You’ve got the project! you’ve got the look and feel! you’ve spent all that time editing! you are ready to go live!
But wait! you are still waiting for the content…. which can and will take forever holding up the entire project and your other work.
So how do you get around this? try our 5 tips below..
1. Capture EVERYTHING you can in the first meeting
The first meeting is critical – you need to take control and capture as much as you can about the client and their business. If you are going to be busy walking through the project, bring someone along to dictate or ask if you can record the meeting on your phone. Inevitably content will be discussed but don’t settle for “Oh yea we will totally write our about piece and send it asap.”
Be prepared for not getting the about piece anytime soon. About pieces are generic enough, take a look at their competition and work some magic to create a basic about piece. If its going to be critical, ask for someone in the organisation who is not incredibly busy all the time to look after the content.
2. Stalk their Social Media
Amazingly some clients put more thought and effort into their social presence than their website presence. Find all their social media channels and see if you can grab anything from there that will work on the site, Linkedin is great for this.
2. Meet & Motivate your Client
Its easy to send an email “Hey how are you doing? how is the content coming along?” and not getting a response, you need to really motivate your client and say “I need the content by x date” – clear, direct and giving them a deadline. Be prepared to micro-manage your client and a lot of handholding. For medium to large business there is little enthusiasm for middle management to work on content unless they are getting paid extra, unlike a sole trader who will happily talk about themselves, sometimes clients need the kick in the ass to get them in line.
Arrange a onsite meeting with senior management and sit them down in an empty room with a pen, post-it notes and discuss the business. Take a look at the baddest rival and show how great their content is.
3. Hire a copywriter or photographer
This can go one way or the other, client’s budget will also dictate but use your initiative form the first meeting if the client is super busy then a copywriter and/or photographer should be factored in for any medium to large business site. If you have a camera yourself, offer to call to the office and take some shots of the staff working… anything to get it over the line.
4. Use Lorem Ipsum and crappy stock images
I hate it, you hate it and your client will also hate it but Lorem and Big Smiles can be effective to nudge your client into providing you with the content you need.
5. Invoice the full amount
Money talks and if a client is going to stall on content, add in a delayed payment fee or invoice the full amount. This works to motivate the content, however in some cases client will just pay the invoice. You get paid in full right? yes but a little piece of your soul is taken away, you want the project finished so while you will take the payment, still work on getting the content to wrap it up.
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If you have any of your own tips for getting content, please let us know in the comments!
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