Alessandra Bellini’s 5 Steps to Longer-Term Client Relationships

Currently president of the Advertising Association, Alessandra's career, having arrived in the UK from Italy in the late 1980’s, has embraced senior agency-side roles and prominent marketing posts. She was Marketing Week's "Marketer of the Year", chief customer officer of Tesco for seven years, and worked for Unilever in several Countries and roles, the latter one being in North America.

Having been on both sides of the agency/client relationship, Alessandra is ideally placed to advise on what a senior marketer looks for in an agency. In a fascinating interview with Alliance tutor Julian Saunders, a former colleague of Alessandra's in their agency days, she offered clear insights on what it takes to build stronger relationships with clients.

Be "interesting" to secure facetime with senior clients

People in the room expressed their frustration at facing limited access to senior marketers within the client organisation. Addressing this concern, Alessandra advised: "It's a marketing job for the agency, you need to be very clear about your positioning, why you're unique, not just your flexibility or rates - that won't get you any facetime. The senior client will go 'I'm really happy, carry on working with my team.' People wanted to see me just because they wanted to see me and I just didn't have time."

Alessandra suggested that the key to unlocking these senior relationships is delivering insight, "something interesting", an angle that a marketer can't ignore: "I loved it when I could hear things about my business that I didn't know - both good or bad. And I was always interested in what was going in the wider world because often when you're a client you don't have time to learn... anything about the industry that I didn't have time to know was interesting."

Establish clear rules of engagement at the start of a relationship

Alessandra was clear that implementing a constant process of mutual evaluation is essential in maintaining long-term relationships. "But what I would recommend is, at the time of the first contract, there is an agreed way of measuring how it's going, the quality the work and quality of the relationship. They're both equally important."

She suggested that this evaluation take place at least twice a year and then, if an issue arises (the quality of the work, the people) both sides "own the problem together". Alessandra advised, where possible, to make this process more formal, through anonymous feedback from teams

Find ways to foster "in real life" moments

Alessandra said that in a world dominated by digital communication it's important to create occasions for face-to-face contact between agency and client. One way to achieve this is to invite clients to work inside the agency, and vice versa: "It could be a couple of desks, or a whole floor."

She added, "It doesn't have to be a pub or a jolly because that isn't work, and that doesn't suit everyone. But if you go to the [agency] office once a week you see what's going on, you hear the language and way people talk to each other, and the way things are planned, and get a much better idea of how you fit into it."

Prioritise selling ideas above time

The group in the room discussed the evolution of the agency model away from fee-based billing based on people's time. This was identified as a thorny issue, especially where AI is challenging agencies to be more efficient while client-side procurement departments continue to insist on "ratecards" focused on time-based billing.

"I don't know the answer, but I've felt for a long time, that if agencies are to thrive and continue to exist in the industry, they need to learn to sell ideas more than time," said Alessandra.

"Ideas are the one thing you can't buy online. You can buy executions, AI can replace lots of people... I think the real USP of an agency is to understand the strategy, consumer-driven insight and ideas."

Be proactive when pitches are called

Alessandra took a strong view on the pitch process, arguing that often it's not the best way of starting, or ending, the agency relationship: "I'm against pitching in general. I think they're a huge waste of time for both clients and agencies," she said.

"I'm not against exploring the world and finding your best agency... I also think new agencies, the winning business, typically their best work is not in the first year. The best work of any agency is perhaps two or three years in, because you get to know the brand, the customers, the clients."

But how can both sides work together to make pitches fair and transparent? And adopt a model, based on long-term relationships, such as Tesco's during Alessandra's time there?

She argued that agencies that are more confident in their approach, and establish a clear framework going into the pitch, have a chance to thrive: "The best agencies... have their principles - 'we will pitch but this is our framework or principles.' You don't need to call it 'our rules or conditions' but say to the client 'we find that we get the best work out of our teams if we do this, this and this.'"