Featuring Ato Dadson
In this episode, Enoch unpacks the essential role of digital account management with experienced Account Manager, Ato Dadson.
[0:00] Were you like shocked? I was very confused. I didn't understand the space so much, but day in day out you learn. Look at these three people, client, creative, media, who used to be blamed if a campaign underperforms. From Bildx Studios, this is Colours of Social Media, their podcast for marketers and small business owners who believe in digital marketing. I'm your host, Enoch Robert Boy Appiah Jr. Today we are getting into the nitty-gritty of digital account management, a role that is often misunderstood, sometimes undervalued, but absolutely essential.
[0:42] To help us unpack it all, I'm joined by Ato Dadson, an experienced account manager who's worked with brands, creatives, and clients and lived to tell the tale. Trust me, this one's going to be insightful, maybe even a little spicy. A quick reminder, if you haven't already, subscribe to our YouTube channel or follow us on Spotify so you don't miss any of the gems we drop here every week. Let's get into the conversation. Once again, thank you for coming on Colours of Social Media. But before we start the actual conversation, I want to know how did you land in digital marketing? Okay, my story is quite very interesting. Sometimes when I think about it, it's weird because I started, I'll take it back from school, I studied marketing in university.
[1:36] Then at the time, we were on a long vacation before the last semester. So that's when I got interested in the whole Uber business, right? So we had a car home and I wanted us to get a driver.
[1:49] I remember my parents were like, you should actually go and understand the business before you. So I mean, on day one or day two, I picked someone up, took him to work. The next morning, he was my first passenger. So on the third day, I picked him up again, he was curious and he asked me, do I live around? I said yes. So I used to take him to work and then he starts asking me questions.
[2:13] What do I do in school? I said, oh, I study marketing. Oh, okay. He started asking me specific questions that had to do with the demographic I was in and what we do, what we like to watch, how do we order stuff online? And I never really understood why. So in the second week, I drop him off at work again and then he goes like, come and pick me up at this time. So I do my Uber rounds. I was meeting new people and I go there and he tells me to come upstairs. So I remember I was literally wearing slippers and I was going upstairs to see if he needed something to be picked and he called me in a room with the HR and told the HR that he has met me and he wants me to be part of the team. Wow. So that was very interesting for me. And that was an e-commerce business. So that's pretty much how it started. It was just weird. Yeah. Because I think the whole time I used to drive him around, he was probably like interviewing me. Yeah. So that's how it started. And I, so I had to go back home the next day. That was the end of my Uber career.
[3:18] And then I started work the next day. So that's how it started from, because it was a whole e-commerce platform based off of digital. So that's how it started for me.
[3:29] Yeah. This story I know already, and I'm sure it's a privilege for audience to hear this side of you. How did you, I mean, how did you see, you know, jumping from traditional marketing straight to digital marketing in an e-commerce fair? How was it the first instance where you like shocked? I was very confused. I didn't understand the space so much, but day in, day out, you would learn. Yeah. So there was a lot of YouTube hours put into that. I used to watch a lot of videos trying to understand how little things would work in terms of how ads were sponsored on meta. Like that was the first thing I used to do content calendar, little things, trying to just understand the space. So from traditional, I had an understanding that, okay, this is what I know, but digital was a whole new space, but the gradual process of learning online is what's changed my narrative for me. All right. Now let's establish the foundation for this conversation. Account management is such a broad topic. So if you are giving the role as an account manager in an agency, what is your role? What do you do on a daily, day-to-day basis? It's more of a point of contact angle. If there's anything relating to the spatial images, digital media, you are the first point of call. Right. So in terms of anything in relation to the strategy of a campaign or anything that the clients might think that, okay, we want to like do this in this country. What do you think we should do? So it can even be like a phone call away that the clients would ask you. And the thing is you have to be knowledgeable enough to answer these questions. If you don't have the answer, you have to let the client tell the client that, okay, this is what you want. Give me a few minutes and let me call you back. So most of the time, any idea the client can even have, you are the first point of call that they would ask you questions on how to get that done. And now you have to come up with the whole framework on how to get the expected results. For this conversation again, I'm going to wear three different hats. The hat of an immediate person, then the creative person and the client person. You may mention of campaigns.
[6:00] Who used to blame when a campaign underperforms? Look at these three people, client, creative media. Who used to be blamed if a campaign underperforms? Honestly, there's not one answer and that's the honest truth. It depends on a lot of factors. So I'll give you an example. In a situation where, in a perfect call, by the situation where let's say the client was in charge of the strategic direction of the campaign, meaning the campaign has gone through several conversations before you've been briefed.
[6:39] But as an account manager, if you are able to spot setting issues with what the brief is mentioning, and you don't voice out, you don't let their clients understand that look, this particular objectives that you want will not work. If you don't explain that to the client, what tends to happen is you've accepted without letting them know. So in their minds, this might work. What if it doesn't? So if you know, you should be able to explain to the client, so that is one thing. So in another situation where maybe you are dealing with external partners in a company where there are other agencies doing different things for the same brand. And as an account manager, if you're not able to catch setting things or let them understand that, okay, maybe some KPIs are misaligned, and you don't voice out again.
[7:39] Now in a situation where maybe the creative has his own brief, the media team has his own brief, the digital team has his own brief, and all parties are not coming together to be able to sit down and figure out what each person is bringing so that it's more like interconnected. I don't see how that company, I don't see how the campaign will work. So there has to be a lot of communication, because someone's media plan or the media direction they are going with, the creative team have something else that they are working with. So at the end of the day, when the campaign starts, you might be seeing little things that could have been fixed from the time the campaign was being briefed in, or from the time both partners were working towards the campaign. So the question, it's like, no, you can't pinpoint. You can't pinpoint, but it is the duty of the account manager to figure out their loopholes in their brief before they execute the campaign. Excellent. I know of creative media and client, but then you made a mention of digital.
[8:56] Is that another when it comes to account management? Okay. So for me, the account management idea is more of the media, digital media, right? But there are account managers for different, you know, there's account manager maybe oversees everything on that brand. There might be account manager for the digital, as well as sometimes to the digital account manager, maybe the same person doing strategy.
[9:23] The structure is different in so many ways at different places. So these are some of the things that right, right, right. So it is, it is what you call it peculiar to the agency that you work with. Some agencies might not have that digital others to have that. Okay. Now, this question is, I mean, I'm picking this question from your experience in the role, right?
[9:49] Through your interactions with clients, through the numerous campaigns you've run, you know, you've championed, what do clients really want? Um, it's something I've figured out that, let me take it back. All right.
[10:10] With some of the freelance work I've done in the past, I realized that sometimes the brief might say I want A, but the client expectation is C. So most of the time when the brief is even sent to me with the freelance work I was doing, when the brief is even sent to me, I request to speak with the client. And the moment you speak to the client, you realize that what they are asking on the brief is not what they are expecting.
[10:39] It's like typing on LinkedIn and actually coming to talk on camera is totally different. Interesting. So sometimes these things, when you ask me what the client really wants, you have to speak to the client regardless of if you have the opportunity to speak to the client themself. They've sent you the brief, go through the brief, request a meeting or something. Or request a debriefing. Then you ask the relevant questions. Once you ask those questions, you realize that sometimes the expectation is different from the ask on the brief. So that's something that I've seen. And sometimes to the client's made, they are thinking, they get excited sometimes.
[11:18] Oh, yeah. They want the numbers. Exactly. But it's your job to let them understand that if the KPIs once again are misaligned, they need to be able to understand that this is actually the unrealistic resource you might receive after the campaign, rather than what they want. So the question is, there's no one answer to that question. The solution to what clients really want is to chat a clear communication path between you and the client so that you will actually understand what they want. Because sometimes what they will present is totally different from reality.
[12:10] I'll give you an example. There was a freelance job I did some years ago. And I realized that the client wanted the person handling the creatives to do things that would trend, fund stuff. And this was a very professional industry. What I mean is the content shouldn't be so playful. You are dealing with lives. But they wanted to hope on TikTok trends.
[12:37] They wanted to do other things that I felt were a bit misaligned. So I asked them, do you want people to ask the creatives to just reach out a lot of people?
[12:51] Do you want people to follow the page and be commenting? He said, oh, we want awareness. We want people to follow the page, commenting. Tell me why. After a month of running the campaign, we are talking about sales. Wow. Wow. But that's not what you brought in when you were having that briefing. So now all the awareness that you wanted, all the jump working with influencers now is not translating to sales. So my question was, you gave me the brief.
[13:25] We had a debriefing session. I asked, this is what your KPIs was in terms of reaching a number of people, some engagements, all of that. So where is sales coming from? We can add sales, but then we can change the direction, change the platforms. We change the strategy, the whole strategy. So this is some of the things that, you know, happen sometimes with these things.
[13:48] Okay. All my conversations with account managers, one clear phrase that run through all is we manage clients' expectations at all. Explain this phrase to me.
[14:02] What do you mean by you manage clients' expectations? Okay. I don't think there's one answer. All right. The meaning, the meaning to be of managing clients' expectations. As an account manager, sometimes you need to be able to sort of educate your clients to understand the platforms. Don't be too technical. Let them be able to understand how the platforms work. Do away with all the technical variables.
[14:35] You are not there to what you call impress the client, but to educate the client. And don't get me wrong. The clients are very busy people. They have businesses. They are running in different markets. But as an account manager and their phrase managing their clients' expectations, you have to build a relationship with the client to be able to have your conversations officially and officially, informal, formal, but let them understand what the platforms can do. Understand the client's pain points. And then you can even go a step further and ask the client, what are the long-term goals they have for a specific brand?
[15:17] You get what I mean? Because sometimes these conversations need to be heard. So that even when you are running a campaign for a particular situation or objective, you know that at the end goal, we are going somewhere. So you need to find a way to slowly fuse setting elements in at the initial stages to be able to hit those long-term goals at the end of the day.
[15:40] How do you manage clients' expectations in your own way? How do you manage clients' expectations? I'll give you an example. Tell me. In the same agency work we've been in. There was one time I had a client.
[15:55] I didn't get to meet my clients before we started working. And I realized there was a lot of emails back and forth. And I get an email request. I do the task, but I realized that we were still not syncing. Something was off. And it came back to one point. I was like, you know what? I'm into my client's office. I need to go and speak to this person.
[16:21] So I literally went, we sat down, and we fixed everything. So I realized that we were communicating, but I mean, we were communicating, but we were not. I don't know how to do.
[16:36] We are not in sync. We are not in sync. So with that type of conversation, that's where it started. And that's how I understood how I was managing the client's expectations. Now, if you are in the position where you are sending out monthly reports, at least every Monday you can send your clients some sort of interim report.
[16:57] This is how the client, this is how the campaign is fair. This is where we are. These are the KPIs you've met on update. Just carry them along. Don't wait till the campaign ends. And I tell the client that there was a problem with this. There was a problem with that.
[17:13] So the client would literally ask you, so why didn't you tell me? So you have to carry them along for you to be able to, you know, build that relationship. And it's all part of managing the client's expectations. Interesting. As an account manager, right? Do you have some technique or do you have a tool that you utilize and you want to bring everybody on the same table?
[17:42] That's a good one. I think the best way to bring everybody to the table is to pick and sit down in person project by project. So if it's a particular project that's coming up, it's a campaign. If you have the media team, you have the creative team, the digital team, everyone there. And we all have a conversation. We get to figure out where, let's say, the creative thinking is. You get to hear what the digital direction is looking like. You get to hear what type of platforms media might want to use. So the best way is to sit down project by project.
[18:19] If it can't be in person, it has to be online. But once that meeting is over, you've been able to bring all the various stakeholders together to leave that room and know what each and everybody is thinking.
[18:32] So that once you are doing your own strategy or media direction, you know what each other, you know. With every role in digital marketing, there are some, you know, some headers that come, whether you are in content, what do you call it? Content management, whether you are you are in paid advertisement. There are these headers that come up all the time.
[19:01] And I'm sure it's the same thing for account management roles. What happens when you are faced with any hurdles in your role, you know, accomplishing your role, what happens?
[19:14] Are there ways around it that you use to overcome these hurdles? I mean, if after communicating about these hurdles to wherever the hurdles come from and it's not being fixed, I'll go to my superior. I'll go to where I reported to see if maybe that person can be able to, you know, fix the problem. I can't do it all. You have to go for help.
[19:41] So one thing, one thing that is so common in in partner agency relationship, in this case, media agency and creative agency and account manager, right? Usually the clients don't take part in this fight, fighting code. The client doesn't take part in this fight.
[20:03] He will just leave you to figure it out as an account manager. How do you bring the media team, you see, and the creative team together for them to accomplish the goal that the client has set for you to and hasn't even ever happened. It's bad to come. It's bad to communication.
[20:29] You have to request these little sit downs, these conversations to be able to, you know, fix these things. Everything is communication. Unless maybe for some reason, the other party, maybe imagine an agency, the partner agency in a different location, there's no maybe forthcoming with information and stuff. You definitely have to go back to that client and tell the client I need your help. I need you to bridge the gap between us to be able to have that sit down and have that conversation. So these are some of the things that we have to have. Interesting.
[21:06] And it happens for you already, correctly, if you encounter such headless. Also, far so good. I've been able to communicate to my clients when these things happen. So normally I start with who I report to, and from there we go to the client to try and bridge the gap. All right. Let's talk about this last question before you leave.
[21:32] If someone wants to come into the role as an account manager, what advice would you give the person if someone wants to become the next account manager? Someone once told me I have to be brutally knowledgeable. And that is an ongoing process. Every day you learn something.
[21:52] Yeah. So you should own your stuff and also be able to communicate that I work on your communication because you really need it. Yeah. You're working with people. You're working with digital media managers. You're working with other departments. You need to work on your communication.
[22:10] Because that's the two things that I would say. All right. Thank you for coming. I appreciate it. Thank you. This episode, just like any other episode of Colours of Social Media podcast, is produced by Builda Studios and recorded at Chagomag Studios, 13 Asiko Street, Contra Hills, Accra.