their vision of the project, budget, deadlines, and even the color palette of the logo. If the client can provide you with references or examples of the projects they like, it will dramatically reduce the number of edits you’ll have to do in the future.
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Articulate ideas briefly
While, in the team, you can masterfully juggle with exquisite artistic terms, the client, just like the target audience, should understand all your messages clearly.
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Set professional boundaries
Creative work is still work. Set your working hours, discuss the advance payment, and limit the number of edits available. Otherwise, creative cooperation can turn into creative tribulation.
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Consider the legal aspect
In the creative industry, the violation of intellectual property rights is a sin. Whether you use a song, picture, video, or even a quote from a book, you need to make sure it is legal. For instance, if you need to use a photo for commercial purposes, you need to get in touch with its author and sign a contract with them. Hiring a lawyer for every such document can be a costly matter. Instead, use a photo license agreement template provided by Lawrina — a reliable legal platform, where you can find legal documents for your needs.
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Be attentive to feedback
Creators tend to believe that their vision is more important than the client’s because they’re professionals and know how to make things work. However, in any creative project, the key is cooperation. All parties should be involved, heard, and respected. You never know how many fresh ideas “non-creative” people can generate!
Conclusion
Working with clients is always hard, but working with clients in a creative industry is even harder. Differences in backgrounds, tastes, visions may destroy any cooperation. However, professionalism, mutual respect, and willingness to hear the client can build a solid basis for the craziest creative projects.