You’ve already identified that content can be a challenge and that GatherContent can help, now you need to convince your clients

There are 4 things we recommend agencies do to get their clients on board with GatherContent.

1. White label your account

When in your account, you can replace the GatherContent logo with your own logo or even your client’s logo. This makes it feel less like a third party piece of software or tool and more embedded in your project process and content production platform.

That in itself can help reduce the fear of learning something new and makes it less of a challenge to get clients focused on the content.

It also shows your clients you have a process and a dedicated place for content to be produced which shows that you take content seriously and that content is important, therefore, your clients should too.

2. Make GatherContent a nice place for your clients to arrive

The more guidance and support you can give clients, the less scary their learning curve will be. This process starts in GatherContent where you can set up items so when clients first enter the account, they aren’t greeted with single text fields with no instructions. Instead, they will see very clearly broken down items with a structure. The more groundwork you put in at the start, the easier it will be for your clients to get the content you need and just as importantly, for when you need it.

An example of how you might give guidance on adding a service name, to make it concise. Similarly, if you need clients to provide imagery, you can state that it must be a black and white jpeg file that is X pixels wide.

Making items nice and intuitive adds value. It helps clients move away from filling in empty Word documents to being led through an easy to understand form style interface.

3. Customising permissions

This is a powerful way to simplify the process. You can change Permissions so someone can see and do less in GatherContent, such as having the ability to add items. That functionality is often a concept that clients don’t need to be involved in or worried about so why not remove it altogether.

This also makes it easier for your clients to learn how to use GatherContent and keeps them focused on getting the content approved on their side and over to you.

4. Get engaged with a workflow

The default workflow on all GatherContent accounts is:

This is purposely broad in order to get people started on the vast range of project types they may have. But you can tailor the workflow and make it specific to your client's needs and processes.

We recommend you sit down with your clients and facilitate a workflow workshop. Here you agree with them the different checkpoints each piece of content needs to go through before it is deemed ready to be published.

This highlights that there is a process for content production and that content is important.

You can then create workflow statuses that are specific to your client. For instance, if all items in the project are marked as ‘waiting for content from Karen’, everyone can see that Karen is holding up the project. This isn’t a name and shame exercise, but rather a way of easily knowing what stage a project is at and who needs to take action to move it to the next step.

This also means that upfront, if you can see there are 50 pages in this project that Karen is assigned to write, Karen will be able to understand what is required from her to keep the project moving and at what stage.

GatherContent can be used here to manage client expectations and that also helps to get them on board.