STRATEGIC ACCOUNT

PLAN
 Table of
Contents

Clients: Account Status:

Client Landscape Past / Current Projects
Client / Agency Revenue / Annual Spend
Dynamic Client Intake Relationship Map
Client Assessment Resources / Relationship
Builder

Assessments: Account
Propulsion:
SWOT Analysis
Social Listening Review Risks
Web Analytics Ideas /
PEST Analysis Insights
Brand Assessment Opportunities
Innovation
Account
Health:
Evaluation

2
 1
SECTION

CLIENTS
Landscape
 UNDERSTANDING YOUR
CLIENT

1 CLIENT LANDSCAPE 3 CLIENT / ENGAGEMENT INTAKE

You can probably find a lot of this information An intake sheet is a critical first step to
online, but documenting your client’s current documenting the strategy of an engagement. This
landscape is important. It’ll give you a bird’s eye works when you have a new client and want to
view of their business and general information form a strong relationship with them. It will get the
that’ll prepare you to dive deeper. client landscape and project goals down on paper.

2 CLIENT / AGENCY DYNAMIC 4 CLIENT ASSESSMENTS

You may need to work with your internal team You’ll want to look at the current state of your
to get more information on the account history client’s business, web and mobile properties, social
and client/agency relationship. But this is where channels, and analytics to get a solid
we’ll start to think about the account understanding of who you’re working with and
strategically and come up with goals to achieve a how best to help them.
better partnership.

4
 CLIENT
LANDSCAPE
COMPANY NAME:

MAIN POINT OF CONTACT:

COMPANY OVERVIEW:

TYPE OF COMPANY:

TYPE OF PRODUCT/SERVICE:

INDUSTRY:

ANNUAL REVENUE:

FOUNDED / HEADQUARTERS:

NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES:

WEB/DIGITAL PROPERTIES
TECHNOLOGY USED

5
 CLIENT / AGENCY
DYNAMIC

HISTORY OF THE ACCOUNT

CLIENT BUSINESS GOAL:

(short & long-term)

SERVICES WE CURRENTLY PROVIDE:

SERVICES WE COULD PROVIDE:

VISION FOR THE ACCOUNT:

3 GOALS TOWARD THE VISION

THINK S.M.A.R.T. SPECIFIC, MEASURABLE, ATTAINABLE, RELEVANT, TIMELY

6
 Client Intake Sheet
6. Name of Company
The client intake sheet is similar to the client landscape Competitors
and has a few overlapping areas. You use the intake Swanson Corp. Chip & Co., Horner
sheet when you have a new client; it’s designed to get & Twitch
some general info upon starting the engagement. Here’s 7. Name of Project Competitors
an example intake sheet:
*It’s important to note that competition
can depend on what the client/project
1. Company Overview 3. Regional Hubs objective is. If you are working with a digital
product company that builds tools for
Name: Generica Corp North America, United Kingdom,
development teams, but they are looking to
Classification: Large Organization Singapore, United Arab Emirates
No. of Employees: 10,000 build a health mobile app for their
No. of Countries: 35 employees, the competitors should be other
Service/Product: Digital Products 4. Major Markets health apps, not digital product companies.
Structure: Board of Directors, North America, United Kingdom,
Leadership, Management, Rank 8. Research, Data & Analytics
Japan, China, Russia
Any information your client has on
2. Major Business Goal 5.Account/Project Objectives their marketplace, their
Continue to grow the business To build an internal company competitors, their users, and so on
around the world and become a mobile app that helps employees is a crucial step in the foundation
top 5 global player in the improve their lives by encouraging for your research, putting together
digital products market. healthy behavior at work. personas, and understanding your
7 client’s industry.
 Analytics Review
Client Assessment 3
Analyzing the data that your client has, usually in the
There are a few different exercises you can perform to form of Google Analytics or something similar, this
understand and assess your client and their business a little will give you an understanding into how your client’s
more. Listed below are a few of the exercises you can do. users are currently interacting with them online and
their behavior with digital properties.

SWOT Analysis PEST Analysis

1 4
What are your client’s strengths, weaknesses, Looking at the political, economic, social, and
opportunities, and threats. technological factors that affect your client can help
with better insight into the current landscape

2
Social Listening & Review
Brand Assessment
5
Understanding how your client’s social followers are
Brand assessment incorporates a few different key
engaging with them on the many different social
areas to look at: Brand reputation, Users/Customers,
channels will give you more insights and help you
Competitors, Innovators, and Industry Disruptors
determine areas for improvement.

8
 2
SECTION

ASSESSMENTS
Understanding Your Client
 SWOT
Strengths describe the positive attributes, tangible and intangible, or your organization. Opportunities are external attractive factors that represent reasons for your business to
These are within your control. exist and prosper

EXTERNAL
INTERNAL

STRENGTHS OPPORTUNITIES

WEAKNESSES THREATS

Weaknesses are aspects of your business that detract from the value you offer or place you Threats are external factors beyond your control that could put your business at risk. You
at a competitive disadvantage. may benefit from having contingency plans for them.
10
 COMPETITORS
Keeping an eye on competitors and what
they’re doing well is always good
Social Listening FOLLOW E R S COMPETITORS
practice.

There are a lot of great tools to

measure social engagement.
FOLLOWER COUNT CONVERSATION
Analyze your client’s social Seeing an up-tick in your An increase in comments.
followers is always great, but it
channels across these different needs to be measured with
areas: Amplification, Applause, and other parameters.
CONVERSATION
Conversation. You can also focus
on relative rate* to compare
followers to followers on different
AMPLIFICATION
networks, determine the
engagement rate per follower per AMPLIFICATION
An increase in shares, re- APPLAUSE
channel. tweets, or re-
posts.

APPLAUSE
An increase in likes and/or favorites.

*RELATIVE RATE’S IMPORTANCE

Having 50 Likes per post with 500 followers is a great achievement, but
having 50 likes per post with 5 million followers is not a great
achievement. And you can accurately gauge your competitors that have
RELATIVE RATE
a different number of followers.
This lets you accurately
compare
between several channels that have a
11 different number of
followers.
 Analytics

Visitors Acquisition Engagement Goals / Behavior

Conversions
Understand who your client’s Look at how your client’s website Look at how engaged your client’s First, determine what is the This essentially gives you a funnel
visitors are and what they like. is acquiring the traffic it gets. visitors are and what they are ultimate goal of the website. Do and outlines each step in a buying
doing once they get to the site you want visitors to download a process. Look at user flows which
What are their demographics, Is it organic, referrals, social PDF? Or fill out a form. Then track can help you identify certain
psychographic, affinity, and in- channels, paid search? Bounce rate, average time on site, those conversions. paths to conversion.
market segment data? pages viewed per visit

*Note: This is a very basic overview of analytics.

Beginner’s Guide to GA: https://moz.com/blog/absolute-beginners-guide-to-google-

analytics Advanced Tips and Tricks: https://moz.com/blog/advanced-google-analytics-tips-

12 and-tricks
PEST

Political Economic

Government type and stability Stability of current economy; growing, stagnating, or

P
Freedom of declining Key exchange rate stability
Press Rule of law; Disposable incoming - is it rising or falling
corruption, crime Unemployment rate; skilled workforce easy to build or
Upcoming elections that could shift the power expensive Do consumers and businesses have easy access to
tide Pending legislation or taxation credit
changes How is globalization affecting the economic environment
Other political factors that are likely to change

Population growth rate and age

profile Generational shifts in
attitude
Society’s level of health, education,
and social mobility
Social stratification
E
S
New technologies to be used / leveraged
New technologies on the horizon that could radically affect
work/ industry
Competitors have access to new technology that could redefine
their
products

T
factors Social attitudes and taboos that could affect the Remote work and its affect on infrastructure work patterns
business Existing technological hubs that could learn from or work
Religious beliefs and with
lifestyle choices

Social Technological
 BRAND
ASSESSMENT

1 PURPOSE & REP 4 INFLUENCERS

Point out the good Who in the market is a top
Point out areas to be improved influencer? What can we
What’s the current reputation? learn from them?

2 USERS / AUDIENCE 5 INDUSTRY DISRUPTORS

Demographics Who or what is disrupting the
What do they think and feel? industry right now?
Empathy map / Touchpoints Can we leverage it or will it
hurt us?

3 COMPETITORS 6 WEBSITE MUST-HAVES

Who are they? What feature / functionality
What are the advantages and on the website makes the
disadvantages? brand standout?
Positioning

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 3
SECTION

ACCOUNT STATUS
Projects, Revenue, Relationships
 PAST/CURRENT
PROJECTS

START END SUMMARY BUDGET COMMENTS

PROJECT 1
CURRENT

PROJECT 2
PAST

PROJECT 3
PAST

PROJECT 4
PAST

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 REVENUE / ANNUAL
SPEND
EXPENDITURE $ Q1 $ Q2 $ Q3 $ Q4

CAPITAL EXPENDITURE $85,000 $25,000 $32,000 $108,000

OPERATIONAL EXPENDITURE $3,000 $3,000 $3,000 $3,000

SOLUTION VENDOR AMOUNT COMMENTS

DID REDESIGN IN QUARTER 1 OF THIS YEAR, BUT HAD TO CUT
MARKETING SITE REDESIGN AGENCY $120,000 INTO Q2 BUDGET SPEND FOR LAUNCHING SITE. SPEND PER
QUARTER IS
$100k.

17
 RELATIONSHIP MAP

Name: Name:
Position: Position:
Influence
VENDORS Influence
:
ORGANIZATION
:
Linkedin Profile: Linkedin Profile:
Name: Comments: Comments:
Position:
Influence
:

Linkedin Profile:
Comments:
Name: Name: Name:
Position: Position: Position:
Influence Influence Influence
: : :
Linkedin Profile: Linkedin Profile: Linkedin Profile:
Name: Comments: Comments: Comments:
Position:
Influence
:

Linkedin Profile:
Comments:
Name:
Position:
Influence
:
Linkedin Profile:
Comments:

18
 RESOURCES / RELATIONSHIP
BUILDER

WHITEPAPERS ARTICLES EMERGING TECH THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

EXECUTIVES

DIRECTORS

MANAGERS

PERSONNEL

19
 4
SECTION

ACCOUNT
PROPULSION
Risks, Ideas,
Opportunities, Innovation
 RISK
S

RISK / BARRIER LEVEL IDEAS TO OVERCOME IT? TEAM MEMBER RESOURCES

CLIENT PROJECT MANAGER MEDIUM 1. WRITE DETAILED DOCUMENTATION ON WHAT SIZE IMAGES TO 1. DESIGNER 1. LINK TO
MENTIONED THEY WERE HAVING A TO USE FOR CMS, WRITE DIRECTIONS ON HOW TO PROPERLY 2. ACCOUNT MANAGER WHITEPAPER
DIFFICULT TIME GETTING IMAGES TO HIGH ALIGN IMAGES. 3. PROJECT MANAGER 2. LINK TO
ALIGN PROPERLY IN WORDPRESS 2. SEND CLIENT TEAM WHITEPAPER / ARTICLE ON ‘BENEFITS OF CONFLUENCE
CMS, MADE A JOKE THAT MAYBE OPEN SOURCE PLATFORMS.’ PAGE
SWITCHING TO A PROPRIETARY 3. CONTINUALLY SHOW THEM THE BENEFITS OF WP BY GIVING
SYSTEM MIGHT HELP. THEM MORE TUTORIALS ON HOW TO INPUT CONTENT.

21
 BRAINSTORMING IDEAS / FINDING
INSIGHTS
INSIGHT CHANNELS
1 20/20’s
Often used in sales, it’s a way to Anomalies
come up with 20 ideas in 20 What deviates from the norm?
minutes, just start writing Confluence
whatever comes to mind, go!!! What trends intersect or overlap?

Frustrations
2 “JTBD” THEORY What problems does the system currently have;
The ‘jobs to be done’ theory is how can you solve them?
a different way to shape your Orthodoxies
solution by thinking about How can we break from tradition/convention?
what job needs to be executed.
https://strategyn.com/jobs-to-be-done/jobs-to-be-done-theory/ Extremities
How can we explore and exploit divergence?

3 LEAVE THE OFFICE Voyages

What can we learn from immersion in
Take a walk, people watch, different areas of our customer’s lives?
look at other systems and get
Analogies
inspired! Apply the things you
What successful innovations are being applied
see to the system you’re trying in other disciplines and industries?
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to solve for.
 OPPORTUNITIES

POTENTIAL TIMELINE/ EST.

OBJECTIVES/GOALS PRODUCT/SERVICES STATUS
OPPORTUNITIES BUDGET CLOSE
DATE

23
 INNOVATION

INNOVATIVE DOES IT SERVE A HOW CAN WE HOW WILL THIS HOW MUCH RISK
PRIORITY
SERVICE/PRODUCT PURPOSE? IMPLEMENT HELP OUR DO WE
THIS? VISION? PERCEIVE?
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: WILL PROVIDE CLIENT NEED TO READ DOCS. AND WE WILL BE SEEN AS VERY LITTLE. WE HAVE MEDIUM TO
IBM WATSON ANALYTICS WITH A PREDICTIVE GET RELEVANT INFORMATION INNOVATIVE AND MAY LEAD ANALYTICS EXPERTS ON HIGH
ANALYTICS PLATFORM TO THAT CLIENT WOULD WANT TO MORE WORK AS WELL AS STAFF, THIS SHOULD BE THE
BETTER INFORM THEIR TO TRACK OUTSIDE OF JUST MATERIAL FOR OUR BLOG NEXT EVOLUTION IN OUR
MARKETING DECISIONS ANALYTICS. MEDIUM LEVEL OF GROWTH
EFFORT

24
 5
SECTION

ACCOUNT
HEATLH
Continually Checking In
 EVALUATION

RELATIONSHIP / COMMUNICATION:

WHO IS OUR STRONGEST ALLY WITH THIS CLIENT?

HOW COMFORTABLE ARE WE TO SPEAK CANDIDLY WITH THEM?

DO YOU THINK THEY WOULD BE A GOOD REFERENCE?

HAVE WE ASKED THEM FOR ANY REFERRALS?

HAVE WE ASKED THEM FOR A TESTIMONIAL? OR HAVE WE DONE A CASE STUDY WITH THEM?

WOULD THIS CLIENT BE WILLING TO PRESENT AT A TECH CONFERENCE WITH US?

VALUE:

DOES THIS CLIENT SEE VALUE IN OUR RELATIONSHIP?

DOES THIS CLIENT SEE VALUE IN OUR SERVICES/PRODUCTS?

HAS THIS CLIENT EVER EXPRESSED ANY CONCERN WITH OUR WORK?

26 WERE THERE ANY PROJECTS THAT THE CLIENT WAS NOT SATISFIED WITH?
 EVALUATION

VALUE (CONT’D):

WHAT IS THE OVERALL TONE OF THE DAILY/WEEKLY/MONTHLY CONVERSATIONS?

HOW MIGHT WE BE ABLE TO IMPROVE OUR WORTH TO THIS CLIENT?

FLEXIBILITY:

HOW OFTEN DO WE CHECK IN WITH THIS CLIENT?

HAVE WE BEEN OPEN TO CHANGING THE WAY WE DO THINGS FOR THIS CLIENT?

WHAT ARE THE NATURE OF CLIENT INQUIRIES? (STRATEGY FOCUS, DEVELOPMENT FOCUS?)

CAN WE KEEP UP WITH THIS CLIENT? OR ARE WE TOO FAR AHEAD?

COMMENTS:
ANYTHING ELSE WE SHOULD SAY OR ADD?

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STRATEGIC ACCOUNT
PLAN